MAiD in Canada: Treatment Resistant Depression
February 19, 2021 | 11 Comments

See accompanying MAiD in Canada and Sex. Illustration: Meds © created by Billiam James The provision of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) is under review in Canada with debate about access for patients with mental illness. An amendment to the draft legislation eliminating the exclusion of people with mental illness was proposed by Senator Stan […]

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Health Canada warns about Persistent Sexual Dysfunction after SSRIs & SNRIs
January 18, 2021 | 4 Comments

Health Canada has just concluded its review of persistent sexual dysfunction after stopping SSRIs and SNRIs. Let’s look at some of the background. January 2019 On 25 January 2019, we were contacted by the Marketed Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Bureau at Health Canada. They had become aware of our 2018 paper, “Enduring sexual dysfunction after […]

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I Am Your Patient Too
December 24, 2020 | 25 Comments

This 2020 closes in the middle of Covid19 and with the package leaflets of SSRI and SNRI antidepressants just updated in Europe with a new but evasive Warning: ‘Cases have been observed where symptoms of sexual dysfunction have persisted after discontinuation of treatment‘. Doctors, did you notice? Here I am.  My sexual symptoms caused by […]

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$100K and a List of Doctors
December 14, 2020 | 41 Comments

$100,000 target reached We are pleased to announce that the RxISK Prize, which was launched on 12 September 2017, has reached it’s goal of $100,000. This consists of money that has been donated as well as pledges from two generous donors who have provided written agreement to hand over money in the event that a […]

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TRP Drugs and Herbs for Withdrawal and PSSD
November 25, 2020 | 24 Comments

We first mentioned Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) Channels/ Receptors in several RxISK posts about withdrawal and they feature on the RxISK Complex Withdrawal Page under Ion Channels.  The table on that page gives a fascinating list of herbs and other compounds that could conceivably play a part in stabilizing people who are having withdrawal problems. […]

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Where’s Anonymous?
September 7, 2020 | 13 Comments

The following email arrived last week from someone who is unknown to me – has never filed a RxISK report about PSSD, never contributed to the RxISK Prize, never previously been in touch that I know of – at least under the name offered – doesn’t sign off, and is unwilling to engage in a […]

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RxISK and Sharks
August 23, 2020 | 31 Comments

  Two posts last week on RxISK Biohacking and david healy Stormy Weather raised issues about the Enduring Sexual Dysfunctions (ESD) linked to SSRIs and related drugs (PSSD and PGAD), finasteride and related drugs (PFS), and isotretinoin (PRSD). In the biohacking post both sides of the “debate” were concerned about the people with these conditions […]

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Bio Rip-off, Bio Delusions, Bio Hack?
August 16, 2020 | 79 Comments

This ambiguous picture comes up when you search under grave robbing – nothing you can make money out of is sacred.  But its entitled grave digger. Digger, robber, it can be hard to tell. We had an email a few days ago about a young man desperately seeking help who had in good faith took […]

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Sexually Confused or Chemically Imbalanced Cosmopolitan
May 13, 2020 | 24 Comments

April’s Cosmopolitan features How Depression Stole my Orgasm – an article on Sex for sure… but Sex and Depression or Sex and Antidepressants? It’s worth downloading the full article and telling us what you think the message is. It opens with some pretty clear examples of how SSRIs have immediate effects on sex and can […]

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Catch San Marino if you Can
May 4, 2020 | 28 Comments

There have been some major developments on the RxISK Prize front. First we are hovering around the $66,666 point – depending on how exchange rates go we may be wandering back and forth over this line as I write. More important however is that San Marino has raced out in front as the donor leading […]

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Causes Sexual Dysfunction, Suicide and Birth Defects?
March 3, 2020 | 35 Comments

Everyone who reads RxISK posts will know that SSRI and related drugs (some antibiotics, painkillers, antihistamines and most antidepressants) can cause sexual dysfunction. This has been known since 1961. And that they can cause suicide.  This has been known since 1959. And that they can cause birth defects. The first publication by an Australian obstetrician, […]

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The Politics of PSSD
February 18, 2020 | 33 Comments

Members of the British parliament In October 2019, we were contacted by a British PSSD sufferer who had done some excellent work in getting his Member of Parliament (MP), Steve McCabe, interested in the condition. We were informed that Mr. McCabe wanted to get a large group of MPs together to try and get some […]

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Gateway to the Soul
February 3, 2020 | 79 Comments

Read the accompanying Sex, Withdrawal and Boundaries post first.  We are looking for anyone interested in the material raised there to comment on or add to the set of questions below. We are so insensitive to the fact that our skin and gut principally, but also bladder and maybe the inner linings of our lungs, […]

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Sex, Withdrawal and Boundaries
February 3, 2020 | 31 Comments

“Do you think studying monolayers of cells will tell you why you fall in love with a girl?” The quote comes from Rudolf Hess, who won the Nobel Prize for physiology in 1949.  His students remembered him as telling them never to study a neurotransmitter or even a cell without thinking about where this bit […]

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What’s Sex Got to Do with It
January 23, 2020 | 29 Comments

This post gives the text of an article that has just been published online in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine – see Here. Another version of the material is in video form – Antidepressants and Sex: a Strange Story. Background In June 2019, in response to a petition, the European Medicines Agency […]

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Everything’s in Hand: Isotretinoin and the Usual Guff
January 4, 2020 | 32 Comments

Niks aan de Hand – Nothing out of hand. This item has just appeared in the BMJ:  An expert group has been reconvened to review recent safety data relating to the acne drug isotretinoin (Roaccutane) and evaluate the risk of sexual and psychiatric adverse effects, including suicide. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency’s isotretinoin […]

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Not the RxISK Manifesto
October 18, 2019 | 11 Comments

Last week’s RxISK Manifesto post featured an article then just published in BMJ. The BMJ picture that went with the article looked like this.  This gives entirely the opposite message to the article. The article says a doctors job would be a lot more interesting if they listened and encouraged anyone consulting them to become […]

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RxISK Manifesto
October 7, 2019 | 11 Comments

This post is close to identical to an article that has just appeared in the BMJ – Clinical Judgments, not Algorithms, are key to Patient Safety.   Immediately on taking a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), most people have some genital anaesthesia.1 This may be aggravated on withdrawal of the drug and can remain for years […]

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PSSD Patient Experiences
September 25, 2019 | 38 Comments

New paper “If you wish to have such “syndrome” continue what you are doing … read obscure studies and reviews in obscure databases and I can guarantee to you that you will have it till the end of your life!” Anyone who has experienced a serious side effect from a medication will know how difficult […]

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Business Opportunity courtesy of Impeto Medical
September 9, 2019 | 32 Comments

Some months ago we had organised for 6 volunteers with PSSD to get tested for peripheral neuropathy, using a Sudoscan, made by Impeto Medical, who are based in Paris. By chance we found that there is a genital adaptor for the Sudoscan that has been in use for several years in Paris, leading to a […]

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Device Wrecks & Regulators?
September 4, 2019 | 18 Comments

RxISK is powered by people working behind the scenes – picking at threads and sometimes finding something rather different to what they expected.  One of those who can’t resist a loose thread is Suzanne Stevens, who has been interested in our Sudoscan problem. Many of you suffering with PSSD or related PRS, PRSD and PGAD […]

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Sudoscan Saga & Propecia/Finasteride Survey
August 19, 2019 | 7 Comments

Sudoscan Several months ago, we became aware of a device called Sudoscan made by Impeto Medical, based in Paris. It’s mainly used to assess peripheral neuropathy in the hands and feet. But the company also have a special adaptor for Sudoscan that has been used to test genital function and found disturbances where other tests […]

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Cis- and Trans-Drug Wrecks
July 15, 2019 | 3 Comments

After a Montelukast Withdrawal Syndrome post two weeks back, we had more comments than after any previous post – so much so that this seemed worth noting in a Post in its own right. After last weeks Transgender Meds, we have had fewer comments than after any previous post.  This also seems worth noting in […]

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Transgender Meds: A Call for Reports
July 8, 2019 | 11 Comments

This post is an invitation to report on drugs prescribed to transgender people. These include cross-sex hormones – testosterone for women, estrogen and progesterone for men, hormone-blocking agents like Lupron given to children with gender dysphoria to stop the physical changes of puberty, and other drugs like finasteride, spironolactone and birth-control pills prescribed to manage […]

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EMA Acknowledges Persistent Sexual Dysfunction After SSRIs & SNRIs
June 11, 2019 | 50 Comments

The European Medicines Agency has just concluded a review into sexual dysfunction after the discontinuation of SSRIs and SNRIs. Before we discuss their findings, it’s worth looking back over the events of the past year. RxISK petition In 2018, we put together a petition requesting changes to SSRI and SNRI product labels to warn about […]

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Neutered Britain: Sex and Drugs
May 14, 2019 | 31 Comments

An article in the BMJ last week triggered a flurry of newspaper interest.  Sex is a surefire generator of column inches as it were.  Stories appeared in all the major broadsheets. Rather surprisingly I didn’t put two and two together until the Daily Mail took the tried and trusted tack of talking about one of […]

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Xarelto and Sex
April 22, 2019 | 23 Comments

Editorial Note: This extraordinary post from Spiros might help explain the very similar problems that follow SSRIs, Finasteride, and Isotretinoin.  There have been several other reports to RxISK of comparable problems on rivaroxaban – Xarelto.  This drug causes many more problems than the sexual one described here.  We would be interested to hear from anyone […]

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RxISK Rorschach: Do not Go Gentle
April 9, 2019 | 47 Comments

Last week’s RxISK post on Assisted Dying proved something of a Rorschach test.  People read diametrically opposite messages into it. It was written at the same time as Something Stupid This Way Comes and cross-referenced this.  This I thought made it clear that there is no such thing as Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD).  TRD is […]

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Encountering Doctors
March 18, 2019 | 9 Comments

Editorial Note: The image goes with a study headlined Doctors stop listening to patients several seconds into a conversation.  This post is from one of the many PSSD sufferers who behind the scenes has been helping push research on this awful condition forward.  It would be a lot easier if doctors did listen. Just as […]

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Isotretinoin petition
Post-Retinoid Sexual Dysfunction (PRSD) Petition
October 29, 2018 | 25 Comments

There are long-standing reports of sexual dysfunction linked to the use of isotretinoin, a retinoid drug used in the treatment of acne. FDA and MHRA received the first reports of sexual dysfunction involving isotretinoin in 1983 and 1985 respectively, and according to a publication in The Lancet, Roche had received 150 reports of problems affecting the […]

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