Depression kills sexual desires Do antidepressants provide the answer?
Depression is cruel. Not only does it cause sleep disturbances and loss of appetite, but it can also take away your sexual desires.
No wonder your libido and performance are affected when you're in a bad mood and anxious about the future.
Medications rumored to treat depression also exacerbate the problem, as SSRIs such as citalopram or fluoxetine (Prozac) interfere with all aspects of sex, from arousal to orgasm. This is a problem that causes many people to stop taking these types of medications, or not continue taking them if they have already started.
This week, new research on antidepressants and ED caught my attention, as the authors of the investigation explored all that had already been researched regarding the problem.
Their work was not limited to the most commonly used antidepressants, but also to the less common antidepressants.
The results of that investigation found potential differences in the way these types of medications affect sexual performance.
There are two effective antidepressants, vilazodone, and vortioxetine. They are not widely prescribed in the UK, but the potential for them to cause negative sexual effects is quite low.
The researchers stated that this may be due to how the chemicals in these drugs interact with receptors in the brain known to impede sexual performance [the receptors are the areas from which drugs and other substances enter cells to have an effect on them].
Like good news. As you can expect, there are reservations too. In that regard, the most important thing is that the decrease in sexual adverse effects appears to occur only at lower doses of these drugs, so this may help people when they start taking these antidepressants, with a gradual decrease in the dose to ensure tolerance of the drug In addition to assessing the benefits.
On the other hand, there is no advantage of the two drugs mentioned above over other types of SSRIs, if sexual performance is impaired when starting to take higher doses of the same drugs.
According to the researchers, these doses are often the target level for full therapeutic benefit.
In other words, there won't be much benefit if your depression isn't treated, even if you can have sex.
All of this makes me think of the huge sacrifice people make when sticking to antidepressant treatment.
Not only do they have to try several types of medication before finding one that works, but a third of people will not respond to any type of antidepressant.
For the two-thirds that show effective results, it may take weeks, if not months, before they experience any improvement in mood and other symptoms of depression.
On top of all that, any sexual function they had left that was not suppressed by depression would be significantly reduced by treatment.
Sexual dysfunction such as lack of arousal, erectile dysfunction, or difficulty achieving orgasm, is not uncommon.
It is estimated that 50 percent and 70 percent of those who use antidepressants suffer this collateral damage.
Depression damages intimate relationships, and sometimes destroy them, which is the last thing people need.
Like several aspects of mental health, the key to finding ways to treat symptoms and maximize the benefit of treatment is to be able to communicate them.
While we may feel relatively comfortable talking about other aspects and symptoms of depression, shyness makes anything It has to do with sex, especially our struggles, beyond the limits of intake.
We would much rather suffer in silence than risk the embarrassment of telling a friend or, God forbid, a health professional, our most private and intimate sexual torments, so that silence must be the saddest aspect of cultural impotence.
On the other hand, it is the aspect that has the greatest potential power if we can overcome it to make a meaningful difference when we are depressed. Especially the ability to feel sexual pleasure.
Depression robs many moments of joy, but sexual performance doesn't have to be one of them.