Hello Dr M.

I’m new to this site, but unfortunately I’ve been on and off several different anti-depressants over the past 8 years, including; prozac, clomipramine, fluvoxamine and lastly cipralex.

I usually start taking the drugs and they seem to work great in managing my OCD and depression and I make the mistake of quitting abruptly, mostly due to the fact that I feel better and I want to be medication free.

In some cases, specifically with the clomipramine (Anafril), the side effects after a certain point become intolerable so that led me to quitting the drug abruptly.

I find that after I stop taking a certain drug, in this case, lets take cipralex, I find that once I’ve stopped for a few months and then when I resume the treatment and start taking it again, the mediciton doesn’t seem as effective as it initially was.

I’ve noticed this pattern with ALL of the different drugs that I have mentioned above.

Even if I stop for as short as a week and then restart, it just for some odd reason seems that the drug is not as effective as it was before.

My testosterone is pretty low for being a 28 yr old male so I’m not sure if that has something to do with the effectiveness the SSRI’s.

I have several theories as to what maybe happening but I cannot substantiate any of them and thought Id make a post as wether low T levels can be a contributing factor in determining the efficacy of SSRi’s.

Alternatively if its not the low T, then is it possible that I have somehow desensitized my self from the drugs?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as I’ve been struggling with this issue.

Thanks