Posted by TommyIsland on June 7, 2006, at 3:46:16
In reply to Re: Effexor Sexual Side Effects After Discontinuat, posted by linkadge on June 3, 2006, at 19:47:09
> I have the same problem since coming off them. No problem getting there, but I experience zero pleasure from it. Its almost a waiste of time.
>
> Anyhow, serotonin and norepenephrine (and dopamine) are intricately involved in the pleasure centres of the brain in regulating the reward. Stopping effexor could leave this area a little deficiant.
>
> I hope you have better luck than me. I've been off them a year. On AD's it was harder to get there, but there but the reward was fine. Now off them, getting there is premature and zero reward.
>
> Sorry for being graphic, just thought I'd say I know what you're talking about.
>
> LinkadgeI'll tell you the wierdest thing of all: In the past whenever I've discontinued Effexor Xr, I've suddenly experienced an extreme relapse into severe depression but the whole sexual thing would work fine even during the depression. Obviously I wouldn't be that into sex because of the depression but if I did engage in sex the orgasm would be pretty good and intense at least. This time around however, I havn't relapsed into depression and in fact I feel exactly the same as how I felt while taking the Effexor XR except now I feel absolutely no orgasm and my sleeping cycle is terrible with insomnia and only spurts of sleep for 3 hours or so followed by Restless Leg Syndrome and hyperactivity within my entire body. What it seems to me while trying to draw a hypothesis is that since stopping the medication altogether, some kind of chemical change has taken place within my brain that now keeps me out of depression perhaps due to an increase in one or many of my neurotransmitters and at the same time one or many other neurotransmitters that have to do with feelings of pleasure, sex, and emotion have been overshadowed due to any number of possibilities that obviously have to do with the levels of these particular brain chemicals within my brain. So strange the tradeoff. In the past I relapsed with severe depression but the ability to enjoy sex and this time around it's the opposite. Believe me I'm happier that I'm not relapsing into severe depression but at the same time I'd like to get some balance for a change. Why do things always have to be one extreme or the other when dealing with brain chemicals. My experience obviously goes to show you that we are literally a product of our own brain chemicals and our free thinking is really only determined by what's happening in our world of brain chemicals. When their good were good and when their bad we become different with the decisions that we make and our outlook on life in general. I don't mean to sound analytical but how can you not while dealing with this deep rooted stuff called brain chemicals. Any additional help or insight would be great. Has anybody experienced this and then suddenly things in the sex department turned back to normal after a couple weeks or months of discontinuation? Is there some kind of a blood test that I could get done to see if I'm short on Free Testosterone or something?
Tommy
Jersey
poster:TommyIsland
thread:652190
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060604/msgs/653922.html