I see several people in this thread welcoming the fact that there is "finally an alternative to SSRIs". I don't want to discuss whether Ketamine is or is not a

I see several people in this thread welcoming the fact that there is "finally an alternative to SSRIs". I don't want to discuss whether Ketamine is or is not a good alternative to SSRIs -- instead, I'd like to point out that there are already a great number of alternatives to SSRIs. For one, there are tricyclics (TCAs), which were the first antidepressants on the market, and generally are not prescribed nowadays. Another category of older antidepressants includes MAOIs, which were the first mass-market antidepressants. These are also not generally prescribed nowadays due to interactions with common types of food, although modern MAOIs such as moclobemide [1] require far less diatary restrictions than the older MAOIs did. The final major category I'll mention are SNRIs, which along with SSRIs are the most commonly prescribed first-line antidepressants. Apart from these major categories, there are a bunch of atypical antidepressants on the market. There's bupropion, which I personally take, and which has far less side effects than SSRIs and SNRIs but may not be as effective for all patients. There's St. John's wort, which is available off prescription in many countries. There's lithium, which has recently gained popularity. In total, I would guess there are about a hundred different types of antidepressants in production around the world (including old Soviet concoctions that are not available in the West due to the huge price of getting just one of them to market). If you're unhappy with the side effects of SSRIs, I would encourage you to look up other types of antidepressants, as they have very widely varying side effects, and most atypicals have far fewer common side effects than SSRIs and SNRIs do. In particular, I would like to point out that bupropion usually increases sex drive instead of lowering it like SNRIs and SSRIs tend to do. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moclobemide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moclobemide