SSRI Anti-Depressants. Do they lower/eliminate your sex drive?

Contributor: newfoundlust newfoundlust
Quote:
Originally posted by KnK
I'm looking for answers by people that have either taken anti-depressants in the past or are on them now. I'm curious, how it's affected your libido. All answers are private, but if you feel comfortable answering, please feel free to do so.

Thanks
I have been on an anti depressant for almost 3 years. It did not change my sex drive at all, but it did end my problem with premature ejaculation. I went from being a 1-2 minute guy to a 20-30 minute guy.
05/09/2011
Contributor: starsNairguitars starsNairguitars
I've been on Lexapro and Xanax.....I wasn't sexually active when I went on them, so I didn't really notice (I think my masturbation rate stayed the same)

My when I went off of them my libido SKYROCKETED
05/09/2011
Contributor: Ms. Paprika Ms. Paprika
It affects everyone differently, but my best friend was on anti-depressants and it didn't seem to kill her libido, just make it drop off. She said later, when she was off them, that it was hard to tell if her libido came back all the way because she stopped taking the pills or because she wasn't moping around anymore.
05/09/2011
Contributor: Elaira Elaira
I was on a mood stabilizer and mine skyrocket. It's always been pretty low, but I guess having better brain chemistry helped me out a lot.

On the other hand, someone who has one that is average, or higher, may swing the other way.

(I would know. I'm a psych major. )
06/05/2011
Contributor: emiliaa emiliaa
It was terrible, because I couldn't orgasm, therefore I'd say it died completely--but my inhibitions were LOWERED like crazy so I still just had sex all the time. >.< I'm glad I'm off of those now.
06/21/2011
Contributor: CoffeeCup CoffeeCup
I never noticed a difference while on Celexa, but recently I switched to Lexapro and it dropped a little.
06/22/2011
Contributor: K101 K101
I take meds for anxiety and pain meds for endometriosis and other female issues. I had a hard time with the anxiety meds at first and still kinda do. I know it's different from depression meds, but I thought it could be of some help? My gyn precribed me them a year ago right after surgery and told me to take 4 pills a day. I still can only take one! Sometimes less. They knock me out and make me pretty much delirious. The good thing is, as long as I go right to sleep, they wear off after about 4 hours. If I don't sleep right away or get woken up, it's not fun. I usually have a very hard time remembering things that happened in the first couple hours. I had a huge change in my sex drive. It got back to normal, but that's only because I couldn't have any sex without pain before the surgery and meds so now that my stuff is normal and I've no pain, I have a regular sex drive. The meds didn't make a difference themselves though and they don't alter anything else except for those 4 hours when I'm like a zombie. I've taken anti-depressants in the past, never for an actual period of time though. Just when I felt it was absolutely necessary (I worried too much about the effects) I don't remember anything changing though. They've always made me sleepy, but I don't think they've changed my sex drive.
07/10/2011
Contributor: CAKES CAKES
I tried several different brand names, and they all killed my sex drive.
07/10/2011
Contributor: Avant-garde Avant-garde
I am on celexa and it may have tapered my libido off slightly, which I like anyway. Although, I am only on 10mg which is the smallest dose.
07/30/2011
Contributor: mag1cian mag1cian
Quote:
Originally posted by KnK
I'm looking for answers by people that have either taken anti-depressants in the past or are on them now. I'm curious, how it's affected your libido. All answers are private, but if you feel comfortable answering, please feel free to do so.

Thanks
Been with sertraline (zoloft) twice. First time no problem, second time libido started the same for a long time, but it slowly became impossible to orgasm - fun for my partner as she now got to go every time! But after a year it is starting to cause ED also and my libido is falling as I am not able to fulfill my own needs. So I will be lowering dosage and coming off the stuff I think. As another post noted I think sexual release is important and not being able to is slowly causing things to get worse. Not fun.
01/21/2012
Contributor: PropertyOfPotter PropertyOfPotter
My libido didn't change, but my ability to orgasm did. Which sucks, because the meds were working so well for other things.
02/19/2012
Contributor: Badass Badass
it didn't significantly lower it.
02/19/2012