Health & Wellness - November 2014 Archives

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — In an international study, Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators have identified genetic markers that may help in identifying individuals who could benefit from the alcoholism treatment drug acamprosate. The findings, published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, show that patients carrying these genetic variants have longer periods of abstinence during the first three months of acamprosate treatment. Acamprosate is a commonly prescribed drug used to aid patients in recovery from alcoholism. Mayo researchers studied the association between variation in candidate genes and the length of sobriety in alcohol-dependent patients treated with acamprosate in community-based programs. They found that, when other environmental and physiological factors were considered, patients with the common allele of the genetic variant rs2058878 located in the GRIN2B gene, stayed sober more days than those with a variant allele of the same polymorphism. This finding was replicated in a sample of alcohol-dependent patients treated with acamprosate in a study conducted by collaborators from Germany.

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My son, 9, liked reading when he was younger. But over the last year, he’s started to struggle with it, and he was recently diagnosed with convergence insufficiency. What is the best treatment for this? Are there some cases that are not treatable? I am concerned that we did not catch it soon enough. ANSWER: Your son’s situation is common. Convergence insufficiency often is not identified until around the age of 8 or 9 when children begin to read more. A number of treatments are available and, in most cases, they are effective in relieving the problem. In rare cases when other therapies have not worked, surgery may be needed to correct convergence insufficiency. Convergence insufficiency is an eye disorder that affects vision when focusing on something nearby. To focus when you read or look at an object up close, your eyes need to turn inward together. This is called convergence. It allows you to clearly see the object you are looking at as a single image.

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DEAR MAYO CLINIC: How soon after starting on antidepressants should I begin to feel better? What type of changes will I notice? It has been three weeks and I don’t feel like my depression has lessened. If anything, it seems to be getting worse. Do I need to try another medication? ANSWER: Many people who start taking an antidepressant begin to see some improvement in their symptoms within several weeks. But for others, it may take longer. The changes are not immediate or sudden, so you may not notice them much at first. Because of that, it is important to give the medicine time to work. Anytime you feel symptoms of depression getting worse, however, contact your health care provider. As with all medications, you need to take an antidepressant at an adequate dose for an adequate length of time to see the most benefit. Typically, four to six weeks is a reasonable amount of time to use an antidepressant and decide if it is effective for you. In most cases, the improvement you get from an antidepressant is gradual, and the benefits may be subtle. For example, if tearfulness is a common symptom for you, it might become less frequent. But it is unlikely to disappear right away. If anxiety is a persistent problem, it may slowly diminish and your interest in returning to hobbies and other activities may gradually increase.