Is a tricyclic antidepressant a heavier antidepressant than a tetracyclic one?

[Elle Dee]

I was just wondering, since I heard that the space between a therapeutic dose and a lethal dose is smaller with the first than with the second and the first can apparently be very toxic. So in layman's terms would that mean tricyclic is heaver than tetracyclic?

[Berry]

Sorta - but it's just semantics.

Many drugs differ from each other in the same class due to POTENCY.

You need less of a more potent drug, and the therapeutic to toxic range is also smaller.

When you are comparing drugs of different classes, it doesn't make much sense. It is just a quality of the drug class in question.

[wswillsmithe]

Tricyclic [URL="http://www.mydepressionmedication.com/atypical-antidepressants"]antidepressants[/URL] can actually help a lot, but they can also cause you more than what some other antidepressants would do.I suppose that it is Mainly because of their wide scope of work.

[ladypam]

The basic difference of a tricyclic and a tetracyclic antidepressant is their structure, with the tricyclic having 3 rings and tetracyclic having 4 rings. Based on this, the tetracyclic should be the heavier one, right?

On the level of toxicity, these two have basically the same levels, that is a low level. This means that the toxic levels are easily reached through overdose, thus should not be taken in excess of its prescribed amount as compared to other antidepressants with a higher level of toxicity. Hope this helps!