Have sexual side effects ever made you give up a prescription drug?



"CDC: Antidepressants most prescribed drugs in U.S." Er, that's a recent highly um, depressing CNN headline. But it's no secret we're a nation of pillheads. Why, according to the article, 2.4 billion prescriptions were written in 2005 alone, and that's before an even higher percentage of Big Pharma advertising started not only appealing to doctors, but began occurring on TV, in magazines and other media more than ever before, beckoning us all to conveniently "ask our doctors" to fix problems we didn't even realize we had until now. But there's another problem that all this medication has presented, and all it takes is the proliferation of women dishing (not to mention Viagra advertisements), to realize that sexual side effects are a whole other side show being created by our voracious need for pills.

Here's the crazy thing: Most women will tell you that they've experienced decreased libido and anorgasmia (failure to achieve orgasm)--not to mention the fun Ambien-related sleep sex debacles--but look at the accompanying literature on most pharmaceuticals and it seems to be skewed towards males in terms of describing ejaculatory failure and erectile dysfunction. Of course, it's not shocking to discover that medical studies are geared towards men and not women. That's been going on for some time now.

Still, have the sexual side effects of a drug ever convinced you to discontinue use?