Doctors and patients have long known that antidepressants can cause sexual problems. More than half of people taking these medications report such side effects. Today, a small group of patients are speaking out about severe sexual problems that have persisted after they stopped taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most popular type of antidepressants. The effects have been devastating, leaving them unable to enjoy sex or maintain relationships, they said.
“My clitoris feels like a knuckle,” said Emily Gray, a 27-year-old woman in Vancouver, British Columbia, who took one of these depression medications, Celexa, from age 17 to 23.
The safety label on Prozac, a widely prescribed SSRI, warns that sexual problems may persist after discontinuation. And health authorities in Europe and Canada have just recognized that the drugs can lead to long-lasting sexual problems.
However, researchers are just beginning to quantify the number of people who suffer from these problems, known as post-SSRI sexual dysfunction.
“I think it's a recurrence of depression,” said Anita Clayton, director of psychiatry at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and leader of a group of experts who will meet in Spain next year to formally define the condition. “Until proven otherwise, that's what it is.”
He said patients with sexual side effects should talk to their doctors about changing drugs. Clayton worries that seemingly unusual cases of sexual dysfunction could deter patients with suicidal thoughts from trying medications.
In 2006, a handful of cases of persistent genital numbness were reported in Canada and the United States.
That year, an American Psychological Association newsletter described emerging data on the drugs' lasting sexual effects.
“I think we have only just begun to appreciate the pervasiveness and complexity of the impact on sexuality,” wrote Audrey Bahrick, a psychologist at the University of Iowa.
Bahrick said she felt an obligation to bring attention to this condition because she had suffered from it herself. She started taking Prozac in 1993, when she was 37 years old. Within a day, her clitoris and vagina felt numb. For a time, her antidepressant made her feel revitalized and stronger. But after two years, she stopped taking it. Her symptoms persisted.
“It never occurred to me that this would be something that would actually never be resolved in my lifetime,” Bahrick said.
In the decades since then, the use of SSRIs has skyrocketed. But researchers are still struggling to understand how they work. The medications target serotonin, a chemical messenger in the brain and parts of the body.
“We feel very neglected,” said Roy Whaley, 38, from Somerset, England, who belongs to PSSD Network, a global support group. For a brief time when he was 22, Whaley took the antidepressant Citalopram to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder. He lost his libido and his orgasms do not cause him pleasure. At times, this has made him feel on the verge of suicide, he revealed.
“It doesn't just numb the genitals,” Bahrick said. “It's a reorientation in terms of being in the world.”
By: AZEEN GHORAYSHI
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/7026219, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-12-12 19:30:08
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