I wouldn’t make it to the point where I had dementia without antidepressants, so there’s that.

Key paragraph, for anyone wondering which specific drugs are implicated:

The study also points to differences between different drugs. The SSRI [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor] escitalopram was associated with the fastest cognitive decline, followed by the SSRIs citalopram and sertraline. Mirtazapine, which has a different mechanism of action, had less negative cognitive impact than escitalopram.

Direct Link to the Paper

The Discussion portion of the paper was pretty interesting. It doesn’t jump to any conclusions, emphasizing not confusing correlation and causation. It discusses some limitations to what they were able to learn and that the severity of the impact is relative to the severity of both the depression and the dementia.

Being on escitalopram has still been one of the best things in my life. I don’t know if I want to experiment with that. If I’m going to be getting dementia, I’m not sure if getting it slightly sooner or later is going to make much of a difference to me. It’s working for what I definitely do have now though.

With the administration discussing getting rid of access to SSRIs, I’ve been trying to build up a few months backup supply, so I don’t want to experiment with finding something new that works as well and potentially be caught with nothing at some point. Life right now is already maxxing out how much depression it can help me deal with. 😱

escitalopram

Of course. The one and only that seems to work for me. Great.

So you’re telling me I can be happy finally but at the same time die not knowing what anything is going on around me? Sign me up.