The premature ejaculation as a symptom of coming off fluoxetine? A case report
Dominik Strzelecki, Jolanta Rabe-Jabłońska

In recent years more attention has been paid to the symptoms occurring after coming off antidepressants. Obviously, also the patients become more and more interested in this phenomenon. It is estimated that on average such symptoms occur in approx. 30% of the patients and reach a significant clinical level. We have a more and more systematized knowledge about the SSRI therapy completion syndrome and hypotheses which are to account for the occurrence of the symptoms concerned are proposed. Although among typical symptoms after the completion of antidepressive therapy most prevalent are pseudoinfluenzal symptoms, vertigo, dysaesthesia or sleep disorders, also several descriptions of sexual disorders occurring after the completion or maintained after the completion of antidepressant therapy were published. Obviously, not all the above mentioned and similar symptoms should be qualified as the SSRI therapy completion syndrome; a considerable group of patients experience the recurrence of symptoms of the basic, e.g. anxiety disorder. In the described patient the symptoms (including the premature ejaculation) appeared after discontinuation of fluoxetine, which provoked considerations of the basis of the observed changes, willingness of their diagnostic qualification and thereby implementation of treatment (if anxiety disorders relapse) or waiting for or return to the medicinal drug and its slower discontinuation (appropriate for the SSRI therapy completion syndrome). As opposed to the initial suspicions, in the patient presented in the article the anxiety disorders relapsed, as evidenced mainly by the time and sequence of the occurrence of symptoms and their general characteristics.