Twenty years ago, Prozac (fluoxetine) burst onto the antidepressant market, changing forever the way antidepressants would be prescribed, sold, and marketed. Not only did the marketing of Prozac open a new chapter in drug history (being the first SSRI FDA-approved, Eli Lilly marketed it in ways a drug had never before been marketed), it also enjoyed unprecedented positive press and even books (not only Peter Kramer’s 1994 book Listening to Prozac, but the even more compelling Talking Back to Prozac).

I remember when Prozac was first released, I was still in college and it wasn’t that big an interest to me until I entered grad school a few years later. When you have clients who are taking the new “wonder drug,” you can’t but help hear about it. Then the marketing was in full swing, some competitors were coming on the market, and all you heard about was the wonders of SSRIs (tastes great! less filling!). But what I was hearing from my clients wasn’t all wonderful — side effects were still there, and in many ways, these side effects were even more difficult to deal with. So instead of dealing with ‘dry mouth,’ people were dealing with having no sexual feelings or sex drive. Which increased relationship issues in some of them, which led, in some cases, to a feeling of hopelessness, that the person would never feel “normal.” Even more frustrating, this was before the sexual side effects of SSRIs was widely acknowledged and understood, so many dismissed these side effects as a symptom of the depression, not the antidepressant.

Mind Hacks has a full entry talking about Prozac, research, and where we are today with such antidepressants.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

Like this author?
Catch up on other posts by John M. Grohol, PsyD (or subscribe to their feed).

Comments

This post currently has 5 comments. You can read the comments or leave your own thoughts on our new comments page.

Trackbacks

מקבץ מ-סיבת דיכאון (12/16/2007)

From Psych Central's World of Psychology:
SSRI Antidepressants and Your Sex Life - World of Psychology (12/15/2008)

    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 17 May 2007
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.