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You've enjoyed a healthy, satisfying sex life during most of your adulthood. But lately, intimate moments with your partner are less satisfying than they once were. You might feel as though your sexual desire has waned. Or perhaps things that once brought you pleasure now seem painful. You're concerned about your sexual health.
Sexual concerns occur in women of all ages but may become more prevalent during hormonally vulnerable times, such as postpartum or with the menopausal transition.
Your problems might be classified as female sexual dysfunction if you experience one or more of the following and you experience personal distress because of it:
Your desire to have sex is low or absent.
You can't maintain arousal during sexual activity or you don't become aroused despite a desire to have sex.
You cannot achieve an orgasm
You have pain during sexual contact.
Several factors may contribute to sexual dissatisfaction or dysfunction. These factors tend to be interrelated. Women with sexual concerns benefit from a combined treatment approach that addresses medical as well as emotional issues.
Physical.
Hormonal.
Psychological and social.
MEDICAL TREATMENT
Treatment may involve treating the underlying medical or hormonal condition contributing to sexual dysfunction, as well as addressing emotional and relationship issues that result or contribute to the dysfunction. In some cases, female sexual dysfunction can be treated by taking specially prescribed medications. But quite often, successful treatment requires no medications.
Nonmedical treatment for female sexual dysfunction
Communicate with your partner. Communicating your feelings can help.
Strengthen pelvic muscles. Pelvic floor exercises can help with some arousal and orgasm problems. Doing Kegel exercises strengthens the muscles involved in pleasurable sexual sensations. To perform these exercises, tighten your pelvic muscles as if you're stopping your stream of urine. Hold for a count of five, relax and repeat. Do these exercises several times a day.
Seek counseling. Talking with a sex therapist or counselor skilled in addressing sexual concerns can benefit you whether your condition is due to emotional factors or not, since even sexual problems that are hormonal in origin can affect your emotional health and intimacy with your partner.
MEDICAL TREATMENT FOR FEMALE SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION
Medical conditions that can contribute to sexual dysfunction include depression or anxiety, diabetes, cardiovascular and neurological diseases, pelvic or abdominal surgery, and cancers. Vulnerable hormonal times in a woman's life occur during pregnancy and the postpartum period, while using hormonal birth control methods, and during perimenopause and menopause.
If your doctor feels you might benefit from a hormonal treatment, possible therapies include:
Estrogen therapy.
Progestin therapy
Androgen therapy.
Hormonal therapies won't resolve sexual problems that have other causes beyond those factors related to hormones. Because the issues surrounding female sexual dysfunction are usually complex and multifaceted, even the best medications are unlikely to work if other emotional or social factors remain unresolved.
Emerging treatments
Drugs approved for the treatment of erectile dysfunction in men in treating certain types of female sexual dysfunction. Early results from the studies are mixed. Most studies have shown little benefit for women, but some have reported a benefit for women with sexual dysfunction due to antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication side effects.
