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Medication to treat psychiatric disorders can provide many benefits but requires expert supervision. Board-certified psychiatrists Prashanth Pillai, MD, and Ksenia Pillai, MD, at The Fountain Group in Reston, Virginia, offer a medication management service to safeguard your health. With their help, you can benefit from your medication’s positive effects and minimize the unpleasant ones. Call The Fountain Group today or schedule a telehealth consultation online to discover how medication management supports your mental health.
Medication Management Q&A
What is medication management?
Medication management services ensure that the drugs you take for mental health disorders cause minimal harm and provide maximum benefits.
Medicines you might need for a psychiatric disorder include:
- Antidepressants
- Mood stabilizers
- Stimulants
- Anxiolytics (anti-anxiety drugs)
- Antipsychotics
- Addiction withdrawal medication
These powerful substances can be highly beneficial, especially for moderate-to-severe mental health problems. But they can also cause various side effects, some of which are difficult to live with or even harmful. Medication management ensures that you take only the medicines you need and that the risks are well controlled.
Your doctor checks that you take your medicines as prescribed, for example, at the right time of day and with or before food. They also consider possible interactions with other drugs you take, including prescription medications, over-the-counter medicines, herbal remedies, and dietary supplements.
What conditions benefit from medication management?
Medication management is often critical for people with psychiatric disorders like:
- Major depressive disorder (MDD)
- Anxiety disorders
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Eating disorders
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Substance use disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Schizophrenia
- Schizoaffective disorder
- Personality disorders
Some drugs act on areas of your brain that don’t work like they should. They might increase brain chemical activity in the brain’s mood center or reduce levels of hormones like cortisol that you release when anxious.
Medications usually work best when combined with psychotherapy — talk therapy that helps you deal with trauma, improve your self-esteem, and manage everyday problems by changing negative thinking.
How do I get started with medication management?
When you have a psychiatric evaluation with The Fountain Group, your doctor could prescribe medications to treat your condition. They recommend the drugs they think will most likely offer benefits, but prescribing psychiatric medication isn’t an exact science.
People react differently to these drugs, so one that helps patient A might do nothing for patient B and vice versa. Many different medicines are available too. There are seven selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed antidepressants), one of several antidepressant classes.
Sometimes the first medicine you try doesn’t produce the best results. With medication management, you have regular reviews to see how well a drug works. Your psychiatrist can change you to another when necessary.
Call The Fountain Group today or book an appointment online to learn more about medication management’s benefits.