The Antidepressant LEAST Likely To Cause Sex Problems
Unfortunately, few doctors know that Wellbutrin is an effective substitute for SSRIs, one that causes few sexual side effects and may even enhance sexual satisfaction.
Depression is a very common, potentially fatal illness (suicide). Antidepressants usually help, but they have a distressing downside, sexual side effects: loss of erotic interest, arousal and erection problems, and particularly trouble having orgasms. Fortunately, one antidepressant is much less likely to cause sexual side effects—Wellbutrin (bupropion). .
Wellbutrin is just as effective as the most popular class of drugs, the SSRIs (Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro, Luvox). It’s nonsexual side effects are no worse, and it’s unlikely to cause sexual side effects. But doctors rarely prescribe it. Therein hangs of tale of bad luck and drug company prudery in the era before Viagra.
In the mid-1980s, North Carolina-based Burroughs-Wellcome (now GlaxoSmithKline) contracted with several laboratories to study Wellbutrin’s side effects in hopes of winning Food and Drug Administration approval. One study raised a red flag. At high doses, Wellbutrin’s original formulation triggered seizures in four-tenths of 1 percent of users, four people per 1,000. That’s not many, but it was three times the seizure risk of other antidepressants, and the FDA has nightmares about car wrecks caused by seizures behind the wheel. The study results were reported in the medical press, and suddenly, doctors viewed Wellbutrin as too risky to prescribe.
Burroughs-Wellcome scrambled and came up with a new slow-release (SR) formulation that causes seizures in only one-tenth of one percent of users, comparable to the seizure risk of Prozac and Paxil, and lower than the risk associated with Zoloft, Luvox, and Celexa. But the damage was done. Wellbutrin was tainted, and despite a massive advertising campaign, doctors did not change their minds. (The name, Wellbutrin, was so toxic that when the drug was shown to help smokers quit, it was released under a different name, Zyban.)
Meanwhile, around the time of the seizure scare, a dozen years before Viagra’s approval, Burroughs-Wellcome also contracted with a noted sex researcher, Theresa Crenshaw, M.D., (now deceased) to investigate Wellbutrin’s side effects. Crenshaw, the coauthor of the medical text, Sexual Pharmacology. found that it caused fewer sexual side effects than other antidepressants—and the some users reported sexual enhancement. “Our study,” Crenshaw told me in an interview shortly before her death, “was the first well-controlled clinical trial to demonstration an improvement in sexual function due to drug treatment.”
An astonished Crenshaw rushed to tell Burroughs-Wellcome that Wellbutrin was more than just another antidepressant. It was a potential bonanza, a pill that, for some, improved sex. Oddly, Burroughs-Wellcome showed no interest. Or not so oddly. Before Viagra, the drug industry had steered clear of anything sexual. In Crenshaw’s words, “They were prudes.”
Between its seizure taint and sexual complications, Burroughs-Wellcome decided to relegate Wellbutrin to limbo, available but ignored.
Wellbutrin languished both on pharmacy shelves and as a focus of research. But in the mid-1990s, low-libido became recognized as a problem, and researchers showed renewed interest in Crenshaw’s earlier report. Several more studies showed that Wellbutrin caused fewer sexual side effects than SSRIs, and that SSRI users who also took some Wellbutrin reported fewer sexual side effects and better sexual functioning.
If you’re currently taking an SSRI and suffering sex problems because of it, ask your doctor about the possibility of switching to Wellbutrin. Or ask about taking a low dose of Wellbutrin (75 mg) in addition to your SSRI two hours before sex. Unfortunately, few doctors know that Wellbutrin is an effective substitute for SSRIs, one that causes few sexual side effects and may even enhance sexual satisfaction.
If you switch to Wellbutrin, or add it to your treatment regimen, the only unusual side effects is somewhat more risk of tremor, which can be scary. Fortunately, after a few months, any tremors usually subside.
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References
Ashton, A.K. et al. “Bupropion as an Antidote for Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor-Induced Sexual Dysfunction,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (1998) 59:12.
Clayton, A.H. et al. “A Placebo-Controlled Trial of Bupropion SR as an Antidote for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor-Induced Sexual Dysfunction,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (2004) 65:62.
Crenshaw T.L. et al. “Pharmacologic Modification of Psychosexual Dysfunction,” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy (1987) 13:239.
Demyttenaere, K. and L. Jaspers. “Review: Bupropion and SSRI-Induced Side Effects,” Journal of Psychopharmacology (2008) 22:792.
Labbate, L.A. et al. “Bupropion Treatment of Serotonin Reuptake Antidepressant-Associated Sexual Dysfunction,” Annals of Clinical Psychiatry (1997) 9:241.
Modell, J.G. et al. “Effect of Bupropion SR on Orgasmic Dysfunction in Nondepressed Subjects: A Pilot Study,” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy (2000) 26:231.
Modell, J.G. et al. “Comparative Sexual Side Effects of Bupropion, Fluoxetine, Paroxetine, and Sertraline,” Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (1997) 61:476.
Rowland, D.L. et al. “Bupropion and Sexual Function: A Placebo-Controlled Prospective Study of Diabetic Men with Erectile Dysfunction,” Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology (1997) 17:350.
Safarinejad, M.R. “Reversal of SSRI-Induced Female Sexual Dysfunction by Adjunctive Bupropion in Menstruating Women: A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Randomized Trial,” Journal of Psychopharmacology (2010) epub ahead of print.
Questions & Answers
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My boyfriend has been taking an antidepressant (paroxtine, 20 mg/day) for almost a year. After 2 weeks of the medication, we noticed a reduction in his sexual abilities (reduction in erection but normal ejaculation). He is 25 years old. Is this side effect permanent even after he stops the medication? Will a year of using it destroy his sexual abilities? Read my response…
I took SSRI antidepressants for 20 years and suffered severe sex problems as a result. I complained to my doctor and to a psychiatrist, asking if I could switch to bupropion (Wellbutrin), which I’d heard causes fewer sexual side effects. They both told me the same thing—it’s not worth it because it would take so long for the bupropion to kick in that I might have another major depressive episode. Finally, I became more assertive with my primary doc and he relented and prescribed bupropion. I experienced a wonderful 180-degree sexual turn-around! Now I’m 70 and feel so bad about my 20 years of lost sex life. My question: My wife is not depressed. Can she take bupropion to see if it would give her libido a boost? Read my response…
Thank you for sharing this valuable information!