Mild NSFW warning: this post mentions sexual side effects of medication.

SSRIs are the most common type of antidepressant (examples are Prozac/fluoxetine, Zoloft/sertraline, Paxil/paroxetine).

If you have experience with them, do you think they’re a good idea?

I came across a paper about side effects which I haven’t heard discussed before. Many people know that SSRIs have sexual effects, but apparently they also affect fertility.

This paper describes SSRIs as “gonadotoxic”, leading to effects like “decreased sperm concentration and motility, increased [DNA] fragmentation, and decreased reproductive organ weights”.

The paper does say “this effect does seem to be reversible”, so if you stop SSRIs, your sex organs should apparently go back to normal. But still, some people are on SSRIs for long periods of time, right?

I would be interested to hear others’ thoughts, if you have any.

Edit: Thanks for the replies to this post, they’re interesting.

  • wise_pancakeEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    Can I ask what you mean by withdrawal vs discontinuation syndrome?

    If you can schedule yourself off of a medicine isn’t that different than withdrawal and addiction? Or do you have a specific use case that you’re considering addictive?

    This is all very new to me

    • treefrog@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      Withdrawal and discontinuation syndrome are synonyms. The later term was coined by the pharmaceutical industry in order to distance SSRIs from opioids in the minds of doctors and patients.

      You can taper off of heroin and you can taper off of an SSRI but if you stop either cold turkey, you are going into withdrawal.

      The common word for a substance that does this is that it is addictive. When a person says heroin is addictive they are referring to the fact that it produces physical withdrawal when you stop it.

      Heroin is also habit forming, SSRIs are not habit forming as they do not create psychological reinforcement through dopamine pathways. So, they do not create a psychological addiction or habit, but they remain physically addictive and your body will still suffer from withdrawal when you quit.

      When someone quits coffee we say they have caffeine withdrawals. When someone quits SSRIs we say they have discontinuation syndrome?

      It’s corporate marketing meant to minimize risks in the minds of doctors and patients. We already had a word for it.

      Hence, there’s a lot of informed consent issues with psychiatric medication in general but especially SSRIs.