Let's talk about breakthrough depression. Breakthrough depression is when someone's already been diagnosed with depression and they're on antidepressants to treat that depression and they notice a positive response to taking the antidepressants. 💙

But over time the symptoms of depression come back because the response to the antidepressants tails off. This is known as tachyphylaxis. It means there's a rapidly diminishing response to the medication. 💙

It can be because someone's got an underlying medical condition such as hypothyroidism which may be getting worse. It can be due to taking a different medication which interacts with the antidepressants. 💙

It can be due to lifestyle factors such as changing levels of stress, taking alcohol or drugs in different quantities or for the first time. And its thought is related to pregnancy as well, changing hormones in pregnancy and also generally in aging. 💙

But in a lot of cases it's just not known why the antidepressant stops working. But when it does that's known as breakthrough depression. 💙