Re: Mono vs. Fluoxetine

[Guest guest]

I also feel this way. I just think the antidepressants numb you, and it results in permanent damage in ones ability to experience emotion. So when we go off the meds all of the anxiety that would usually be there is hindered because our ability to experience emotion in general has been damaged.

I'm a 22 year old male. I took Celexa for about 4 years without sexual

side effects but switched to fluoxetine for about 8 months because I

couldn't deal with the drowsiness at the time. Celexa never caused

sexual side effects though.

I've been off Fluoxetine for about 3 1/2 months and so far everything

is exactly how it was when I was on it. I'm numb emotionally and the

libido is next to nothing. Interestingly, the mental help I got from

fluoxetine for OCD and depression are also still apparently in effect.

I feel like I never stopped taking it.

So I've been reading up on this as much as I can and I think I put two

and two together on something yesterday and I want to know if my

thinking is correct.

1) Fluoxetine is mainly processed through the liver (that right?).

2) Mononucleosis caused my spleen (or my liver or both) to swell quite

a bit for 6 weeks early during this recovery period.

So the thinking here is that my condition may have slowed down my

body's ability to process the fluoxetine, which could explain the

side-effects lasting this long. It also might explain why mentally I

still feel the same as when I was on the drug. It's kind of tricky

though since I don't know how much the drugs were actually doing for

me since they never completely eliminated my symptoms anyhow, and for

all I know after doing a bit of growing up and working on my condition

they weren't making things any better anyway.

So a couple questions - can anyone clarify the process fluoxetine

takes before exiting your system? More importantly, does anyone know

how a swollen spleen and/or liver would function in eliminating the

drug compared to a healthy one?

Since I was initially told it would take 2-3 months for things to be

back to normal I'm hoping that the mono just caused a bit of a delay

and that things will be better soon. I'm trying not to be too worried

but with all the horror stories around here... well you know.