My wife has been taking Lexapro for a while now and we have noticed that it not only reduces her sex drive to near non-existent levels but also seems to make climaxing frustratingly difficult for her. I’m a good hubby and won’t give up until she’s satisfied, no matter how long it takes. Neither rain, nor snow, nor muscle cramps, nor lockjaw, nor dead batteries will prevent me from helping her reach that goal.
My question for ladies taking this infernal medication or their husbands: have you noticed similar difficulties and what have you done to compensate or overcome them?
Guy who takes Lexapro here. What’s bad for the goose can be good for the gander. YMMV and all, but I’ve found that there’s no dampening of desire in my case. It does take me a little longer to climax, but um, let’s just say my wife isn’t exactly complaining about that…
I took Lexapro for a while and and my libido dropped to zero. My sex drive was already low due to the depression (and related body issues), and the medication built on that. I had an understanding and supportive partner but that didn’t help me, no matter how much I wanted to want sex.
Unfortunately, the problem for me was that my depression wasn’t lifting and was actually becoming worse because the Lexapro wasn’t working for me. The only thing that worked was a change of medication.
There is some research into medication for boosting libido, but I believe nothing on the market right now. If this is a big issue for both of you, perhaps a change of medication is in order. Wellbutrin supposedly does not cause similar weight gain and lack of sex drive as Lexapro.
I took Lexipro, and I absolutely could not climax, no matter how hard I tried. And, one time I managed to get a girl to give me a blowjob, but I totally went limp. Embarassing. I switched medications to the generic of Remeron, which doesn’t even list sexual side effects as their side effects.
I took Remeron fo about 8 months, but it gave me irritable leg syndrom. At that point, I decided to handle my anxiety through exercise only, these meds just make things worse, INHI.
::looks over shoulder to see if the missus is watching::
My wife takes 10 mg daily, and definitely does not have the problems described by the OP. Does the prescribing information list sexual side effects as a potential problem? If so this is probably one of those YMMV things.
One such drug under development is Bremelanotide. It recently successfully completed Phase IIb for the indication of treating female sexual dysfunction. Phase III is supposed to start ‘soonish’ (first half of 2007), so if all goes well, we’ll see something on the market in 3-4 years. The FDA is traditionally skittish about these things, but with so much use of anti-depressants (most of which have sexual side-effects) nowadays, I think they’ll give their nod assuming all goes well.
I take Lexapro and I most deheheheHEHfinitely don’t have this problem.
Sorry your wife does, though.
Yeah, SSRI’s can be a crap shoot. She should talk to her doctor about this. Likely there is another med she can try? Also talk to her doc about taking a med holiday (usually 24-48 hours?) so she can have her sex drive/response occassionally? Some meds you can do this with, some you can’t.
When I took Celexa I didn’t wanna “do it”, and couldn’t climax. When I switched to Lexapro, I felt the same way, then after a few months or so, my libido is better and I can climax. In fact (and this never happened before i took lexapro), when I climax, I feel it all the way to my toes. They tingle.
Definitely YMMV. But don’t you and your wife give up and think “we just have to live with this”. There’s gotta be an antidepressant that will work and let you guys have a normal sex life.
