One of the recurrent themes was that some of these more serious side effects are believed by researchers to be caused by the drugs' indirect effects on another brain chemical called dopamine. So, we're learning that these antidepressants, in fact, are not so selective for serotonin, because there are connections in the circuitry in the brain between serotonin and dopamine. So, from the research we have, it appears that one of the backlashes in the brain, what I call Prozac backlash, is that if you boost serotonin, the brain reflexively lowers dopamine. And that's the mechanism by which many of these more serious side effects appear to be caused. ET One of the neurological side effects of SSRIs is called drug-induced parkinsonism.
Patients have severe fatigue and feel very slowed down.
They move very slowly and have symptoms that look like Parkinson's disease. We have had people come on the Web site and say that they had this side effect, and that their doctor didn't recognize it, and they were diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. And the dose of the drug was put up, and they got worse. Then they were diagnosed with fibromyalgia. So, this is another of the serious side effects that doctors and patients really need to know about.