antidepressants without sexual side effects?

KurtG85 · Newbie User Joined: Sep 21, 2008 Posts: 58

Your unique brain chemistry will determine the extent of sexual side effects of meds, negative or positive, for yourself.

As mentioned, wellbutrin tends to not have negative effects in this area in fact often sexual pleasure is boosted.
Others meds I have tried that have had positive effects (not necessarily on label for depression): buspar, concerta, imipramine, thats all I can think of right now.

Argamemnon · Expert User Joined: Jan 15, 2008 Posts: 757

KurtG85 · Newbie User Joined: Sep 21, 2008 Posts: 58

First off, I take 5mg adderall (instant release) every 4-5 hours and this med has a catastrophic effect on quality of orgasm as well as sexual ability for me. I believe this to be because stimulants, especially ones heavy on l-amphetamine, tend to draw blood away from the extremeties and towards the heart which obviously corresponds to less blood being available downstairs. Again, this varies from individual to individual. I have seen hundreds of people who said they got the opposite effect from adderall. This is especially true of females who I believe are more sexually sensitive to the effects of dopamine which adderall releases a large amount of.

I have always been on adderall even when I trialed these meds I mentioned. If I were going to feel any sexual effects from all the meds I have tried they would have to be positive because on adderall alone I was already at a 0 on the scale of 1-10 in terms of sexual pleasure. For example, I remember one day when I ran out of adderall and all I was on was lexapro I got a few spontaneous erections in response to mild stimulus which hadn't occured in a long ass time since I started adderall. I take adderall for its improvement of my symptoms of social anxiety/panic and for its focusing effects.

No, those meds I mentioned didnt have any negative sexual side effects for me, thats not to say they didn't have plenty of other ones though.
Concerta especially had very positive effects in terms of sexual pleasure.

Lexapro for some reason actually helps my sexual ability a tiny bit.

Certainly you can take the advice of people like me to help you decide on which meds you want to try FIRST, but make sure you do yourself a favor and resolve yourself to the fact that you will not know whether you will get negative, or maybe even positive sexual side effects from a med until you try it yourself.

Argamemnon · Expert User Joined: Jan 15, 2008 Posts: 757

Thanks.