As a parent of a teen struggling with a mental health disorder, it is difficult to know what the best course of action is for treatment. For many teens, a combination of treatments is most effective. This often includes medication. Medications can be used to treat many mental health disorders, whether used in the short-term or long-term. As a parent, it is ideal to work with a mental health treatment facility such as Sustain Recovery in order to get professional advice on the best way to help your teen heal. Your teen’s struggles do not have to become long-term issues, and treatment can help them to move forward and manage their mental health successfully.
Medication for a Mental Health Disorder
If your teen is struggling with a mental health disorder, medication can be an effective part of treatment. When combined with psychotherapy and holistic modalities, your teen can decrease the mental health symptoms they are experiencing and learn skills to improve their overall mental health as a teenager and into adulthood.
Medications can play an important role. This is because medications help to decrease mental health symptoms. In doing so, your teen can work through their mental health challenges with more ease. They will learn skills along the way that make a significant difference in their lives and well-being.
Depression Treatment
The primary medication used to manage depression is antidepressants. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are common and can help your teen to decrease their depression symptoms. SSRIs impact the brain and increase available serotonin. As a result, your teen can feel better, experiencing fewer depression symptoms and very few side effects.
Other medications used to treat depression include norepinephrine-dopamine reuptake inhibitors (NDRIs), which impact dopamine levels in the brain. In doing so, your teen will have more dopamine available and therefore feel fewer depression symptoms.
Antidepressant medication use varies from teen to teen. Your teen may only need to use antidepressants for a short period of time. However, taking note of their symptoms and working with a mental health care professional is the best way to know when and if it is the right time to stop using antidepressants.
Anxiety Treatment
If your teen is struggling with anxiety, it can be significantly disrupting their life. There are many types of treatment options that can help. Medications are often incorporated into the treatment plan. However, this is not always true.
There are several types of medications used to treat anxiety in teens. SSRIs are also used to improve anxiety symptoms. However, other medications can help your teen to manage symptoms of anxiety on a regular basis. For example, benzodiazepines and beta-blockers can be used as a way to manage panic attacks at the moment.
Trauma Treatment
If your teen has experienced trauma, their mental health is greatly impacted. They may have a variety of challenges that include both depression symptoms and anxiety symptoms. SSRIs can be used to manage these symptoms, and are commonly used as a way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Benefits of Medication for a Mental Health Disorder
When you have a teen who is struggling with their mental health, you see them work to get through every day. Your involvement in their treatment may include family therapy, providing support, and helping them to heal by working with a provider to choose the right path to healing for them.
You know that your teen is unique, and their path to healing needs to be individualized. While medication is not always necessary, it has many benefits. Primarily, medication can help to decrease the symptoms of common mental health disorders. As a result, it gives your teen time to work on lifestyle changes. This helps them develop skills that might be impossible when experiencing more severe mental health symptoms.
In the long term, this has a big impact. When medication gives your teen the chance to make lifestyle changes and develop important skills, they are more likely to be able to care for their mental health as an adult. Therefore, using medication in treatment for a mental health disorder for your teen can prevent them from needing medication as an adult.
Getting Your Teen Treatment for a Mental Health Disorder
When you are trying to help your teen heal, getting support is helpful. Attending mental health treatment at a professional treatment facility, like Sustain Recovery, gives both you and your teen the care that is needed. You can know that your teen is being cared for and that you are taking the necessary steps to ensure they have good mental health, both now and in the future.
Reaching out to professional treatment centers can help improve your teen’s daily life. However, in getting your teen help, you are also decreasing their risk of addiction, substance abuse, and poor mental health in the future.
Helping your teen heal from a mental health disorder is a challenge. However, you do not have to do it alone. At Sustain Recovery, we offer treatment that helps teens heal from mental health disorders, trauma, and addiction. Our program incorporates medication, psychotherapy, and holistic modalities. We balance out different parts of treatment to ensure that your teen gets treatment that is helpful for them. Additionally, we focus on helping your teen build skills that will benefit them in the future. If you have a teen who is struggling, we can help. Call us today at (949) 407-9052 to learn more about our programs and how your teen can heal.
