Getting help for mental health can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to considering various mental health treatments like psychiatric medications. Psychiatric medications can be essential for treating mental health issues as they can greatly reduce the severity of symptoms and improve mental well-being. But, many may feel wary about starting medications, switching medications, or experiencing side effects of medications. That’s why it’s important to plan your conversation with your mental health provider and specialists before having a conversation about psychiatric medications. This way, you feel more confident moving forward with treatment planning and using medications in a way that best suits your needs and goals for mental healing.
Some tips for talking to your mental health specialist about psychiatric medications include:
Plan to Talk About Some Specific Things During Your Conversation
It can be helpful to identify some things your mental health specialist will need to know during your assessment to determine whether or not you should use mental health medications. Gathering this information beforehand can help you provide the most accurate information. Some of the things you should plan to discuss include:
Family History: Your mental health specialist will likely ask you questions about your family history including other people in your family who may suffer from mental health issues. Genetics plays a part in how medications may work for you and determining family history can provide your mental health care team with vital information about making suggestions for your care.
Medications You’ve Used or Currently Use: Make sure to plan to talk about any medications you’re currently taking or have already taken in the past as your mental health provider will need to know. Make a list so that you don’t miss any. Your provider will need to know if medications you’ve used in the past have led to adverse reactions so that medications with the same ingredients are prescribed again. Furthermore, your specialist will need to know of any other medications, for both mental or physical health issues, you may be taking to determine the best types of medications that can be used in congruence with the ones you’re already taking to reduce risks of side effects.
Prepare to be Open and Honest
Your mental healthcare provider will ask you a series of questions to help determine whether or not psychiatric medications will be helpful to you during treatment. And, to better determine if any medications may not work well for your treatment due to the risk of side effects, allergies, etc. It’s important to be completely honest when answering these questions so that the medications you will be prescribed work as intended and that they don’t lead to adverse reactions. Some questions you may expect to be asked during a medication assessment may include:
- do you have any allergies to medications?
- have you tried psychiatric medications in the past?
- do you have any physical health ailments?
- have you been diagnosed with other mental health issues?
- do you have thoughts of self-harm or suicide?
- what are the symptoms you’re experiencing?
- how long have you been experiencing symptoms?
- are there things that trigger symptoms? What are they?
Getting Help From Synchrony Brain Health for Mental Health Issues
Do you find yourself struggling with daily life due to symptoms of mental health issues? Psychiatric medications and other treatments are available at Synchrony Brain Health. At our outpatient mental health treatment facility, we focus on a brain-based approach to mental treatment. We provide medication management services as well as genetically-informed psychopharmacology which helps to improve the way that medications work for mental health treatment patients. Learn more about how we can help from our website today.
