"Emotional blunting" is the result of popular antidepressants increasing the level of the brain chemical, serotonin, and "hijacking" dopamine, a brain chemical connected with movement, emotion, motivation and feelings of pleasure.
Studying the connection between depression, love, sex and antidepressant treatment is difficult. However, any spouse or significant other whose partner suffers from depression and is on antidepressants knows the relationship has lost that loving feeling. The drugs used to treat depression are known to cause side effects that can interfere with relationships, including lack of desire and arousal problems, inability to achieve orgasm, delayed ejaculation and erectile dysfunction.
"These drugs blunt emotions and reduce obsessive-compulsive thinking, but those are also two main characteristics of romantic love, says Dr. Helen Fisher, a Rutgers University anthropologist who conducted brain studies of love. "You are tampering with the mechanisms that can help sustain feelings of romantic love and deep feelings of attachment."
One solution for couples is to take an antidepressant that can be stopped intermittently for "drug holidays" without losing effectiveness. Forest Pharmaceutical's Lexapro sometimes can be stopped on a Friday and resumed on a Monday, which increases the patient's sexual interest on the weekends. Some doctors give patients bupropion, sold under the brand Wellbutrin by Glaxo, which has been shown to have a lower rate of sexual side effects and is sometimes used as a treatment for sexual dysfunction. For menopausal women, sometimes estrogen and testosterone drugs, such as Solvay Pharmaceutical's Estratest, are prescribed.
If you are taking an antidepressant and develop marital or romance problems, "don't immediately assume it's you or the relationship," Dr. Andy Thomson, staff psychiatrist at the University of Virginia student health services, says, "because it may be the drug."
Source: The Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2006