A doctor has revealed the drugs he doesn’t prescribe to patients, including an antidepressant taken by millions of people.
Dr. Ahmed Abd Elbary, a British GP, told his 291,000 followers TikTok that some medications ‘don’t work very well’ and others simply have ‘too many side effects’.
In the video, which has been viewed 4.5 million times, he said there are often much better alternatives to prescribe.
One drug used by Dr. Ahmed is mentioned is citalopram, a type of antidepressant known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).
It can cause side effects such as fatigue, nervousness, dry mouth and sweating, but that’s not why Dr. Ahmed does not prescribe it.
Instead, he claims that there are better alternatives to treating depression.
He said: ‘I don’t really have a big problem with citalopram. The only thing is that there is a much better alternative called escitalopram. Studies have shown that it works much better in treating depression, and I discovered this in my own clinical practice.”
There are a few differences between the two medications, such as that it takes twice as much citalopram to have the same effect as escitalopram.
Escitalopram can also be useful for anxiety and is also used to treat social anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression, according to the NHS.
Another drug, gabapentin, used to treat nerve pain and epilepsy, is also avoided by Dr. Ahmed.
“The problem I have with gabapentin is that there’s no real evidence that it really works that well for pain,” he said.
He added: ‘Even if it works, the doses you need are so high. So usually people continue to use it for many years and the dose is increased every few months. All it does is make them drowsy, cause confusion and impair their memory.”
Feeling tired and sick, developing swollen arms and legs, dry mouth and blurred vision are just some of the long list of common side effects caused by the drug, according to the NHS.
The third drug Dr. Ahmed mentioned is sumatriptan – a drug used to treat migraines and cluster headaches.
Dr. However, Ahmed prefers zolmitriptan, a different type of drug known as triptan that relieves headaches in a slightly different way.
“You need a lower dose and it is much more effective,” he said.
In the video, which has been viewed 4.5 million times, he admitted that in some cases there are often better alternatives to prescribe
Triptans are often given when painkillers do not work. They have a different mechanism of action than painkillers and work by imitating the action of a chemical in the brain called 5-hydroxytryptamine, also known as serotonin.
Bursts of the hormone, which is known for improving mood, can cause headaches due to its effect on the blood vessels in the brain.
One 2000 study showed that 2.5 mg and 5 mg zolmitriptan were as effective as 10 times the dose of sumatriptan in treating migraine.
Other doctors have recently taken to social media to warn about the risks of commonly prescribed medications.
Dr. Zain Hasan, an anesthesiologist from Los Angeles, told his 635,000 followers on TikTok that there are at least five medications linked to dementia — including some antidepressants, painkillers and allergy medications.
He explained that long-term use of antihistamines, which are used to relieve the symptoms of allergies, and anticholinergics, which are also used to treat allergies, have been linked to dementia.
Deborah Grayson, a top pharmacist, also says proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) – used to relieve acid reflux – can cause depression.
PPIs are a type of medicine that helps reduce stomach acid and are one of the most commonly used medicines in Britain, with more than 74 million prescriptions in England alone by 2023.
But they can also cause symptoms of depression in those who take them.
This is because PPIs, two examples of which are omeprazole and lansoprazole, can prevent the body from properly absorbing vitamin B12 – an essential nutrient found in meat, fish, dairy, eggs and some fortified grains that keeps the nervous system healthy.
A lack of this is a known cause of mental health problems which, according to the NHS, can range from ‘mild depression or anxiety to confusion and dementia’.