Is It Time to Rethink the Use of Antidepressants?

Recently there have been many psychological disorders which may be called "lifedata-style" diseases which are what used to be called shyness, sadness, insomnia, excessive shopping, high sex drive, low sex drive, etc. They are increasingly being viewed as diseases, and the criteria for listing a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) includes knowing whether the disorder responds to a class of drugs. If symptoms subside after using one of the major classes of drugs, the disorder is listed. And so some researchers say that we must rethink the entire biological basis of lifedata-style disorders.

What Is the Role of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIS) In How Quickly We Learn?

A study showed that SSRIs may gradually affect mood by changing how quickly we learn from good and bad events. Learning occurs less quickly from good events and more quickly from negative ones. So here medicine regulates our expectations and increases happiness.

What Can People’s Quick Games Learning Tell Us?

Measuring how quickly people learn games can hold very important information that helps psychiatrists know which patients will respond well to SSRIs without having to wait to see mood changes.

Is There a Relation Between Happiness and Lower Expectations?

The relation between happiness and low expectations is ancient wisdom, and it appears that expectations have a strong influence on happiness, which is reflected in the level of brain activity, and as Alexander Pope says, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

What Can Match the Feelings of First Love?

John and Sandra have always been passionate about each other, and at first meeting they were shy and unaccustomed to dating. On a group outing at high school where they spent the evening flirting, Sandra still remembers the sense of security they felt the first time they held each other's hands. From that moment on, they had a lovely time like two kids driving a car without a driver's license, and she made the decision to get married at a young age so that they could be together all the time.

When they entered college, they were determined to stay together, but being away from home was difficult for Sandra. Homesickness haunted her, and she spent her first year feeling alienated, anxious, and disoriented, but as the semester ended, she fell into a deep depression.

Can the Use of SSRIs Be the Beginning of Extinguishing Feelings of Love?

Sandra used antidepressants and after a while felt more stable and able to cope, but her relationship with John began to change for the worse. After a few months, her ability to orgasm disappeared, and even though she knew this was likely a side effect of her medication, she was still unable to shake off her frustration. Sandra began pulling away from John, four years of intimacy quickly fizzled out, and the couple parted.

SSRIs and Sexual Dysfunction:

Sandra's experience is common, and doctors have been facing more sexual dysfunction problems since the introduction of SSRIs in the 1980s. About 70% of people who take SSRIs experience sexual side effects, and these drugs may also reduce the ability to feel love.

How Do SSRIs Cause Problems with Feelings of Love and Sex?

Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers University, believes SSRIs wreak havoc on love, sex, and other emotional human interactions. These medications relieve depression by increasing levels of serotonin in the brain and suppressing the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Unfortunately, dopamine is also responsible for the feelings of exhilaration and euphoria that come with falling in love, and Fisher argues that by suppressing dopamine release, drugs like Prozac and Zoloft block your ability to feel these feelings, making it harder for you to fall in love.

Do SSRIs Affect Your Chance of Finding Your Life Partner?

This lack of dopamine affects people in several ways, according to Fisher and her research partner, psychiatrist at Virginia J. Andrew Thompson Jr. People who use antidepressants may have more difficulty meeting people because their normal sexual response is poor.

Some researchers believe that desire is designed to help people choose genetically suitable partners because the spark that ignites when meeting a new person tells you something, this may be your other half, and when you ignore these signals, the chances of finding a suitable mate are reduced.

SSRIs and Loss the Way to Orgasm:

Even if you're one of the lucky ones to find love while taking an SSRI, you still have some hurdles to overcome, says Fisher. Like our friend Sandra, you may lose the ability to reach orgasm and this may cause problems in the relationship as orgasm leads to the release of oxytocin, the hormone responsible for the bond between couples. But from another point of view, those who fail to reach orgasm due to SSRIs may be in a position that is not suitable for marriage and childbearing.

According to Fisher, the female orgasm is an important survival mechanism that evolved to help women choose suitable partners. The theory says: If a man is patient and attentive enough to get a woman to orgasm, he is likely to be a great partner and a good father. And when women can't climax, they miss out on one of the most reliable means of filtering unsuitable partners.

In fact, not everyone agrees on this, especially biologist Elizabeth Lloyd, author of The Case of the Female Orgasm, who argues that orgasms are not a survival mechanism at all but are merely happy moments. "Evidence conflicts with the idea that women use orgasms in order to assess the quality of partners," says Lloyd.

But Fisher believes that it is only a matter of time before the evolutionary purpose of female orgasms is confirmed. Orgasm is a very powerful experience that people do their best to achieve, so it is likely that "evolution" will choose it to survive.

What About People Whose Condition Requires Continuing to Take SSRIs?

For some patients, the restoration of normal desire depends on switching antidepressants, and for some patients, reducing the dose of the drug may help restore a normal sexual life. Doctor-determined breaks have also proven effective, as Dr. Thompson urges patients to ask their doctors to work with them to find the right combination of drugs.

Our friend Sandra worked closely with her psychiatrist until they found a medication regimen that restored her desire and feelings of joy, ecstasy, and intimacy. She has since met and married another man, yet her problems have not completely gone away. Sandra still experiences low libido, but her doctor told her she was not alone in experiencing it.

“Patients need to know that sexual side effects may not be obvious. Patients may blame themselves for what is happening, or they may consider themselves to have lost interest in their partner,” says Dr. Thompson.

Could SSRIs Be Useless?

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as Paxil and Prozac are no more effective in treating depression than placebo pills. This means that they are 33% effective, and the study says that although SSRIs are somewhat effective in treating severe depression, they do not affect the common type of depression that they are most often used to treat.

What the new studies are showing is that using SSRIs may be of some help if there is severe serotonin deficiency, but a typical person's depression may not be related to a "chemical imbalance." The human brain is very complex, and we have no way to measure the concentration of serotonin in a living person's brain, except for a skull cut.

Science hasn't figured out what the normal level of serotonin should be, and if it drops, we will get depressed. People with high levels of serotonin can get depressed, and people with low levels can be happy.

In Conclusion:

Researchers realize that SSRIs have helped millions of people overcome major depression, but they stress that the benefits of the drugs must be weighed against the risks. It should be a last haven for people in acute emotional distress and not a first choice. All kinds of people who need these medications for good reasons should take them, but that doesn't mean we don't explain the potential risks in detail and clearly.

The researchers plan to launch a study in the near future that will look more closely at the long-term effect of SSRIs on sexual behavior.

What should you do? Think carefully, be skeptical, and ask for a simplified diagnosis that you may receive after discussing your condition, and medications may not be the best solution for you.