# antidepressants and urinating



## arthur56 (Jul 31, 2005)

antidepressant meds are popular for anxiety and panic attacks and sometimes are very helpful, one helped me a lot (citalporam)

they can effect the bladder and urinary system as a side effect however, occasionally they can make it impossible to urinate naturally at all, a catheter being needed

an antidepressant, imipramine is actually recommended in small doses for bedwetting and can help with a burning pain or urgency to urinate, this burning is often thought to be from a bladder infection, even when no infection can be found

a possible long term effect of high doses of antidepressants is difficulty in emptying the bladder naturally, but I still think they are useful meds and the benefits outweigh the possible problems


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## UltraShy (Nov 8, 2003)

Here in the US we hear endless ads on TV for new & expensive drugs for "overactive bladder". From personal experience, I can tell you that cheap old imipramine would stop that problem dead in its tracks. Imipramine will have you praying to pee.


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## Maslow (Dec 24, 2003)

I'm on Paxil and every night I get up in the middle of the night to pee. Sometimes I'll stand at the toilet for over five minutes trying to pee and sometimes I just wind up giving up and going back to bed. It's really annoying. 

I put up with it because the benefits of Paxil still outweigh the side effects.


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## Disintegrate (Jun 28, 2006)

I'm probably in the minority, but I prefer peeing at will as opposed to the alleged benefits of antidepressants.


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## Caedmon (Dec 14, 2003)

Well, "they" are not all the same. This is very different depending on the drug. It is most associated with certain antidepressants that have "anticholinergic" activity. Tricyclics, mainly; though there are some very mild problems associated with the newer ADs.


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## korey (Apr 25, 2006)

When I was on Lexapro, I had some problems urinating. I had to actually go through relaxation techniques to be able to get myself to pee. I thought it could've been kidney stones because Lexapro made me get acid hearburn a lot, so I consequently took tons of Rolaids everyday. Since Rolaids are just calcium carbonate, I figured that might have built up in my system and was causing some blockage down there. I stopped taking quite so many Rolaids and the difficulty urinating went away. I also switched to Zoloft since then, but I didn't have any trouble peeing while on it. I'm on Celexa now, which is the parent drug of Lexapro, but I haven't noticed any difficulties yet.

If your urination problems are persistent, you should probably see a urologist just to be safe.


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