What happens if you overdose on tricyclic antidepressants?

Tricyclic antidepressant overdose is poisoning caused by excessive medication of the tricyclic antidepressant (TCA) type. Symptoms may include elevated body temperature, blurred vision, dilated pupils, sleepiness, confusion, seizures, rapid heart rate, and cardiac arrest.

What is the most serious reaction to tricyclic antidepressants?

Some tricyclic antidepressants are more likely to cause side effects that affect safety, such as: Disorientation or confusion, particularly in older people when the dosage is too high. Increased or irregular heart rate. More-frequent seizures in people who have seizures.

How do you manage an overdose of tricyclic antidepressants?

Sodium bicarbonate is beneficial in the management of tricyclic antidepressant overdose. It has been shown to reverse QRS widening, hypotension and arrhythmias. Other forms of treatment may include gastric lavage and activated charcoal in order to reduce absorption of the ingested drugs.

Can tricyclic antidepressants cause death?

Tricyclic antidepressant poisoning causes predictable electrocardiographic abnormalities and can be lethal. Cardiac arrhythmias, hypotension, seizures, and coma are common. Sodium bicarbonate is still considered the treatment of choice for severe toxicity, although a variety of supportive measures may be taken.

What do you give for TCA overdose?

Administration of sodium bicarbonate might be beneficial for patients with severe or life-threatening TCA toxicity if a prehospital protocol exists for its use (Grades B/D). Benzodiazepines are recommended for TCA-associated convulsions (Grade D).

What are signs symptoms for an overdose of tricyclic antidepressants?

The most common clinical features are dry mouth, blurred vision, dilated pupils, sinus tachycardia, pyramidal neurological signs, and drowsiness. In severe poisoning, there may be coma, convulsions, respiratory depression, hypotension and a wide range of electrocardiographic (ECG) abnormalities.

Which of the following medication is the antidote for tricyclic antidepressant poisoning?

What do you give for antidepressant overdose?

How does sodium bicarb treat TCA overdose?

The benefit of sodium bicarbonate in the setting of TCA overdose is probably due to both an increase in serum pH and the increase in extracellular sodium. Alkalization favors the neutral form of the drug and reducing the amount of active cyclic antidepressants.

What happens if you overdose on clomipramine?

What happens if I overdose on Clomipramine (Anafranil)? Overdose symptoms may include irregular heartbeats, feeling restless or agitated, confusion, severe sweating, slow or jerky muscle movements, extreme drowsiness, slow breathing, feeling like you might pass out, seizure, or coma.

How much clomipramine is fatal?

The lowest dose associated with fatality for clomipramine has been established as 750 mg. In case of dosulepin, death has occurred by ingestion of fifty 25-mg capsules (1250 mg).

Why does TCA overdose cause seizures?

They also block alpha receptors peripherally and thus can cause hypotension. Furthermore, they block neurotransmitter reuptake (norepinephrine, serotonin) at central presynaptic terminals, and this may be the mechanism by which seizures are induced by TCA overdose.