This post is the original piece written by Katinka Newman, author of The Pill That Steals Lives: One Woman’s Terrifying Journey to Discover the Truth about Antidepressants, by Katinka Blackford Newman (John Blake £8.99), thepillthatsteals.com. A slimmed down version appeared in the Daily Mail.  Its unusual for a day to go past when I don’t utter […]

When did it begin? Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) officially made its debut in the peer-reviewed medical literature in 2006. Case reports were published that identified treatment-emergent sexual dysfunction that persisted after the antidepressant was stopped. The condition was given a name and its features were defined. This new literature also noted the significance of a […]

Last week, there was a post Asexual, Transgender and SSRIs about possible links between antidepressant use in pregnancy or early childhood and a later development of asexuality. In recent weeks RxISK has had several emails asking about possible links between transgender issues or Gender Dysphoria and antidepressants. In one a woman wondered about a brother […]

Last week’s post about Antidepressants and Autistic Spectrum Disorder came with an article attached. This article was first sent to and first turned down by BMJ Open because it contained references to a set of animal studies. BMJ Open it turns out is a human studies only journal. The interest in the animal studies listed […]

The level of risk of developing Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) from using an SSRI or SNRI antidepressant is currently unknown. Patients are never warned about persisting sexual side effects when these drugs are prescribed. Calls for informed consent are often met with the response that PSSD appears to be quite rare. Given the huge number of antidepressants […]

Editorial note: Towards the end of 2015, we launched a new Complex Withdrawal section dedicated to exploring protracted withdrawal and Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD). We presented a new hypothesis about the underlying physiology of withdrawal and persisting side effects, and we asked for others to help explore and research the issues. Someone who has been […]

RxISK has had twenty-two stories and features on sex and drugs over the last two years – more than on any other topic. While we have a Sex Zone on the RxISK front page because we thought the topic might be of some interest, we didn’t expect sex to take over quite like this. There […]

Editorial Note: This post from James Bennett of RxISK’s team explores the increasingly problematic area of sexual functioning on antidepressants and other drugs. The efforts to take down the Wikipedia page on Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) suggest that the sexual side effects of antidepressants worry industry more than anything else. Why this should be is […]

Editorial Note: This post is by James Bennett who is organizing RxISK research on PSSD. In the last two decades there has been an explosion in the number of children being prescribed a range of drugs including antidepressants, antipsychotics and stimulants. There is also a dramatic increase in the number of children exposed to these […]

Editorial Note: This is the fourth of five posts running over two weeks, about Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD). The first was Wikipedia Editor inserts Foot in Mouth, followed by 120 cases of PSSD, and Recovering from PSSD. I first took citalopram in November 2007, at the age of 22. I had quite bad OCD and because […]

Some weeks ago, a number of people linked to Paxil Progress got in touch. They were concerned that RxISK was putting out a message that there was no recovery from Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) and that if people got this message they might go on to commit suicide. This post tackles the issue of recovery, first […]

Delete – Delete! No sooner was the original Wikipedia PSSD page restored that it attracted an extermination notice from the Wikipedia Daleks. The original page may or may not still be here – Wikipedia PSSD. In Wikipedia Editor Inserts Foot in Mouth on Monday, we called on people to consider hosting Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Spanish, […]

Editorial Note: This is the first of several posts about Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) over the next two weeks on RxISK. This post coincides with the restoration of the Wikipedia PSSD Page which was taken down earlier this year. We reposted the page on RxISK and outlined the controversy surrounding its removal. The restored Wikipedia page, within […]

Editorial Note: This is the debate among Wikipedia referees about whether the PSSD post should be retained. The lead person in having it removed goes under the nom de plume of ‘Formerly 98’. It is the third post in a Post Drug Sexual Dysfunction (PDSD) series that started with Sexual Death and went on to Wikipedia […]

Editorial Note: There was until recently a Wikipedia post on Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), which helped put this condition on the map. On January 27 it was taken down. We reproduce the original post here and in a post tomorrow we will give the debate surrounding its removal. See our main PSSD page for more information […]

Editorial note: This post is written in the first person but there are a lot of voices in here. Wikipedia stumbles and falls Wikipedia used to host a valued page on Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), a condition which can result from the previous use of SSRI antidepressants. On January 27th this was taken down. A Post-Finasteride […]

Editorial Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts about PSSD (Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction), with more to come. The earliest was Buried Alive, but in this recent series the first was Drugs and Sex Don’t Go, followed by PSSD: If a Drug Caused Blindness and then No Sex and the City. Possible treatments In […]

PSSD – the most reported syndrome to RxISK There have to date been 67 reports of Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) on paroxetine (Paxil, Aropax and Seroxat), fluoxetine (Prozac and Fludac), sertraline (Zoloft and Lustral), citalopram and escitalopram (Cipramil, Celexa, Lexapro and Cipralex), venlafaxine (Efexor and Pristiq), fluvoxamine and nefazodone. This makes it the most reported […]

Editorial Note: Of these 13 Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) cases, 12 came to us from a colleague who had been approached by others. If a drug caused anyone to go blind or deaf it would probably be removed from the market immediately. In the early days of Viagra, there was talk of it turning visual […]

Most doctors are told headaches or nausea are the commonest side effects of drugs. Nausea for instance is very common on SSRIs – not surprising as there is a lot of serotonin in the gut. But an immediate change in sexual functioning is a lot more common than nausea. Close to everyone taking an SSRI will feel some […]