Menopause Has Tanked My Libido. Can You Help?
Women dread menopause for many reasons; hot flashes, night sweats, and mood swings are just a few issues that pop up during menopause. But nobody ever talks about how that period also affects your sex life.
A decreased libido is expected when entering into menopause, and it affects your emotions and relationships. However, you don't simply have to deal with a low sex drive – hormone replacement therapy can help.
At The Women's Center at Life Point Medical, Monique Petteys, FNP-C, offers advice to help your sexual health during every stage of life. She offers BioTE® bioidentical hormone replacement pellets to get your sex life back on track.
Low libido and menopause
Menopause affects many aspects of a woman's life, including her libido. Also known as your sex drive, libido drops during perimenopause and menopause – but why?
Various factors affect physical and mental health during menopause. The body goes through many changes, including a drop in the essential hormone estrogen. As estrogen declines, many women have uncomfortable symptoms like hot flashes and weight gain, which may affect their sex drive.
The vagina itself also changes during menopause, making sex uncomfortable and tanking your libido. Vaginal lubrication drops, making sex painful and uncomfortable at times. Blood flow also decreases to the vagina, affecting arousal and sexual enjoyment.
Menopause also affects your mental health, sometimes leading to depression and mood swings. Women who feel depressed often don't have a desire to be intimate with their partner.
Many of the other symptoms of menopause also affect a woman's sexual health. Hot flashes, night sweats, and fatigue often cause a woman's libido to drop significantly during menopause.
Lifestyle tips to increase libido
Although comfortable and enjoyable sex seems hopeless during menopause, there's hope through lifestyle changes, medications, and self-care. We help you get your libido back through various lifestyle changes that include:
- Exercise regularly
- Maintain a healthy weight
- Eat a nutritious diet
- Avoid smoking
- Cut back on alcohol
- Avoid vaginal irritants
- Perform pelvic floor exercises
These lifestyle tips don't necessarily target menopause itself. Still, they do improve mental health, how you feel about yourself, and keep your body as healthy as possible to enhance sexual desire.
Medical treatments for low libido
We also offer medical options that allow you to boost estrogen levels and improve your libido after menopause. Monique discusses each option to give you the best therapy for your needs.
There are several options, which we often combine to give you the best chance at increasing your sex drive, and they include:
Lubricants
We often recommend using over-the-counter lubricants to address vaginal dryness that could be sabotaging sexual pleasure. Any lubricant helps reduce painful friction during sex due to vaginal dryness and lack of arousal.
Hormone replacement therapy
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is a great option to address the symptoms and issues that follow during menopause. We offer BioTE bioidentical hormone replacement therapy pellets to even out estrogen levels and address problems like low sex drive and vaginal dryness.
Counseling
Counseling is another excellent option when it comes to addressing low libido and mental health changes that happen with menopause. A therapist tackles your specific emotions and issues like anxiety and depression that are affecting how you feel about sex.
What else should I know about HRT?
HRT is an excellent option for women going through menopause who are dealing with low libido, uncomfortable symptoms, or mental health concerns. The significant estrogen drop is the root cause of many of these issues.
We offer HRT pellets underneath the skin in a simple office procedure. Each pellet is the size of a grain of rice, which you won't be able to feel or see. The pellet breaks down over time, steadily releasing hormones into the body that mimic your own.
The hormones in the pellets are bioidentical, meaning your body can't differentiate them from the ones it makes naturally. The steady release of hormones decreases the symptoms related to menopause, including the ones that are affecting your sex drive.
Call The Women's Center at Life Point Medical today to schedule an appointment for menopause or hormone replacement therapy, or use our convenient online booking tool to request a consultation with Monique.