HOW LONG AFTER STARTING ST JOHN’S WORT SHOULD I EXPECT IT TO TAKE BEFORE I SEE AN IMPROVEMENT?

Although some people may experience relief from the symptoms of depression within days of starting St John’s Wort, for others it may be as long as six weeks before there is a real sense of improvement. A informal survey of European psychiatrists who have treated hundreds of patients with St John’s Wort revealed that most believe that one should wait at least three weeks after a full dose (900 mg per day) of St John’s Wort has been started before judging whether it has been effective or not. In this regard, St John’s Wort is similar to other anti-depressants, most of which take between two and four weeks to produce their initial anti-depressant effects. The reason for this delay in response to anti-depressants has been the focus of considerable research, but at this time no one has really come up with a satisfactory explanation for it. If you detect no benefit after three weeks, you have the choice of increasing the dosage of St John’s Wort, switching to a conventional anti-depressant, or adding the anti-depressant to St John’s Wort.

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