Do anti anxiety meds cause emotional blunting?

One of the widely-reported side effects of SSRIs is 'blunting', where patients report feeling emotionally dull and no longer finding things as pleasurable as they used to. Between 40-60% of patients taking SSRIs are believed to experience this side effect.

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Can anxiety meds cause emotional numbness?

As it is with any medication, antidepressants can have side effects, including the possibility of what is termed “emotional blunting.” According to studies, nearly half of people taking antidepressants at some point experience emotional blunting from antidepressants.

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What medications cause emotional blunting?

Antidepressants that commonly cause emotional blunting include:
  • selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) escitalopram (Lexapro) paroxetine (Paxil) fluoxetine (Prozac) sertraline (Zoloft)
  • serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) duloxetine (Cymbalta) venlafaxine (Effexor XR) desvenlafaxine (Pristiq)

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Does emotional blunting from antidepressants go away?

In most cases, feelings of numbness go away when you stop taking the antidepressant that is causing you to feel this way. If you feel emotionally numb, it's important to tell your doctor. Don't stop taking your antidepressant without talking to your doctor first.

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Why do my antidepressants make me feel emotionless?

Patients on SSRI antidepressants feel numb because the drug reduces reinforcement sensitivity, that is, our sensitivity to positive feedback, which you can also call rewards or pleasure.

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Emotional Blunting with Antidepressants

17 related questions found

Can antidepressants dull your feelings?

Emotional blunting is also considered a potential side effect of antidepressants, in particular SSRI antidepressants, and has been reported in multiple case reports and clinical studies.

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How do you fix emotional blunting from SSRI?

Options to resolve emotional blunting are therefore to:
  1. lower the current dose and/or gradual discontinuation of the SSRI.
  2. change the antidepressant to one with a different profile that might improve the patient's emotional response.

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Is emotional blunting permanent?

Emotional blunting can be temporary, lasting from a few minutes to a few hours at a time. It can also occur over the long term, from months to years. It all depends on the underlying cause. Experiencing emotional blunting may affect your relationships and how you feel about yourself and the world.

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What does emotional blunting feel like?

One of the widely-reported side effects of SSRIs is 'blunting', where patients report feeling emotionally dull and no longer finding things as pleasurable as they used to. Between 40-60% of patients taking SSRIs are believed to experience this side effect.

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Can you still cry on antidepressants?

When first starting antidepressants, you may not feel like yourself. Though your depression symptoms might have improved, feelings of extreme sadness can sometimes be replaced by an emotional numbness in which you are neither able to cry nor enjoy a real belly laugh. If you feel this way, you are definitely not alone.

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Do antidepressants make you less empathetic?

Widely used antidepressants cause “emotional blunting”, according to research that offers new insights into how the drugs may work and their possible side-effects.

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Which SSRI causes emotional blunting?

The researchers believe that the reduced reinforcement sensitivity caused by escitalopram may reflect the emotional blunting effect frequently reported by people taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), but further work is necessary to understand the underlying mechanism.

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How do you know if your antidepressant is too strong?

Your Mood or Energy Improve Too Much

If you're taking antidepressant medication and you either feel unusually elated, or you become very terse with your loved ones, feel noticeably more irritable, or have an uncharacteristic bout of rage, then it's likely that your antidepressant dose is too high.

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How long does anxiety numbness last?

Anxiety numbness can last a few moments to minutes if it is caused by anxiety and an active stress response, hypo or hyperventilation, or other temporary cause. Or it could persist for days or months if it is caused by hyperstimulation (chronic stress), medication, sleep deprivation, and other long-term cause.

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Is emotional blunting a trauma response?

Emotional numbing is a common symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Particularly Complex PTSD, (C-PTSD) when it can also be accompanied by memory suppression.

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Is emotional blunting a form of dissociation?

Emotional detachment can also be "emotional numbing", "emotional blunting", i.e., dissociation, depersonalization or in its chronic form depersonalization disorder.

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Does SSRI apathy go away?

An amotivational, or apathy, syndrome has been reported in a number of patients receiving SSRI treatment over the last decade. This adverse effect has been noted to be dose-dependent and reversible, but is often unrecognized.

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Does brain fog from SSRI go away?

These symptoms of brain fog may be short-term or ongoing as you take these medications. While antidepressants are generally intended to help with brain fog, some can cause brain fog as a side effect, depending on the medication and your unique response to it.

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Why can't I cry anymore?

It's not an uncommon experience and it's called anhedonia. Simply put, anhedonia is when you lose interest in the social activities and physical sensations that you once enjoyed. It's a symptom of many mental health conditions, including depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

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Will I ever feel normal again after antidepressants?

Because SSRIs cause more serotonin to remain in circulation in the brain, the individual experiences less depressive symptoms. In fact, many people report feeling completely back to normal when taking these medications.

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Can antidepressants make you feel depersonalized?

Depersonalization can also be an adverse effect of medication, including anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications. [7] If you believe your depersonalization is caused by an adverse effect of medication, you should discuss this with your doctor and pharmacist.

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Do SSRIs cause permanent changes?

It is well known that harms caused by SSRIs can be long-lasting [18] and there are indications that they can even be permanent, e.g. for sexual disturbances [39, 40]. Withdrawal symptoms are also drug harms, and they can also persist for a long time [18].

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Do SSRIs make it harder to cry?

The fact that in the present study an inability to cry was associated with a range of SSRIs with differing secondary effects suggests that it is the primary action on increasing synaptic availability of serotonin which mediates the effect.

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