Migraine Meds and Antidepressants Can Be a Dangerous Combination

According to data presented at the annual congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology and reported on by Elsevier Global Medical News, approximately 700,000 Americans were at risk for serotonin syndrome in 2004 because they were using a triptan for migraine headaches along with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) for depression.

The figure of 700,000 was obtained from the most recent data from the annual U.S. National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. Based upon this data, about 50.4 million Americans were prescribed either an SSRI or SNRI in 2004, almost 3.9 million patients were prescribed a triptan, and 694,276 individuals were on both at the same time.

“The potential for coadministration could be even greater now", says Linda M. Robison of the pharmacoeconomics and pharmacoepidemiology research unit at Washington State University, Pullman, "given how much the use of the SSRI and SNRI antidepressants has increased since 2004, along with the increase that’s occurred in the use of triptans for treatment of migraine headaches.”

Serotonin syndrome is a potentially life-threatening condition in which there is an excess of serotonin in the central nervous system. Among its symptoms are: mental confusion, hypomania, agitation, headache, coma, shivering, sweating, fever, hypertension, tachycardia, nausea, diarrhea, myoclonus/clonus, hyperreflexia and tremor. Patients experiencing any of these symptoms should seek medical assistance immediately.

The SSRIs include the drugs Celexa, Lexpro, Luvox, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft. The SNRIs include Cymbalta, Effexor, Pristiq, Serzone and the diet drug Meridia.