Definition: Tricyclics belong to a class of antidepressant drugs that work by blocking the reuptake of norepinephrine and serotonin and thus making those substances to work on the brain receptors. It was first introduced in the year 1950s. The term ‘tricyclic’ as such means having 3 rings of atom in a molecule. The medication is mostly used as to treat depression and to increase the effects of opioid analgesics. Some of the common tricyclics are amitriptyline, butriptyline, doxepin, imipramine, protriptyline etc. The first tricyclic antidepressant that was prescribed for depression was imipramine.
Abusive properties of tricyclics:
Tricyclics are less abusive than other drugs. In fact, these can be called non-abusive drug. This drug when taken in combination with other drugs, has resulted in drug abuse. Only a few cases of tricyclics use along with methadone and alcohol have been noted.
The drug also has discontinuation symptoms. These are not similar to withdrawal symptoms. This can be overcome by gradually decreasing the dosage over weeks or months.
Tricyclic drug tests can be identified with drug immunoassay tricyclics or even as drug SAMHSA tricyclics. Card drug tricyclic is also available for drug monitoring tricyclics.
Medical properties of tricyclics:
Irrespective of number of antidepressants that have come, the use of tricyclics is immense in treating bipolar disorders. The medical properties of the tricyclics have made it a wonderful medicine to treat a lot many psychological disease conditions. They are mood disorder, dysthymia, social anxiety disorder, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, body dysmorphic disorder etc. Also, the use of the drug is effective in treating eating disorders such as bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, etc. Patient with behavioral disorders like Attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), borderline personality disorder have felt a lot of improvement with the use of tricyclics.
Some of the disease conditions that can be treated with tricyclics are neuralgia, fibromyalgia, headache, migraine, tourette syndrome, interstitial cystitis, irritable bowel syndrome, narcolepsy, insomnia, chronic hiccups, etc.