I had an interesting discussion with my psychiatrist the other day.
Apparently, one of the medications I am taking, Geodon/Ziprasidone (it's an atypical antipsychotic; I'm not psychotic but it's been prescribed for me to treat certain properties of anxiety and an unspecified mood disorder) raises the level of Prolactin in most patients' blood. Prolactin is a hormone that stimulates and helps to regulate lactation in women who have recently had children. Prolactin is relatively useless for men but I guess we have it anyway.
In female patients, prolactin often affects their menstrual cycles and can cause infertility. In male patients, it can cause infertility as well as erectile dysfunction.
Here is a quote from an article I found:
"As with other drugs that antagonize dopamine D2 receptors, ziprasidone elevates prolactin levels in humans. Increased prolactin levels were also observed in animal studies with this compound, and were associated with an increase in mammary gland neoplasia in mice."
http://www.rxlist.com/geodon-drug/wa...recautions.htm
The reason this came up in conversation with my psychiatrist was that I was having some pain and found a lump in my chest, which scared the crap out of me because I'm paranoid about developing complications from my surgeries and I'm even more paranoid about developing random health problems.
The normal blood prolactin level for men is 2 - 18 ng/mL. My psychiatrist had me take a blood test and mine came out at about 20.8.
I'm also on Haloperidol which apparently can increase prolactin levels as well.
I just thought this stuff was kind of interesting. I'd never heard of it before.
/Keddy