Patient was educated on how to take Trazodone as follows:
- Take the medication at the same time, every day, to avoid forgetting the medication.
- Maintain strict compliance with intake of the medication as ordered, with regards to dosage and frequency, to derive the benefit of the medication.
- Do not change the dose on this medication without consulting your doctor.
- Take trazodone after having a meal or a snack, to avoid having an unpleasant nausea and vomiting sensation with the medication.
- If you are prescribed an extended release tablet, swallow it as a whole. Crushing, chewing, or breaking the extended release tablet can lead to early release of medication into the blood stream and toxicity, thus compromising the therapeutic benefit of the medication.
- Trazodone takes some time to fairly balance the chemicals in the brain, before any improvement in mood and behavior are noted. It will take about 3 – 6 weeks to see this change in mood. So, do not discontinue taking the medication without your physician’s consult, as you failed to see the improvement with depressive symptoms immediately after taking the medication.
- Trazodone only helps with managing the depressive symptoms, by affecting the fine balance between the chemical neurotransmitters in the brain and is not a permanent cure. So, continue taking trazodone, even if your mood feels better. Discontinuing the medication abruptly can result in disruption of this chemical balance in the brain, resulting in acute onset of withdrawal and depressive symptoms.
- As the balance between the chemicals in the brain has to be finely regulated to help relieve the depressive symptoms and experience feelings of well-being, the dose of trazodone also needs to be finely regulated, in order to accomplish this goal. Your physician could change the dose of trazodone, based on the response you show. So, maintain compliance with follow-up physician appointments and be accommodative to the plan of frequent dose changes, until you show an optimum response.
- Notify your doctor of any unresolving and worsening depressive symptoms or continuing unpleasant side-effects, so that, your dosage on the medication could be revised.
