How Can Medications "Make" You Gain Weight?

Iwishyouwell

Oh man, this thread. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Wait, I AM taking crazy pills!

Anyway. I've been on a variety of psychotropics and some definitely put 10-20 lbs on me, much of which was lost when I was taken off the medication in question (e.g., Paxil, Seroquel). With very little effort you can pull up dozens of medical studies on the NIH web site that support weight gain as a real phenomena/side effect. I'm on 5 meds for my bipolar disorder, including an anti-psychotic, and luckily I haven't experienced weight gain. Out of all the myriad psychiatrists I've seen in my life, not a single one has denied that certain medications can cause weight gain. Instead, they've worked with me to tweak my meds and come up with better solutions so that ALL of my health issuess are being addressed and taken care of.

Just because you don't believe something doesn't make it illegitimate.

I don't think anyone is denying that certain medications can have an enormous impact on weight. I know I certainly am open to all answers and would never say that actual weight gain from medication is "illegitimate".

But the question is do these medications actually FORCE your body to gain fat. As in if your TDEE is, for example, 2200 a day and you eat 2200 calories a day, or less, will the medications still cause fat gain (as opposed to weight from water retention)? Or is the major contributor a radical change in appetite that leads easily to over consumption, and thus fat gain?

Kalikel

I'll go one better. I always think it's at least a little silly when I read a woman say something like, "I gained 80lbs because I was pregnant." Hmmm...let's think this through. You're baby only weighed how much when he/she was born?

Before all the ladies out there get angry, I know, I know. Hormones, stress, etc. Life happens. Hey, I got all the way up to 365lbs without even getting pregnant. Not judging. I just think in some way it helps when you're honest and at least take some of the blame by saying, "I went overboard a little."

Same for medications. My two cents.

Youre always so funny! But OMG with the "Before all the ladies out there..." !!

Too late, bud!

When you grow and carry a person and everything required to support that person inside YOUR body, then we can hear it. We can't hear it when you're all weepy over some old Little House rerun that has tears streaming down your face...or some commercial where the dad walks his daughter down the aisle. Not even when you're mad, for no real reason except that your husband walked in the room and you suddenly realize you liked it when he wasn't there and the walls need a different color paint and well, everything just sucks and this house isn't good enough to bring a baby into it!

First, there must be...

Nausea a lot to the point that you're never sure if you're really going to vomit or not, vomit at inconvenient times that you really tried to get to the stall to expel but were a couple feet short so now it's all over in the movie theater bathroom, heartburn so bad there are bottles of Tums all over the house, in the car and at work, you have swollen EVERYTHING, stupid ugly clothes, can't tie your damn shoes (which isn't so bad since they don't fit your swollen feet, anyway), tiredness out of nowhere for no reason since you slept and only woke up uncomfortable twice, shooting pains shrieking down you leg and then, THEN, to top it aaaaalllll off, you get the joy and privilege of giving birth, which I'm sure you've heard isn't everyone's favorite thing to do and leaves you with two gifts that keep on giving, in the form of hemorrhoids and a leaky bladder.

When you've done all of that, we can hear from you about how, since the person that you PUSHED OUT OF YOUR BODY only weighed ten little pounds, how the weight gain was nothing but the pregnant woman being piggy and using the excuse of pregnancy to indulge herself.

God really should've made it a toss up over who, exactly, would have to be pregnant.

No, I didn't gain eighty pounds, but it was pregnant young. I gained more than ten, that's for sure!!

(But usually you're just funny.

SomeNights246

I'll go one better. I always think it's at least a little silly when I read a woman say something like, "I gained 80lbs because I was pregnant." Hmmm...let's think this through. You're baby only weighed how much when he/she was born?

Before all the ladies out there get angry, I know, I know. Hormones, stress, etc. Life happens. Hey, I got all the way up to 365lbs without even getting pregnant. Not judging. I just think in some way it helps when you're honest and at least take some of the blame by saying, "I went overboard a little."

Same for medications. My two cents.

women are supposed to gain a certain amount of fat when pregnant, which is to support breastfeeding. Some women lose that fat easily while breastfeeding - others don't lose it until they stop breastfeeding. Others don't lose it at all, or need to diet in order to lose it. The body basically becomes a life support machine for another human for 9 months and prepares to be the sole source of nutrition for that baby for 6-9 months, and a major source of nutrition for a further 4-5 years (that's what the body's expecting to do; we evolved without formula milk or baby foods or any kind of dairy products, so babies had to be breastfed until age about 5-6)

There are charts available from doctors and midwives that advise women how much they should gain through pregnancy, and it's a lot more than the 7lb that the baby weighs on average.

Excessive weight gain during pregnancy is a problem though and can increase the risk of complications in pregnancy and childbirth so I don't disagree with you about the general point you're making, I'm just saying that the amount of weight a healthy woman gains in a healthy pregnancy is actually quite a bit more than the weight of the baby.

I like you. A lot.

This post and your first one are what I came in here to say.

But you said them much better than I would have been able to.

hookilau

I'm not sure why people keep obsessing on this "law of thermodynamics" junk. Yes, I know what it is. I mostly think people say it as an attempt to sound smart but lets be honest. The human bodies thermodynamics is an extremely complicated system dictated by thousands of enzymes doing their jobs. It is not beyond reason to think that a drug may influence an enzyme or set of enzymes (especially in the case of antidepressants) that may alter the metabolic system of that person.

Thank you for saying this, I couldn't agree more.

oedipa_maas

Oh man, this thread. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Wait, I AM taking crazy pills!

Anyway. I've been on a variety of psychotropics and some definitely put 10-20 lbs on me, much of which was lost when I was taken off the medication in question (e.g., Paxil, Seroquel). With very little effort you can pull up dozens of medical studies on the NIH web site that support weight gain as a real phenomena/side effect. I'm on 5 meds for my bipolar disorder, including an anti-psychotic, and luckily I haven't experienced weight gain. Out of all the myriad psychiatrists I've seen in my life, not a single one has denied that certain medications can cause weight gain. Instead, they've worked with me to tweak my meds and come up with better solutions so that ALL of my health issuess are being addressed and taken care of.

Just because you don't believe something doesn't make it illegitimate.

I don't think anyone is denying that certain medications can have an enormous impact on weight. I know I certainly am open to all answers and would never say that actual weight gain from medication is "illegitimate".

But the question is do these medications actually FORCE your body to gain fat. As in if your TDEE is, for example, 2200 a day and you eat 2200 calories a day, or less, will the medications still cause fat gain (as opposed to weight from water retention)? Or is the major contributor a radical change in appetite that leads easily to over consumption, and thus fat gain?

That's a good question. I understand a little better what you meant. I'm curious now. I think I might ask my shrink about it!

Iwishyouwell

If you get an answer from the shrink, please post!