Can Medications Given For A Heart Attack (Such As Beta Blockers) Cause Depression?

— -- Question: Can medications given for a heart attack (such as beta blockers) cause depression?

Answer: Beta blockers are, for a cardiologist, a sort of the rock and the hard place thing. They reduce your risk of having a second heart attack and of dying of it, so it's really a compelling medication for us to use. But they clearly can increase your risk of becoming depressed and staying depressed on the medication. So what you need to do is to tell your cardiologist about this, and your cardiologist should actually ask you about this, and your doctor should talk to you about it -- and adjust the doses or add some drugs to take care of the depressive side of it at the same time.

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