Does anyone know that antidepressants permanently shuts downs your sex drive or temporary shuts down your sex drive? Does antidepressant withdrawal permanent shuts down your sex drive and can't be treated with supplements or medication?
"Anti-depressants" is a rather wide sweeping term.There are numerous different types of anti-depressants out there, and they all have different MOAs (mechanisms of action). Some of them affect your sex drive negatively, while some don't. It would help if you specified which anti-depressants you're referring to. The most popular style of "anti-depressant" is probably the SSRI, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Through preventing the reuptake of Serotonin, it causes you to feel the effects of more Serotonin at any given time. Serotonin itself has an inverse relationship to many of the effects of dopamine. One of those being arousal. So SSRIs will decrease arousal. This is a dose-dependent relationship, as a little serotonin boost won't really stop you being aroused, while a big one may not only stop you from being aroused but cause problems like erectile dysfunction. Your body is always trying to achieve homoeostasis, so when taking SSRIs and artificially increasing Serotonergic activity in the brain, your brain responds by beginning to shut down and down-regulate some of the receptors to which Serotonin binds. This is actually one of the MOAs for anti-depressants in treating anxiety, as one of the serotonin receptors they down-regulate, the 5HT1A receptor, is involved in feeling anxiety. This means that SSRIs can have some long term effects on anxiety. However for depression, it means the opposite is true, since over time you are actually desensitising your brain to the effects of serotonin. So over time you will need to keep increasing the dose of your medication, and also, even if you stop taking SSRIs, your receptors will be massively down-regulated, meaning it may take years for your brain to recover normal Serotonergic function. How does this relate to the subject of the thread? Well, down-regulated Serotonin receptors mean LESS Serotonergic effects. So that means when you quit SSRIs and no longer have the Reuptake Inhibition effect, you start having the effects of lower Serotonin. Since Serotonin inhibits your sex drive, this effect mimicking low Serotonin will result in you having the opposite: an abnormally high sex drive. So in short: No, the sex drive inhibiting effects of SSRIs are not permanent, and in fact after coming off them, you may have an abnormally high sex drive for many years to come.
I have been on and off SSRI anti-depressants over the years and they have always dampened things or completely eliminated libido for a while in my case. I understand that some people have different responses to differing SSRIs, so one will decrease your libido and another won't. They can also making orgasm more difficult to achieve. The only heavy warning I have received from doctors about taking SSRIs is never to stop them cold turkey, but to gradually cut down under medical supervision over a few weeks or so.
I took an SSRI over twenty years ago. It killed my libido, as well as my desire to do pretty much anything else. I quit taking it as quickly as I could and have never looked back. SSRI's may have been improved over the years, but at least based on my experience, I'd highly recommend attempting to overcome depressive feelings through exercise, socialization, proper diet and the like rather than relying on drugs. Of course, it should go without saying that I'm not a doctor, and you should certainly value the expertise of your doctor over my limited experience.
