Misc SNRI - Sexual side effects - Cymbalta

[budsnbars712]

I have GAD and have tried lexapro, zoloft, and now this last one Cymbalta. I do not notice any difference on these medications as I think smoking marijuana has to much of an effect on the body for these to work, but that is just my opinion.. Anyway, I was on Cymbalta 60 mg for about a year now. Now I am in a relationship with one of the most stunning women I have ever seen. Any man that knows a good looker would instantly recognize that she is top notch.. I bring this up only because even with her looks and attractiveness, I still have a hard time ejaculating and sometimes even getting it up. I can not even get one out watching pornography. It is a major side effect of SSRI's and SNRI's but this one seems to be the worst.

Now I want off as I want to be able to have a normal sex life. How do doctors expect one to not be depressed without having a sex life?! fucking doctors...
I mean it's so bad that when I pee, I finish and feel like I have to pee more, and then pee out prostate fluid because the prostate fluid is getting backed up and has nowhere to go. Ive known all along that SSRI and SNRI's give people major sexual dysfunction as I have read and experienced it myself, but never anything this severe. When I started peeing out prostate fluid I decided to see a urologist. He told me its all normal and my "plumbing" will go back to normal when I am off the cymbalta. Today is day 4. He also told me that he prescribes cymbalta to people who suffer from premature ejaculation.. The last thing a 26 yr old man like myself needs.....

The doctors lowered me from 60mg of Cymbalta to 30 mg for a month.. Now after I took the 30 mg for a month, we decided to pull the medication out of my system completely and now I have been currently off the med for 4 days.. I am experiencing what they call the "zaps" from the withdrawal, moody, dizzy, tired.. All symptoms of withdrawing... I just want to know when and if this is all expected to go away?! I CANNOT LIVE A NON DEPRESSED LIFE WITHOUT HAVING SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH MY COMPANION! That's like an oxymoron!! Ive been beating myself up as long as I am on the medication. I was always able to get hard and stay hard for hours without ejaculating, which my GF loved. But now since I am coming off, I'm having a hard time even getting it up. Can someone out there PLEASE tell me that this goes away and that they have experienced this before. I just want my normal sex life back...

I am also prescribed 1 mg 3 times daily of klonopin.

Please! Any help, advice, experience would make me feel a thousand times better

 

[Spadez87]

This is why I refused and still refused to take this drug and drugs like it. I hear you though.. I'm 26 to and how are most 26 year olds supposed to be happy with all the sex sides. Ridiculous really.

It took me about a month to get back to my normal sexual self. I don't know if that's the norm tho. Just my experience.

 

[RedHandedDenial]

Yea my side effects of cymbalta is being so drugged up drowsy that i sleep 24 hours a day. It really sucks. Idk what they put in that stuff but i think they put muscle relaxers in it since it is meant for fibromyalgia which is a muscle problem... and it does make me feel just like when i take zanaflex... ugh.

 

[RedHandedDenial]

The peeing thing is called overflow incontinence and is nothing sexual in nature, i had the same thing happen to me because of prozac man..

 

[Rybee]

Long post warning....

tl;dr - There's not much you can do for the retarded ejaculation, try lowering your dose or changing to a different SSRI/SNRI or other 'anti-depressant'. The clonazepam should help with brain zaps. Consider going back on 30mg and tapering more slowly to help ease your withdrawal effects. Prepare to possibly suffer from temporary premature ejaculation.



1) Retarded ejaculation is one of the most prominent side effects of SSRI/SNRI medication, there's very little you can do to avoid it, other than try a lower dose of Cymbalta or try a different SSRI/SNRI or other mechanism of 'antidepressant' that isn't notorious for invoking sexual dysfunction side-effects.

2) The Clonazepam should help somewhat with the brain zaps. I very rapidly withdrew from 450mg of Venlafaxine/Effexor (very similar to Cymbalta/Duloxetine) and suffered from brain zaps for 3 months, every single day - that's honestly no exaggeration. It was awful, but it had to be done. I took a mixture of both Diazepam and Lorazepam, small doses but administered frequently throughout the day (5x5mg and 5x0.5mg respectively) every day to help ease them, which really did help. I only noticed how much it helped after I stayed at a friends for the weekend and left them both at home. It's one of them scenarios in which you don't realise how much it's helping until you don't have access to it anymore. I really sympathise with you on this one, if you've not experienced it, it's hard to understand how horrible it can get. I wanted to blow my fucking brains out after just a week. You just have to hold on in there buddy.

If you really can't cope - don't worry. I'd go back to your 30mg dose and stabilise yourself for a while and then try and taper off again, but more slowly. I don't know what the smallest dose is that Duloxetine comes in, but if 30mg is the smallest dose and you thus can't use the 30mg pills to taper to a smaller daily dose, such as:

Week 1: 30mg Cymbalta
Week 2: 25mg Cymbalta
Week 3: 20mg Cymbalta
Week 4: 15mg Cymbalta
Week 5: 10mg Cymbalta
Week 6: 5mg Cymbalta
Week 7>: 0mg

... like you could with other medications such as Benzos (Diazepam is commonly used in tapers), then you can look at using liquid-Prozac to help taper. The rationale behind swapping from Cymbalta tablets to liquid-Prozac is that, whilst acknowledged that it's only an SSRI and not an SNRI, the Prozac will still help your brain to inhibit the re-uptake of serotonin in the absence of your 30mg Cymbalta dose. The advantage of using Prozac (Fluoxetine) in liquid form is that you can measure out as much or as little as you like - as opposed to a 30mg Cymbalta tablet that you obviously can't just easily ingest 25mg of and leave 5mg over. Unless, they're capsules with powder inside, in which case you can open it, rack it up into equal lines and divvy it out into your desired dose in mg... Though somewhat-viable (i've seen others do it before) it's time consuming, inconvenient and eyeballing doses of SSRI/SNRIs is a terrible idea.

I don't know the actual dosing of the formula but for arguments sake, let's say 30mg of Cymbalta is ~equivalent to 10mg of Prozac, and 1ml of liquid Prozac is equivalent to 1mg of Prozac... you can then take:

Week 1: 30mg Cymbalta
Week 2: 10ml/10mg Prozac - which is still equal to your 30mg Cymbalta dose (for arguments sake... but you'll have to check this)
Week 3: 8ml/8mg Prozac
Week 4: 6ml/6mg Prozac
Week 5: 4ml/4mg Prozac
Week 6: 2ml/2mg Prozac
Week 7: 1ml/1mg Prozac
Week 8>: 0mg Prozac

... and taper much, much slower over a longer period of time which will help with the large majority of your withdrawal symptoms, brain zaps in particular. This method seems to be used more and more commonly as of late when people are having problems coming off of SSRI/SNRIs. When I was struggling to come off the Venlafaxine so quickly from such a high dose I actually supplemented my taper with liquid-Prozac. This was of course all planned, prescribed and monitored by my Psychiatrist. I would seriously urge you to seek the advice and approval of your doctor/psychiatrist/consultant before you make changes to any of your medication. Coming off of SSRI/SNRIs can be a horrible experience and you'll need all the support you can get.

3) It's fairly common, having withdrawn from an SSRI/SNRI, to suffer from premature ejaculation after suffering from retarded ejaculation. I did, for 6 months - and I honestly didn't know what was worse. On one side of the coin I could act like a porn star in bed and last a very long time, but couldn't ejaculate very easily, if at all. And on the other side of the coin, I could finally ejaculate after 2 years of very severely retarded ejaculation, though it was as quick as a school boy in a strip club. Both are horrible and I'm glad that's in the past. As much as your other half may love you, it does knock your confidence and it starts to take its toll, you then feel under a lot more pressure to perform in the bedroom, and a long with that comes even more sexual side effects caused by stress.



Sexual-related side effects was probably ~70% of the reason that I originally quit, and will never try SSRI/SNRIs again, and why I switched to Valdoxan/Agomelatin - a novel melatonergic antidepressant. Not all SSRI/SNRIs will result in retarded ejaculation, so you can try another, though your chances will be stacked against you if you've suffered from it before.

On a side note, a lot of my friends take Tramadol (an opioid painkiller with SNRI properties that acts somewhat similar to SSRI/SNRI medications - sorry to sound patronising if you already know what Tramadol is) as it causes them to have retarded ejaculation and means they can last a lot longer in the bedroom if they get lucky that night. It's more frequently being prescribed off-label as an acute form of treatment of premature ejaculation, then again so are a lot of SSRI/SNRI medications in small doses. Citalopram/Celexia is the most common to start with.





I'm sorry this post is a bit long and has gone off-topic a little bit but I wanted to try and be as detailed as possible. I really do sympathise with you buddy. In the whole scheme of 'bad' in the world, brain zaps and poor bedroom performance can seem trivial to a lot of people, but they can really take their toll and add to your mental health problems. If there's anything I've not covered, you're unsure of, or want to know, please, please, please do ask me. I've been in your shoes before and it's horrible, so anything I can do to help, I will.

Chin up fella, big hugs.

 

[Rybee]

edit... pics of said 'stunning woman' please?

 

[budsnbars712]

Sorry man, Couldn't figure out to get a picture of my girlfriend on the thread.. Thank you for all of your advice. It is day 5 today of cold turkey and I am suffering from the zaps less. Last night I was able to orgasm twice with my gf which didnt even happen BEFORE I was on the SNRI. Premature or not because of coming of cymbalta, still a huge relief. I have heard of people tapering using prozac but I believe I can just do it right off the 30 mg. I feel okay now so I'll just stick it thru. Thanks for all the advice and help. Still don't understand doctors wanting a 26 yr old to not be depressed, by taking away my capability to orgasm.

 

[Doldrugs]

I hear you on the sexual side effects. That shit blows. The weirdest version of that kind of thing I experienced when cycling through different medications was when my dick literally felt numb but I stayed hard no problem. Obviously no ejaculation. It was depressing and frustrating. In my experience your body can adjust to these issues and they go away, but after a year and it's still going on? Fuck that, cymbalta's not for you.

Sometimes it takes a while to find the right drug. Each drug affects people differently. It took me a year of constant prescription changes and about 30 medications to find what worked for me but I'm happy, my anxiety is manageable, and my sex life is great (for the first time ever, depression has sexual side effects too). It can be a rocky path but I recommend you don't give up yet. 3 medications is nothing. Meds may not be the answer for you but I think it's worthwhile to exhaust your options to make sure. Tell your doctor you want to try something different and keep doing it until you find something that doesn't suck.

Good luck, man.