It's official: we at SA now know as much about AD sexual side effects as psychiatric students.

[cinephile]

Every once in a while I like to check in at the student doctor forums and see how the other half lives. It's variously fascinating and frightening to see the thought process of doctors-to-be.

 

But no thread resonated with me more than the one entitled, "SSRI-induced anorgasmia." I quickly realized that if you remove the doctor-speak ("patient" and "agents indicated for" and "dopaminergically mediated") you basically end up with a peer-recovery message board thread on sexual side effects!

 

You'll really notice this if you've been around the block a few times with these meds like I have (and Alto and Alex and Compsports, I'm looking in your direction!). For example, the thread has the students talking about various treatments for the sexual sides like herbal/vitamin supplements (Ginkgo Biloba, Zinc), dopamine agonists like Ritalin(!), Wellbutrin as a libido-enhancer, taking a "drug holiday" when the patient will be sexually active, viagra (of course!), CBT, etc etc. This will be deja vu all over again for any down-the-road SSRI users like myself and others on this board. Hell, I've seen DOZENS of threads on peer-support SSRI sites that mention the same treatments.

 

This is just more proof to me that psychiatry has nothing to offer people who are suffering from these awful side effects that a spirited Google search couldn't turn up. It really does confirm that it's not some conspiracy and it's not in your head: you really are SOL once you've exhausted all these options. And, of course, your options for sexual side effects treatment are really limited if you want off the pharma pain train completely, but you already knew that. In fact, you really need to take it further and realize that truly only time and perhaps talk therapy are the only true "cures" for sexual dysfunction caused by SSRIs. Anything else you hear is just noise.

 

But more than even that, this thread has proven to me that the propagandist takeover of psychiatry (and I do mean it in that way) by big pharma and the DSM/medical model is now complete: entire generations of students have been so indoctrinated that pills are the future of psychiatry and the literature on said pills has been so thoroughly corrupted that we are now left with student doctors who are essentially doing what anyone could do: trial-and-error prescribing of various pills and supplements to try to alleviate symptoms. I used to think it was a gross oversimplification when I said, "You know, I think after about six months of observation and training, I could do a 15-minute med check or symptom assessment for a patient too" but now I'm absolutely certain I'm right. This is what it looks like, folks. And it ain't pretty.

 

It really does give chilling credence to what Joseph Goebbels, Hitler, Stalin and other propaganda masters knew all along: it really isn't that hard to brainwash people. You just tell them what they want to hear and give them a tantalizing illusion of power and the good life (in this case, that psychiatrists will have all the keys to unlock the wonders of the mind with these pills) and they'll roll over every time. I'm not at all being arrogant or self-satisfied when I say this (in fact I say it with much sadness), but I can't help but see these students as "useful idiots" that simply exist to keep the psychiatric monolith in play. As long as these students are satisfied playing with their pharmaceutical Lincoln logs, the people with the real power (the KOLs, the pharmaceutical companies, the APA) are content as they continue to rake in the real dough and influence.

 

And hey, you don't have to be a regular SSRI goofball like me to see this dynamic. Just ask psychiatrist Joel Hassman, who had this to say at 1boringoldman:

 

I went into psychiatry in the early 1990′s for several reasons, two being I wanted to spend time talking with patients and being able to access as many treatment options as able as a mental health care provider, being able to prescribe one option but not the only one. When I learned what was the agenda of managed care by the mid 1990′s, I was incensed not by what insurers wanted, but that so many of my colleagues basically laid down and allowed themselves to be figuratively buried up to their necks. Check out the basic premise of the 1995 APA president election between Harold Eist and Steve Sharfstein, and you'll see how the writing on the walls were handled then.

 

Every profession has it's whores and cowards, but I cannot fathom the pervasiveness to what I have directly witnessed in my travels these past 15 years. For me though, I was not duped, I was sold out by the profession as a whole.

 

So, what can you do after learning a select expertise that is now so dumbed down that people without an MD degree can do the same thing? Watch Rome burn, just from a distance and save those who want to save themselves.

[Altostrata]

So very true.

 

What medical students are taught is that rather than reducing or discontinuing the drugs -- which would occur in any other specialty -- they can counter adverse effects of psychiatric drugs with other interventions, usually other drugs.

 

Problem is, as so many of us have found, the other drugs do not work. And, if they restore some sexual functioning, it ain't the same.

 

But healthy sexual functioning is beside the point: To stamp out those pesky complaints of emotional distress once and for all.

[Barbarannamated]

Very interesting find„ Cine

With the percentage of people on psych drugs„ certainly some of the folks on that group must be on them or have family taking the meds ~

 

Q: Did you catch the discussion of good books about psych

Peter Breggin was bashed a few times„Stahl got mixed opinions and Samuel Shem was the most recommended~

For anyone not familiar w/Shem„he penned House of God and Mount Misery which is based on his time working at Mclean Psych Hospital in Boston (correct me if I'm wrong here)~

Shem is pen name for Stephen Bergman MD who~i believe ~ is quite critical of psychiatry

 

It's been years since I read Mount Misery but I recall his more journalistic style writings on website being against psychopharm

Is anyone familiar with him

[cinephile]

Problem is, as so many of us have found, the other drugs do not work. And, if they restore some sexual functioning, it ain't the same.

Key point! I've heard this multiple times from people who have tried dopamine agonists: they cause this ghastly, artificial sexuality that goes against what sexuality is -- it's just pure chemical pleasure/lust with none of the exhilaratingly human feelings of connection and closeness. In some ways, it's more heartbreaking to have this treatment than to just live with the sexual sides.