Should I tell my doctor about side effects?
Yes. This guide is really about the two nobody mentions, and the sentences that make them easier to say.
Yes.
That is the whole answer to the question as asked, so this guide is really about the harder version of it: the side effects people do not mention, and why staying quiet about them costs more than the awkwardness of saying them out loud.
Silence gets recorded as “fine”
Here is the mechanism that catches people out. An effect you do not report does not sit in a queue somewhere waiting to be noticed. It becomes an absence in your notes, and an absence reads as tolerating this well.
So the next appointment starts from the premise that things are going acceptably. Nothing changes, because from where your prescriber is sitting, nothing needs to. You can lose years this way — not because anyone dismissed you, but because the information never arrived.
The two that go unmentioned
Two things get left out far more than anything else, and both are worth naming plainly.
Sexual side effects. Changes in desire, arousal or ability to orgasm are among the more commonly reported effects of antidepressants, and among the least commonly raised in the appointment. People endure them for years, sometimes assuming it is them rather than the medication, sometimes because there is no comfortable moment to bring it up in ten minutes.
Feeling flattened. Not sad — blunted. The low end has lifted, but so has everything else: things that should be funny land at nothing, things that should move you do not. Some people describe it as relief. Others find it worse than the depression, because at least that had texture. It is a recognised experience and a legitimate thing to raise, and it is very often mistaken for “the depression is still there,” which points at a completely different conversation.
Both are worth mentioning specifically because both are things a prescriber can potentially do something about. Enduring them silently forecloses that.
Sentences you can borrow
The hard part is not the decision, it is the first six words. So here are some, to be used exactly as written if that helps:
“There is a side effect I have been putting off mentioning.”
“It is affecting sex, and I would like to know whether there are options.”
“I feel flattened rather than better — could that be the medication?”
“This is the thing I actually came in about.” — useful when you have spent eight minutes on something easier.
Say it early. The topic raised in minute one gets the attention; the topic raised at the door gets a leaflet.
And if saying it aloud is genuinely not possible, write it on a piece of paper and hand it over. Doctors read notes all day. Nobody will find it strange, and it works just as well.
What can usually be done
This is where the guide stops short deliberately, because the options are not mine to recommend and they depend entirely on you, the medication and the history. But it is worth knowing that options generally exist — timing, dose review, alternatives — and that the choice between them is a clinical judgement made with you.
What you contribute to that judgement is accurate information: what the effect is, when it started, how bad it is, and what it stops you doing. If you have been keeping a short diary, that is the moment it pays for itself, because you can answer the timing questions instead of guessing.
The NHS says it in one line: if you are “finding side effects hard to manage or do not feel your medicine is helping you, talk to your doctor.”1 There is no waiting period you are supposed to serve first.
One thing not to do about it
Do not solve a side effect by quietly stopping, skipping days or halving a tablet. Beyond the fact that it removes any chance of a better answer, stopping abruptly can make you feel genuinely unwell in ways unrelated to your depression, and the NHS is unambiguous that it should not be done without talking to your doctor first.1
The short version
Tell them — especially the awkward ones, especially early in the appointment, and in writing if that is easier. “I did not want to make a fuss” is the most expensive sentence in this entire subject.
— Richard MacLean
Related: keeping a side-effect diary and talking to your GP about mood.
Sources
- NHS, Overview — Antidepressants. nhs.uk — accessed 10 August 2026.
Nagi is a mental health companion, not a medical device, and nothing here is medical advice. Never start, stop, or change the dose of a prescribed medication without talking to your prescriber.