How effective are tricyclic antidepressants?
About 5-7 in 10 people with depression improve within a few weeks of starting treatment with antidepressants. However, up to 3 in 10 people improve with dummy tablets (placebo) as some people would have improved in this time naturally. So, you are roughly twice as likely to improve with antidepressants compared to taking no treatment. But, they do not work in everybody. Note: antidepressants do not necessarily make sad people happy. The word depressed is often used when people really mean ‘sad’, ‘fed-up’, or ‘unhappy’. True depression is different to unhappiness and has persistent symptoms (which often includes persistent sadness). The success rate of tricyclic antidepressants in treating the other conditions listed above (migraine, etc) varies.
