Were you experiencing side effects that made you want to get off? For the vast majority of people there really are none.
I don't regret trying or even taking them for extended periods. They make the bad thoughts go away and raised the floor for my mood. But they also put a pretty low ceiling on it, too. I was probably on them for too long but clearly medicine doesn't have a perfect framework for handling every corner of this space, so I don't really blame anyone. There's a goldilocks zone for drug, dosage, and treatment length and I don't think I was always in it.
I've talked to many people who have bad things to say about SSRIs. On the other hand, my girlfriend is on one right now and seems very satisfied.
Sexual effects alone hit about 50–70% people. Then you could face nausea, insomnia, profuse sweating when you’re still, emotional blunting, and weight gain.
I don’t want to discourage anyone, they can save lives. It is a net benefit for some people, but even then most people will experience side effects and wish they didn’t have to take them.
> which was conducted in 1999-2000, questioned patients about side effects via phone interviews within 75 to 105 days of starting antidepressant therapy. The side effects deemed most bothersome were sexual dysfunction (17%)
It's no where near those numbers.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3181894/
You notice how the scientific numbers get inflated in anecdotes from 17-34% to 50-70%?
Different thing entirely from long-term effects.
“get inflated in anecdotes”
Just because one study has the number 34% in it, does not prove the numbers I gave were wrong and does not mean they are anecdotal.
This is something that’s been studied from many angles and there’s more than one number that’s defensible based on the context and dataset.
For example, even the study you cited says: “In a study of 344 patients by Montejo-Gonzalez et al, 58% of patients reported sexual dysfunction when physicians directly inquired”, and “14% with spontaneous reporting”.
In another example, a 1,000 patient study found 57.7–72.7% for common SSRIs. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11229449/
The “scientific numbers” you allude to are not one value. It’s a body of research not one definitive number.
Taken a whole I don’t think anyone is being that mislead when it’s suggested more than half of people may experience these side effects.
I've tried a variety and I can't say whether I've experienced side effects. That's just an anecdote but that's the thing with this discussion, that's all you will get. If people don't suffer side effects, they're not likley to get on HN and post about them, etc.
The bigger issue is the person dealing with these issues is taking them because they are not well-off. If you deal with reduced desire, for example, is that a side effect of the medication or is that a side effect of being depressed.
I think your "wild" is a little flippant or telling because it just points back to anecdotes.
They are also anecdotal, hundreds, thousands of people suffering side effects. Given dozen of millions people in the U.S alone are prescribed those things daily, that a drop in the ocean. But not everyone post on Reddit either
I never found a sub reddit talking about the side effects of mineral water, how eating apples regularily lowered their libidos, on that sleeping on a mattress made them senile.
At some point common sense primes over what funded science wants people to believe.
The side effects exist since some doctors do warn about them, one may also find them in the counter indications mentioning those things. It isn't unfounded.
What's taboo today is to criticize SSRIs over prescriptions. Odd, given that over 25% of the U.S population are taking them, or some other form of legal psycho active substance, just to be able to "function".
> The proportion of patients reporting adverse events ranged from 16% to 98% (median 80%) under SSRI treatment and from 17% to 94% (median 70%) under placebo [1]
So the answer IMO depends on whether we can attribute adverse effects to treatment, which is difficult to disentangle from adverse effects of disease
I’m open to being shown more certainty if available from the literature but meta-analyses are high-strength evidence
[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/the-british-journal-...
I was on a very low dose of Bupropion for about 5 years and did mostly well; it only made my existing brain fog slightly worse. I usually recommend that one over SSRIs due to my experiences.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the damn brain zaps on SSRIs. Even if I missed a dose by 18 hours, I would get the zaps.
What's missing is also follow up - for some those effects don't resolve after stopping the drug.
Why are you certain about this?
you don't experience side-effects now, but you will if you need to stop taking it
In my personal circle I only new of a single woman who had no issues. The majority had all flowers off issues. During and afterwards. No most of the time it got downplayed or simply ignored but doctors and society a like. I'm personally glad that birth control pills are not longer sold as a wonder pill because many woman suffered needlessly and the worst part is that many did not knew that is was the pill in the first place.