Sex | RxISK

Where’s Anonymous?

September 7, 2020 | 8 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 | 23 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 | 28 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 | 31 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 | 36 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 | 7 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 | 20 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 | 24 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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Skin and Drugs and Sex

October 25, 2018 | 6 Comments

Editorial Note: This post returns to PSSD – post SSRI sexual dysfunction – PRSD – post retinoid sexual dysfunction – PFS – post finasteride sexual dysfunction and PGAD – persistent genital arousal disorder. See our RxISK PSSD page for the many prior posts on these conditions There is also post on davidhealy.org – Khashoggi and […]

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Can Antidepressants Make You Less Attractive?

October 15, 2018 | 28 Comments

In recent years, there has been increasing concern about the problem of antidepressants finding their way into the environment. These drugs aren’t fully absorbed by the body and are present in human waste. Small concentrations are then flowing into rivers via wastewater treatment facilities where wildlife can be affected. In August 2018, several media outlets reported […]

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Post-Finasteride Syndrome & Amino Acids

October 8, 2018 | 31 Comments

Editorial Note: This post has just arrived. We need to know if the treatment outlined makes any difference to others with PFS, PSSD and PRSD. It looks safe to test. You can help us by testing it if you have one of these conditions. We’d also like to know if you are aware of any […]

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PSSD In The Guardian, U.S. News & Lyon Capitale

July 4, 2018 | 44 Comments

The Guardian The Guardian, a British newspaper, runs a weekly feature called “My life in sex”, in which readers can write in and talk about their sex life. On June 8, 2018, they ran a piece called “After taking antidepressants, my genitals felt numb”. A 30 year old women described how she had been left […]

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What to do about Sex

June 20, 2018 | 12 Comments

The recent RxISK post on PSSD and Thermal Thresholds led to a lot of comments about what should “we” – those with PSSD or related conditions – do. There was a looking out to FDA or other regulators, doctors or politicians to do something. Coincidentally on davidhealy at the same time a pair of posts […]

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