Wellbutrin Helping With Pleasureless Orgasm
Hey folks,
Just wanted to post this for anyone searching the internet for hopeful stories of people recovering from pleasureless orgasm.
After taking Lexapro for a few months I basically lost all, or nearly all, pleasurable sensation when engaging in sexual activity.
I could still get and maintain an erection—no trouble there—but the sexual act (e.g., sex, masturbation, etc.) could be totally without or with only minimal sexual pleasure. My libido was also way down, naturally.
Whether this was caused by Lexapro, finasteride, pelvic floor hyper-tension or hypo-tension, nerve damage from cycling, something else, or a combination of the forgoing I’m not sure.
Eventually, I got in with a urologist who had done a fellowship in sexual health and actually knew and cared about this rather distressing condition. By that time, it had been two years.
His immediate suggestion was Wellbutrin. He cited studies showing that it sometimes improves or even reverses the loss of pleasure (these studies are indeed out there, though across the board such studies have found mixed results).
His theory is that the loss of pleasure is somehow associated with a reduction of dopamine, a down-regulation of dopamine receptors, or some other change in dopamine signaling that is caused by the increase in serotonin effected by SSRIs. Apparently its hard to study and pin down because getting readings of those things from live people’s brains is like impossible.
By this point, I had already tried: stretching / massaging recommend by a pelvic floor physical therapist; diaphramic breathing; kegels; reverse kegels; other types of strength training; various supplements; and a long break from cycling.
So, despite my hesitation to take another neurotransmitter-altering pharmaceutical product, I felt like I was out of other options and decided to give it a shot. I’m on Wellbutrin XL 150mg/daily.
Two months in, I can say with a high degree of confidence that the Wellbutrin is making a big difference. Pleasure during sex—and, crucially, during orgasm—is back. I’m more interested in sex, able to last a lot longer, and it feels pretty good to great to orgasm.
I wouldn’t say things are all the way back to baseline, but I’m thrilled to have significant improvement. Hopefully, things will keep getting better and the results will be durable. I’ll pop in to update in a few months.
One other thing I’ve been doing consistently is standing squats with a 30 - 60 lb dumbbell. Not sure whether that’s helping, but it has overlapped with the Wellbutrin, so could be.
Hope this helps.