First clinic opened for tapering off antidepressants, in Amsterdam, NL

[Altostrata]

What good news:

 

First clinic opened for tapering off antidepressants

GGZ inGeest and Amsterdam UMC have opened the first phasing out clinic in the Netherlands. The outpatient clinic will guide patients who need it to reduce the use of antidepressants.

Floor Meijs25 February 2021, 14:25

Quote

 

Of the million Dutch people who take antidepressants, according to psychiatrist and co-initiator of the tapering clinic Christiaan Vinkers, "a lot" stop tapering those medicines every year. “The vast majority of those quitters are doing well, but about a quarter of them experience problems with that. That is why we started this clinic from GGZ inGeest and Amsterdam UMC, to provide tailor-made advice on phasing out antidepressants. ”

 

The new phasing out clinic was launched in January. Vinkers: “We have put everything in place well, and we have now seen our first patients. So the first cautious steps have been taken. ”

 

Fear of quitting

The problems patients have when weaning from antidepressants range from fear of quitting or not knowing whether it is a good idea to quit to having made previous attempts to quit without success.

 

Patients can contact the phasing out clinic themselves or through their GP, which is located at the De Nieuwe Valerius location of GGZ inGeest. A multidisciplinary team of psychiatrists, nursing specialists, pharmacists and clinical psychologists works at that clinic. After an intake, it is decided whether a patient is allowed to reduce and, if so, how. The subsequent process can take place at the outpatient clinic, but can also be accompanied by your own psychiatrist or general practitioner.

 

Lack of knowledge

While there is a fair amount of knowledge about how to build up antidepressants, that knowledge is largely lacking when weaning them. Vinkers: “Everybody does the tapering of antidepressants in a different way, because little research has yet been done on this. But the little we do know all comes together in the knowledge and expertise of the phasing out clinic. ”

 

With the phasing out clinic, Vinkers wants to achieve two things: “Our goal is to help people as well as possible in phasing out and at the same time to learn from the experience we gain in this way. We want to bring that knowledge back to the GPs and psychiatrists, so that we are ultimately no longer needed. The best thing would be if we could eventually dissolve ourselves. ” In addition to gaining knowledge from practice, the phase-out clinic also participates in various national scientific studies into stopping medicines. Vinkers: "We can also learn from those results."

 

 

[Nomansland]

49 minutes ago, Altostrata said:

"We want to bring that knowledge back to the GPs and psychiatrists, so that we are ultimately no longer needed. The best thing would be if we could eventually dissolve ourselves. ”

 

Hello @Altostrata,

 

i think its slowly happening. During the last few years there was improvement in recognising withdrawal.

Of course it will take another few years or even more to tear down old systems, but things seem to go into the right direction in many countries....step by step.

And you and your forum are one of the reasons Alto, thank you very much.

 

I hope so much that ill stay healthy enough when i restart my taper, to continue working on (little) things that will help not only this community, but also international ones.

Connecting them even more....providing more useful informations across borders and of course, bringing withdrawal awareness into all medical systems.

 

The quoted text is the ultimative goal for every tapering community, i think.

 

Greetings

 

Nomansland

[ChessieCat]

One word:  Hooray!!!

[Cheeky]

Omg I’m so happy . Does anyone know what it called