What Is GeneSight Testing and Should You Get It?

What Is GeneSight Testing and Should You Get It?

Finding the right psychiatric medication can feel like guesswork. You try a medication, wait weeks to assess its effect, deal with side effects, and if it doesn’t work, start over. For patients with depression, anxiety, ADHD, or other conditions, this trial-and-error process can be exhausting.

What Is GeneSight?

GeneSight is a pharmacogenomic test that analyzes variations in your DNA that influence how your body metabolizes and responds to psychiatric medications. A simple cheek swab produces a personalized report categorizing medications into three groups:

• Those likely to work as expected
• Those that may require dosage adjustments
• Those that may have reduced efficacy or increased side effects for you specifically

What Does the Science Say?

GeneSight has been studied in multiple clinical trials. The most significant was the GUIDED trial, which found patients whose providers used GeneSight results had significantly better symptom improvement compared to those managed without the genetic data.

Who Should Consider It?

GeneSight testing may be right for you if you’ve tried multiple medications without success, experienced significant side effects, or are starting psychiatric care for the first time and want to narrow the field.

Interested in GeneSight? Contact DLH Consulting