Posted by SLS on May 17, 2001, at 21:48:01
In reply to Re: I'm a little scared of these drugs...Elizabeth, posted by roo on May 17, 2001, at 16:46:34
Hi Roo.
I'm a bit of a Pollyana here. Please forgive me if it be unjustified that I should hope my own experience can be generalized to everyone else.
For how long have you taken the same SSRI?
This is a bit embarrassing for me... Oh, well. I know this can be argued as the chicken or the egg thing, but I found that persistence "exercised" without any performance expectations, with or without a partner, led to a gradual return of orgasmia. It seemed that once I popped my first one, things came more easily thereafter. This was my experience with Paxil, Effexor, Nardil, Parnate, and a few others. In one circumstance, it took a few months. Hell, you might as well just have fun and enjoy yourself with what there is rather than lament over what there isn't. I should hope that it gives you more physical pleasure than peeling potatoes, even if you don't get your cookies. It really helps if both you and your partner consider any physical and emotional intimacy experienced as a shared success. I can't conclude whether my ability to attain orgasm would have returned on its own anyway with the passage of time, but an optimistic interpretation would be that I helped to entrain the system to use alternate routes or perhaps force a change in the dynamics of the existing ones. Perhaps using a little Ritalin as a PRN can help coax things along. You would want to use as little as you discover is necessary. No facts - just wishful thinking.
I found a little piece on strategies to treat sexual side effects of antidepressants and posted it last week. It was a bit of a pain in the butt to transcribe the table into a readable text, but I thought it might provide a good starting point. Obviously, you have already tried many of them. It would be nice if people relate their own experiences using the medications listed. I don't know if the libido/arousal/orgasmia assignments for each drug reflect real-life responses.
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010507/msgs/62612.html
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:63095
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010515/msgs/63423.html