Posted by Nezirov on June 26, 2005, at 15:27:04
In reply to Re: Can SSRI anorgazmia mess up hormones ?? » linkadge, posted by Chairman_MAO on June 26, 2005, at 10:12:18
This is a good point, and something that I've thought about as well. But what do you think is causing the persistent sexual dysfunction, which I and others have? Reduced testosterone, or something worse and more obscure and insidious.
I don't think it is brain damage in the traditional sense of death of neurons (well I really hope not - that would be just too terrible). More likely, I think, is that the neurons have undergone behavioral alterations that are not reversing for some reason, even though they seem to revese for most people. It's as though they're stuck in an abnormal pattern of biological activity. That could be reduction in the number of serotonin receptors, or dopamine receptors or whatever. Though I have a feeling it's probably more complicated than that.
But as long as the neurons contain DNA, there is no reason why they can't synthesize new receptors or transporters or whatever they need to function normally again. For some reason they're not getting the correct signals to do that.
But I know that the process is reversible because there was one day a few months ago when I was in a kind of "hypersexual" mode, had a libido, and could orgasm easily. But it didn't last, and everything returned to the hyposexual state.
Here's what I'm thinking: When you take any drug, especially something that interferes with hormones or neurotransmitters, the expression of many genes is altered. As you know, the body is a complex system, a network, and you can't just change one parameter without changing others. There are probably changes in hundreds of genes when you put psychoactive drugs in your body (actaually there is research to prove this). Those changes may not be all that large for individual genes, but because there are so many changes, the *net* result is profound. This is not that good of an analogy, but if you're listening to music, and you tweak each dial on the graphic equalizer just a little, you can get quite a different sound coming out of the speakers. Even if you only move each dial a little bit, because there are many dials, the overall change is large. That's what I think is going on here and why there are so many different side effects from SSRIs.
It will be difficult to fix I think, but not impossible.
poster:Nezirov
thread:517239
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050622/msgs/519318.html