Hello all, while I have not taken Propecia, I have similar side effects from taking psychiatric medications. I have lurked here for a few days and found people here to be extremely intelligent, have seen many recovery reports and wanted to see if you could assist me. In 1997, when I just turned 17 I took 20mg of Prozac for social anxiety and depression. It worked by causing a hypomanic state which was perceived by everyone as “normal”. I had not noticed for quite some time that I had lost my ability to have an erection, orgasm, libido etc. until I went to a school dance. The Prozac allowed me to ask the hottest girl in the school to dance but that’s when I noticed that although I had a hypomanic high I couldn’t feel any love or connection to people, no erection, no libido etc. We went to a strip club after the dance and that’s when I was really upset that I had no visual stimuli or anything. I was set into one emotion which was the hypomanic high. I freaked out and was embarassed to tell my doctor so I cold turkeyed the Prozac hoping that I would return to the former shy but very horny me.
Unfortunately, I went through withdrawal but no doctor understood it and I was kept getting fed more and more psychiatric medications and eventually psychiatric medication cocktails. The docs said they could reverse the sexual dysfunction because it was due to depression and foolishly I believed them because I was a teenager. Since September 1997 I have been on Prozac, Effexor, Serzone, Remeron, Celexa, Wellbutrin, Depakote, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Ativan, Valium, Klonopin, Synthroid, Lithium Carbonate, Trazadone, Lamictal and probably many more that I just don’t remember. I have had 6 inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations.
Through the use of Dr. Peter Breggin’s books and some forums online I was able to get off all medications in from the end of 2006 to July 2007 and live a somewhat decent life. I found out that I had Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) and adding all of those other meds just made it worse. Every test that I was told to get comes up normaly and every doctor perceives me as healthy except for the SPECT scan from the Amen Clinics which shows brain damage from the psychiatric medications. I have not been able to date because of my sexual dysfunction and I am now 28 years old. I would like to at least have one girlfriend in my life before I die. I tried using “pickup artist” techniques at bars and clubs in the hopes that I could just attempt to sleep with every woman I could find even though I had no libido but could orgasm.
Unfortunately when I did this, I had to drink alcohol to be able to talk to the girls to try and pick them up and now I just had another psych inpatient hospitalization because I didn’t realize how sensitive my nervous system had become and that drinking just brings back benzo and other psych med withdrawal making me insane again. Now I’m taking temazepam, valium, tegretol and trlipetal to control the withdrawal symptoms I encountered. My libido is at zero again. This is all very upsetting being a guinea pig for the mental health system.
I noticed this forum and saw that you were suffering similar to PSSD people and that there were lots of recoveries by using things like Phenibut and GHB and wondered if I should use them. I probably have not had deep sleep in over 12 years now. I know my case is very complicated but I am very desperate to raise my dopamine levels. Every medication I have taken has lowered dopamine levels (especially Zyprexa) so I am thinking if I can raise dopamine levels I can recover decently. Any advice you have would be appreciated.