Stopping Premature Ejaculation

Drug therapy as a way to stop premature ejaculation

As many men who have been given SSRIs for the treatment of depression will know, delayed ejaculation is a common side-effect of antidepressant prescription medications. This has led to their use as medication for a treatment to stop or prevent premature ejaculation. However, perhaps not unexpectedly, not one of them has been approved by the FDA for use in this context. If prescribed to treat premature ejaculation these drugs are being used "off label".

Attention has centered on Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil. Early investigations demonstrated that Paxil was the most effective drug at controlling premature ejaculation, sometimes extending the interval between penetration and ejaculation from one minute to ten. However, the side effects can be troublesome, and the drug has to be taken in a very unspontaneous way about four hours before intercourse. An alternative is to take the drug daily so that spontaneous sex is still possible, but many men would balk at the idea of taking a drug to treat depression on a regular basis as a method of controlling premature ejaculation.

Even more alarmingly it has been reported that after taking the drug for between one and two weeks, men can then stop taking it on a daily basis and simply take it four hours before intercourse is required. This raises the interesting question of what biochemical changes are taking place in the brain, and what other effect these may be having on a man's long-term welfare besides preventing premature ejaculation. Intuitively it does seem strange when effective therapeutic treatments such as those described on this website are available that a man would turn to prescription medication to treat his condition, although one has to recognize the power of the medical profession at work here.

Side effects are also a problem with SSRIs: these include reduced libido, a dry mouth, anxiety, diarrhea, drowsiness and headache amongst others. If you are following research in this field you may well have heard of Dapoxetine, a drug similar to the SSRI which has been designed solely for the treatment of premature ejaculation. It reaches its maximum concentration within an hour inside the body and is removed from the body quite quickly which allows them to take it on demand rather than every day: clearly this is preferable, but again there seems to me to be a matter of principle at stake here, in that taking a prescription medication for a treatment which is psychological in origin is rather dubious. The progress of Dapoxetine has been somewhat checkered in that it has been refused a license by the FDA, although licensed by some European countries. The reasons for this are unclear although they may centre on the debate about withdrawal from SSRIs and suicide that occurred in 2005 onwards.

Read more here: PE Treatment - SSRI Anti Depressants

[ Ways to stop PE ] [ PE cure ] [ Treating PE with Drugs ] [ Anesthetic Delay Sprays To Stop PE ] [ Hypnosis and PE ] [ How Ejaculation Works ]