Yilbaş, Barış · Turk psikiyatri dergisi = Turkish journal of psychiatry · 2022 · DOI
Some antidepressant medications can cause sexual side effects like loss of desire and difficulty with arousal. This report describes two women whose sexual problems improved when modafinil (a medication used for sleep disorders and fatigue) was added to their antidepressant treatment. One woman saw significant improvement at 100 mg daily, while the other needed 200 mg daily to see meaningful improvement.
For ME/CFS patients, this study is relevant because many require antidepressants for comorbid depression and fatigue management, and sexual dysfunction is an underrecognized but significant quality-of-life issue. Modafinil is already used in some ME/CFS patients for fatigue, making potential dual benefits worth exploring. Understanding medication side effects and potential remedies helps patients make informed treatment decisions.
This case report does not prove modafinil is effective for antidepressant-induced sexual dysfunction in a broader population—two cases cannot establish efficacy or safety across different patients, ages, antidepressant types, or underlying conditions. It does not establish causation or rule out placebo effect, spontaneous improvement, or other confounding factors. Generalizability to ME/CFS populations specifically is unclear.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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