Vortioxetine (Trintellix) can help treat your depression. It’s an antidepressant that belongs to a group of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These medications can boost the activity of serotonin in your brain, which helps lessen your depression symptoms.
In some cases, doctors might prescribe vortioxetine for adults who have an anxiety disorder, a condition that the drug isn’t approved for. This is called an off-label prescription. Other doctors may prescribe it for anxiety disorder in children as well.
Vortioxetine is available only with a doctor’s prescription. It comes in a tablet form.
How Do You Take Vortioxetine (Trintellix)?
You’ll take it by mouth once a day, ideally around the same time each day. You can take this medication with food, but you don’t have to.
Adults will usually start with a 10-milligram tablet. Your doctor will then raise your dosage as needed. But most people won’t take more than 20 milligrams per day.
If you have trouble with side effects or the drug doesn’t help your depression, your doctor might change your dose. This is why it’s important to talk with your doctor about how you feel once you’ve started treatment with this medication.
If you skip a dose of vortioxetine, take the missed dose as soon as you remember. But if it’s almost time for the next tablet, just skip the one you missed and carry on with your regular medication schedule. Don’t take a double dose.
Keep your medicine in a closed container. Make sure it’s at room temperature and not near heat, direct light, or any moisture.
How Does Vortioxetine (Trintellix) Work?
Vortioxetine is a part of a group of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These help boost your mood. They’re good treatment options for moderate to severe depression. SSRIs tend to have less side effects than other antidepressants.
Vortioxetine works a bit differently than other SSRIs. Like other drugs in this group, it works with your serotonin levels. But it also changes many of your body’s serotonin receptors (the things that depression drugs target). This also makes vortioxetine a serotonin modulator.
But experts still have more to learn about vortioxetine.
What Are the Common Side Effects of Vortioxetine (Trintellix)?
As with any drug, vortioxetine has some possible side effects. Common ones include sexual side effects like less interest in sex, delayed orgasms, or trouble with erections. Check with your doctor if these side effects happen.
There are some more serious side effects too, but experts don’t know how common these are. They include:
- Blood in your urine or stool
- Chest tightness or breathing problems
- Trouble swallowing
- Fever
- An irregular or fast heartbeat
- Swelling on your face, eyelids, tongue, lips, throat, legs, hands, feet, or private parts
- Seizures
- Vomiting blood
Call your doctor right away if any of these happen.
Other serious side effects include:
Serotonin syndrome. This can happen when too much serotonin builds up in your body. It can cause confusion, coma, blood pressure changes, a fast heartbeat, dizziness, and other symptoms. Serotonin syndrome can be fatal, so it’s important to call your doctor or go to the emergency room if you think you’ve developed it.
Hypomania. This is when people have manic episodes. This might happen if you take vortioxetine and have bipolar disorder.
Vision problems. Vortioxetine can cause an eye issue called angle-closure glaucoma in some people. Before you start the medication, you might want to ask for an eye exam to see if you’re at risk for this. You can get preventative treatment if you are at risk.
Suicidal thoughts or actions. This drug might increase your thoughts of suicide. Experts see this most in people 24 years old or younger who take vortioxetine.
Warnings and Safety Issues With Vortioxetine (Trintellix)
You should check in with your doctor regularly while you take this medication. They might test your blood and monitor any side effects.
It’s important that you don’t stop the medication without your doctor’s OK. They might instead want to slowly take you off the drug before they completely take you off of it. This will lower your chances of withdrawal symptoms like:
- Dizziness
- Agitation and irritability
- A headache
- Mood swings
- Tension in your muscles
- Nausea
- A runny nose
- Sweating
- Random outbursts of anger
If you need to have any medical tests done, tell the doctor that you’re on this medication. Your results may be thrown off by vortioxetine.
Don’t take any other type of medication unless you’ve talked to your doctor about them. This includes over-the-counter, prescription, vitamins, or herbal supplements.
Who Shouldn’t Take Vortioxetine (Trintellix)?
Stay away from this medication if you’re allergic to it or any of its ingredients.
Don’t take vortioxetine if you’ve taken any of these drugs in the past 14 days:
- Monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor (Eldepryl, Marplan, Nardil, Parnate)
- Methylene blue injection
- Linezolid
It’s also important that you don’t take an MAO inhibitor within 21 days after you’ve stopped vortioxetine. If you do this, you could have side effects like agitation, confusion, a sudden high body temperature, restlessness, very high blood pressure, or intense convulsions.
It might be a bad idea to take vortioxetine if you have certain medical conditions. Tell your doctor if you have any of these disorders before you start this medication:
- Bleeding issues
- Glaucoma
- Bipolar disorder or a risk of bipolar disorder
- Hyponatremia (low sodium in the blood)
- Mania or hypomania, or a history of either
- Seizures or past seizures
You might still be able to take vortioxetine with these conditions, but you have to check with your doctor.
Ask your doctor if it’s OK to take this drug if you’re pregnant.
How Effective Is Vortioxetine (Trintellix)?
In six short-term studies, experts found that vortioxetine helped with major depressive disorder symptoms. Experts also found that vortioxetine helps more people reach remission for major depressive disorder than other antidepressants. Many people also reported fewer side effects than with other antidepressants.
This drug is for people with major depressive disorder. You shouldn’t use it for other forms of depression unless your doctor says otherwise.
What’s the Long-Term Safety of Vortioxetine (Trintellix)?
This drug has not been around very long. But experts have found that it’s an effective way to prevent major depressive disorder relapses.
Usually, the side effects of this medication aren’t too strong. This makes it a good choice for people who aren’t able to tolerate other types of antidepressants.
