psychiatric medications & orgasms

[starkyld.livejournal.com]

(more-or-less crossposted from clitoriphiles. not so much of a question, more just an observation to mention...)

has anyone else ever noticed any libido-inhibitory effects of different medications?

years & years ago, i was on an ssri (prozac, specifically, but they all have similar mechanisms of action) & noticed that my interest in sex just plummeted through the floor.

a few months back, after years of a psych-med hiatus, my new psychiatrist put me back on prozac again. i told her about my libido concerns and why i'd rather be on another medication instead. she understood my reservations, but suggested that an ssri would be best for me right then, as i was just about to leave the country for a month. so i went along with it.

was on prozac for a month & a half. as expected, libido was totally missing. this is a problem for me.

she switched me to welbutrin instead by my request two weeks ago.
and, oh wow, do i EVER have good orgasms now.
masturbation is fun again! whee!

wellbutrin has a different mechanism of action than other antidepressants. it works on norepinephrine & dopamine, not serotonin (and is even more distinct from the tri-cyclics & the MAO-inhibitors). in addition to being prescribed as an antidepressant, it's also given to treat hypoactive libidos in patients who aren't being treated for depression and who are seeking treatment specifically to increase their sexual interest. if i could hand-pick any side effect that i'd want for my medication to have, giving me yummy fun orgasms and making me actually want sex again would so be at the top of the list.

just thought i'd throw this out there. anyone else have any observations about how psychiatric medications have affected their libido or sexual response?
(and this medication isn't for everyone...but if you're already being treated for depression with an ssri and have a decreased libido and would like for your libido to perk back up, it might be something worth mentioning to your doctor.)

Comments

[jaclyn.livejournal.com]

wow. thanks for this. I'm on Lexapro and my libido plummeted as well.

I may ask the doc about this....hmm.....

[starkyld.livejournal.com]

quite welcome. would definitely be worth looking into.

(and jaclynthis post from my lj. it was the wellbutrin that i was given too-high-of-a-dosage of the second time. so i started on a strong therapeutic-dose rather than a weaning-on dose, which gave me rather unpleasant insomnia & tummyaches for a week. it's all better now that my body has had time to adjust & i don't know if i'd have felt those side effects if i'd started at the dose that my doctor had intended...but it's also another thing to keep in mind.)

if you do switch, please let me know how it works out for you! :)

[katlynel.livejournal.com]

hmmm. If Lexapro is working for you and the side effects are okay otherwise, I wouldn't recommend switching, since Wellbutrin on its own may not work for you (Celexa worked for me way better than Wellbutrin). What you can do, though, is ask your doctor about adding a small dose of Wellbutrin in addition to the Lexapro, which is shown to help combat the SSRI reduction in sex drive.

[jaclyn.livejournal.com]

good advice!

[starkyld.livejournal.com]

my doctor had suggested adding wellbutrin to an ssri for me, but we weren't seeing much of a response to the ssri that i was on & we're seeing a much stronger response to wellbutrin in general (in addition to the orgasmic perks). so yeah, everyone's chemistry is different and different meds work for different people. nice point to mention. thanks! :)

[grrlyparts.livejournal.com]

i was only on wellbutrin for about a month and it effectively killed my sex drive, not to mention making me very anxious (which was possibly the stupidest thing ever because i was going to the doctor because of problems with anxiety...he didn't get it, apparently).

i then went on effexor and after about 6 months of effexor all i was doing in my free time was sleeping and eating. and doing LOTS of both. my poor boyfriend didn't get laid for 4 months and then i broke up with him. i had to get weened off of the effexor and since then my sex drive has been back full-force.

i had forgotten how much fun it is to be horny all of the time and want to have sex constantly (yes, constantly hahaha).

[starkyld.livejournal.com]

meds tend to affect people in different ways. even so, it's strange that your doctor prescribed wellbutrin when you were being seen for anxiety problems. supposedly it's not supposed to be given to people with anxiety disorders & often increases anxiety if there's a pre-existing level.

and yeah, it is fun. :)

[isolt.livejournal.com]

Just a datapoint: SSRIs are pretty notorious for their libido-killing effects. Of course, if seratonin is your problem and you really need them, I'm sure it's worth coping with.

[pradagirl.livejournal.com]

When I was on prozac and paxil I had no sex drive...then I was switched to wellbutrin and now I'm hornier than ever!!

[ladyandthetramp.livejournal.com]

i was on prozac for too long with no sex drive. i'm not on anything right now, but i will be soon so i should ask about this...thanks!

[flighted-faerie.livejournal.com]

lexapro (added to the depakote i was already on) killed my sex drive. almost immediately after i stopped taking it, it came back.

now i've started on zoloft and ativan. i'll see how that goes...

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

Is your libido higher on wellbutrin than it is with no drugs at all?

[starkyld.livejournal.com]

i was having depression-related libido problems before i went back on meds at all. hadn't had a decent libido for about a month & a half before going back onto an ssri. i mentioned this to my doctor & explained that it was a concern, but she wanted to see first if just treating the depression would help with my libido to begin with. as i think i mentioned earlier, i was going out of the country for a month shortly after starting my meds again, so she wanted to give me something that she knew wouldn't have really dangerous side effects. and because i'd already been on prozac before, she thought that it would probably be the least risky medication for me at the time.

my libido didn't really improve any while i was on prozac in comparison to the really low state that it had been in immediately before starting my medication. usually, though, i have a very high libido. it's almost higher than that of any of my sexual partners & pretty much seems analogous to the libido of a 15 year old boy. and my libido is *almost* back up to that level now that i've been on wellbutrin for a few weeks. so no, it's not necessarily higher than it is when i'm not on meds at all...but it's noticeably higher than it is when i'm not on meds and am going through a considerable depressive bout.

i've been told, though, that wellbutrin tends to increase libido above baseline level for most people who take the medication (which is why it's used to treat hypoactive libido problems).

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

I'll have to investigate that. I'm not super into the idea of taking something on a daily basis, but I'd really like to have a higher libido, and I'm not always so stable in terms of depression (I usually just treat it myself with 5htp).

[galacticat.livejournal.com]

The exact opposite actually happened to me.
While I was on Paxil, I discovered masturbation and had lots and lots of great orgasms. But now that I'm off, for a lot of unrelated reasons, they're just not the same.

[eievui.livejournal.com]

I've been on Paxil since I was twelve and have no libido whatsoever. But then again, maybe I just didn't have one in the first place.

I wonder what orgasms are like? *ponders*

[starkyld.livejournal.com]

for whatever it's worth, i had been sexually-active with a partner for 3 years before i had my first orgasm and it was another 4 & 1/2 years after that before i started to have really strong orgasms. sometimes it just takes a long time with people. but you might want to mention libido concerns to whomever is treating you with the paxil. it could be worth discussing, if you'd like to address that.

[rkt.livejournal.com]

thanks!
my therapist asked me what i thought about going on something like wellbutrin, and i told her i'd have to think about it.
i just got my manic libido back from the damn bcp i was on. (i still had a libido, it just wasn't 24/7, which is what i'm used to.) and only thinking about sex a few times a day just didnt feel right.
(because thinking about sex CONSTANTLY is what was normal for me. not because it isn't right for other people.)

now i'm defninitely a bit more warmed up to it.