Survey About Genital Anesthesia

[Guest guest]

Dear Vornan,

What I would really like to see with this group is a survey of how many people in it have experienced genital anesthesia, for how long, and what drugs they think were responsible for it. Do you think there is some way we could set this up, and do you think that we could somehow get it out to the public?

After writing to some very influential people, including Dr. Szasz, Dr. Breggin, and Sharon Begley (journalist who wrote an article about antidepressants for Newsweek), I get the feeling that there haven't been any studies done specifically on this topic. Or, if there are, they are not available to the average individual.

I emailed Sharon in April of 2010. Here is what I said:

"Dear Ms. Begley, I found your email address in a message posted by one of the members ofthe Yahoo group on persistent sexual side effects of SSRIs. Hesuggested we write to you so you would know how extensive the problemis. Well, there are at least two of us in that group who have thesekind of effects from being forced to take antipsychotics, and thendiscontinuing them. Neither of us could find a support group with aspecific forum for our kind of loss, so we joined the one for those whohave taken SSRIs. I have searched for others who, like me, have become numb fromneuroleptics, but I have only found a few that have written about it onthe web. It's a subject that is difficult for many people to talkabout, and then, if they think you're mentally ill, no one believes youanyway. I did find an article in a journal that stated that one of themain reasons people don't want to take antipsychotic meds is because ofthe sexual side effects. It's called "Sexual Dysfunction: the ForgottenTaboo" (from "Mental Health Nursing", January 1, 2005) http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P3-777721421.html (It is now an article you have to pay to see. Fortunately I made a copyof it before it became that way.) I have been off neuroleptics for over 26 yrs, but I am still numb in mysaddle area. Here is the link to my channel on YouTube. On it I wrotemy story and posted a video explaining how I know what drug damaged me: http://www.youtube.com/user/Kay1948 If you do write another article about sexual dysfunction frompsychiatric drugs, I hope you will consider including information onantipsychotics as well. Thank you for your time in pursuing thismatter. Sincerely, Kay"

Sharon, when emailing back, said:

"Thanks very much, . I have indeed been hearing from readers about this issue, and will look into it. The problem so far is that data donot exist showing that persistence of these side effects is indeedcaused by the meds, or if the connection is just a statistical fluke,correlational but not causal.Anyway, I will continue to see what I canfind out. Allbest, Sharon Begley

Science editor Newsweek 395 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014"

Ginger Breggin, Dr. Breggin's wife, in emailing back to me, said something similar, that they didn't know of any studies on this kind of dysfunction. Dr. Szasz encourage me to write a book, even if it never gets published. (I had told him that my husband discouraged me from writing one, telling me that he doesn't think it would get published or read.)

Now that there are nearly 3000 of us on this site, surely there must be some effective way we can get the word out to warn people, especially the young, and those who are giving them psychiatric drugs, thinking they are doing the right thing.

Best regards,

Kay