ly plays ball from both sides of the court. What one patienttells their doctor is a side effect another patient tells their doctor is a benefit.Some of the benefits to Prozac are not effective with all patients. Although it is now oneof its uses , Prozac is not effective with all people attempting to lose weight. Others have in factreported weight gain. One Prozac user stated, “My distinct impression was that my metabolism(usually fairly sturdy) slowed up, and I didn’t care enough to cut back on food.” (Banishing theCream-n-Green Bullets) In this man’s case though, he doesn’t blame Prozac directly for theweight gain per say, so much as for cutting back his overall drive. There are many drawbacks or negative side effects to Prozac. Of the side effects reportedharmful, the most common are nausea, headaches, diarrhea, insomnia, and sexual difficulties. Although some more severe side effects like suicide have been associated to Prozac by somegroups, most believe there is no direct correlation between using Prozac as medication andsuicidal thoughts or acts. One Mayo Clinic psychiatrist, Dr. Keith G. Kramlinger said, “There’svery little evidence that this is a common side effect with the drug. Suppose that someone has adepressive illness in which there’s a risk of suicide. If you prescribe a medicine and the medicineis not effective for the person, the depression might get worse and lead to thoughts of suicide. Those thoughts can be the result of the depression rather than the medicine.” (UnderstandingProzac) The other reported side effects, though much milder, are typically the ones that drivepeople to stop using the drug. “In one study, about twenty percent of people who tried Prozacstopped taking it for such reasons. This ‘drop out’ rate is similar to that reported for tricyclics,”(Understanding Prozac) an earlier form of anti-depressant ...
