What about augmenting one drug with another?

The best augmenting technique is to add behaviour therapy to ongoing drug treatment. However, to boost a drug's effect, we sometimes combine two or more medications together. For example, some people respond to combining Faverin or Prozac with Anafranil. It is important for the physician to keep in mind that Anafranil's blood level can be dramatically increased by adding one of the other drugs, so it is important to keep Anafranil's dose low, at least during the initial stages of treatment. Some times, blood levels are helpful, but most of the time, a good clinician can just follow side effects and symptom reduction to find the correct dosage.

Other drugs are sometimes combined with ongoing SRI medications. Some that have commonly been used include the following: buspirone (Buspar), lithium carbonate, clonazepam(Rivotril), methylphenidate (Ritalin), fenfluramine (Pondamin), and other antidepressants (e.g., trazodone, bupropion, desipramine, etc.). The controlled trials that have been done with these augmenting agents have been largely disappointing, but since occasional patients respond to the addition of a second drug, clinicians frequently try this technique.

The information is sourced from an article written by : Michael A. Jenike, M.D.Chairman.

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