alt Hacker NewsI've heard similar about Zoloft, and Effexor (which is notorious for causing withdrawal symptoms when coming off it).
I believe Lexapro is a highly selective SSRI, which might explain its lack of withdrawal symptoms (and also its "does absolutely nothing" effect for some people). Prozac has a very long half-life compared to other SSRIs so it's basically got an in-built taper, and is why it's often 'cross-tapered' to when coming off another SSRI.
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I’ve been on Lexapro for a few years now, and if I skip it for a couple days I get very unpleasant brain zaps and dizziness. If this is a lack of withdrawal symptoms then I hate to imagine what other SSRIs cause!
Still, it’s been a life changing drug for me and I haven’t really had any bad side effects while I’ve been taking it.
I took Lexapro for a month one time. Luckily I happened to also be seeing an endocrinologist so I happened to have before and after blood work. A few weeks after Lexapro my prolactin level spiked to far higher than is normal for a male. The endocrinologist was worried I had a prolactinoma and had me get an MRI! I stopped Lexapro and gradually the prolactin level went back to normal, but it took a while. There are far more effects from these drugs than are well documented or acknowledged by most of the medical community. I had to go digging myself to find studies and case reports connecting SSRIs to elevated prolactin and suggest the possibility to my doctors who said that's the first they'd heard about it. If your hormones are messed up or you're feeling more gender nonconforming, work with your doctor to see if it's your SSRI.