Hey everyone. It’s Renee Yvonne, The Gen Sexologist. And I know I haven’t been around for a couple of weeks. I don’t even have an excuse to give you, I just haven’t recorded anything, but I’m back. So yay. So today I want to talk about some things or what I call the five sex drive killers. And this came about because I just recently had my annual physical and my blood work came back. And my doctor said that my A1C was a little high and she was ready to put me on diabetes medication. And from what I’ve seen from people that have gone on diabetes medication, their sex drive tends to sometimes not be the same. And for men, they often have a difficulty getting an erection that doesn’t apply to me the erection part, but it did make me a little concerned. So I said, I’m not going on the medication. I’m going to do a lifestyle change. Let’s try that for three months. If I don’t get my stuff together, then we’ll talk about the medication.
So just as I convinced her that she then came back and said, well, I looked at your cholesterol. And though it’s not that high. I’m a little concerned because your A1C is high. I want to put you on a Statin. Like what? That doesn’t even make sense. I said, is my cholesterol high? She said, no, it’s not. It’s not bad at all. And I’m like, but you want to put me on a statin. So while we were talking, she was typing the prescription in. And I mentally said, I’m not taking it because I know that statins tend to only work well for men who have congestive heart failure. And that there’s not a lot of benefits for women. And I’ve read a lot of material on this. I worked in pharmacy for years. I knew a lot of pharmacists who flat out said, don’t take a statin if you don’t have to, but this led me when I started looking this up to be sure that I was remembering this correctly. I started realizing that there are some things that go on with us as we get older that do affect our sex drive. And one of those things, that’s the sex drive killer are medications. Statins are one of them, high blood pressure, medications and medications for depression that SSRI such as Prozac and Lexapro tend to be problems for people who want to continue having a vibrant sex life. These drugs can tend to interfere with that with blood flow, with the way that we respond to things with just not having the sexual desire at all. So if you’re with a partner and you’re thinking, you know, I just don’t understand what’s going on. They don’t seem to be in the mood as much. One of the things you might want to check out is their medication. Are they on a medication that is causing some type of problem?
If you’re with a partner and it seems like he’s having a difficult time getting an erection look and see he, they may be on a high blood pressure medication. They may, may be on a statin. They might be on an SSRI, and I’m not telling you to just stop taking the medication. I’m not a physician. And I can’t tell you that. I mean, I, you know, I can, but, but the reality is I can’t just tell you to stop taking the medication. But what I will say is this is a time for you to talk with your physician and see if there’s something that can be done. It can be changed to make, you know, some way, and maybe it’s a change in medication. Maybe it’s a lower dose, but something that you can do to deal with the medical issue that’s going on, but also maintain that vibrant sex life that you want. The second sex drive killer is just high blood pressure in general, high blood pressure can be a sex drive killer for so many people because it, it, you know, it can make you tired. Your heart is being overworked. In a lot of cases, you may be stressed out already. And all of those things that are leading to that high blood pressure make it so that maybe you’re not really concerned about having sex. And that can just be a real sex drive killer in a relationship. So if you suspect that something is going on with you or your partner, make sure you have that physical checkout, your blood pressure.
See if that’s one of the culprits of why your sex drive doesn’t seem to be as high as normal obesity can also be a sex drive killer. Not just because it makes the organs were harder, but it could just be that you don’t feel as attractive. And therefore you don’t want to have sex, or you don’t find your partner as attractive because maybe because of the extra weight. So this is an opportunity to have that discussion. Maybe it needs to join Weight Watchers. It’s changing your diet. It’s looking at the exercise that you do. It’s looking at your hormones as we get older, our hormones shifts. And sometimes we’re like, I’m working out, I’m running. I don’t eat anything I like anymore. And I just can’t seem to drop the weight. It could be a hormonal issue. So you want to check out what are your insulin levels? Like you want to check out your progesterone and your testosterone. You will check out your thyroid hormone and you can order tests like this online. They have saliva kits that you can actually order on Amazon and then find a physician who will know what to do with these results. Oftentimes doctors want to do a blood test and everything comes back fine. And you’re like, okay, that’s impossible because I feel crappy. So the saliva test can sometimes be, can find out more of what you want. I don’t want to say it’s more accurate because you can do blood tests that are very accurate. If you tell your doctor exactly what to test and they actually tested, I have yet to tell my doctor, I want these things tested and they tested them. That is super frustrating. And when that happens, what you do is you fire your doctor. You find another one because you want to find out what’s really going on. What are your levels? What are your cortisol, your DHEA levels. You want to find these levels out. So do you know how to make the adjustments necessary to feel at your optimal health?
The fourth sex drive killer is sleep apnea. If you’re not getting enough sleep and enough, rest it. You could have sleep apnea. Now that’s not necessary. It’s not necessary that you do. Maybe you, you know, maybe you’re just tired. You’re just literally not getting enough sleep, but sometimes, you know, you’re getting like three hours a night, but sometimes it could be sleep apnea where you’re sort of catching your breath in the middle of the night, or you stopped breathing a little bit in the middle of the night. You can go to your physician and have a sleep study done. They can do an at-home sleep study. They’ll put a monitor on you. It’ll record. What’s going on. You take it back in and then they can tell you if you have mild or severe sleep apnea, if you need a C-PAP machine or you need to make some adjustments, some of those adjustments could be things like losing weight. It could be lowering your blood pressure. It might be making the room cooler, sleeping on your side. It could be propping a pillow up behind your head so that it opens the passageways a little bit. Cause the snoring and the sleep apnea is really just that there’s not enough air getting in. So that’s another one to look at as a sex drive killer, because if you’re super tired all the time, because you’re not getting enough rest, it’s hard to be all lovey-dovey and in the mood for a sexual experience, because you’re exhausted at the end of the day.
And then last but not least the sex drive killer is drug use. And by drug use, I mean drugs such as marijuana could be something stronger than this anabolic steroids. These things can decrease a sex drive for people. And a lot of times, you know, if you, you know, I live here in DC, it’s legal, but for some people, you know, that just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s, it works well for you sexually. So sometimes people will use it and they’ll find that, wow, you know what? I’m just not getting an erection anymore. I just don’t feel in the mood. And if that’s something that’s going on and you’ve checked out the other four and that’s not the issue, and you do use marijuana, Arab anabolic steroids, you may want to stop and take a moment and say, maybe I need to stop using this for a time because I do want to have this incredible sex life. And this is hampering it. Alcohol is also one of those things that can decrease the sex drive sometimes for people. So these are your five sex drive killers at definitely go see your physician.
If you think, especially the first four that I mentioned are an issue for you and you feel like something’s going on. I don’t feel quite right. I’m not getting the, you know, I, I don’t, I just never seem to be in the mood, check out and see, is it a medication you’re taking? Do you happen to have high blood pressure or diabetes? Check that out too. Is it obesity? Do you have sleep apnea? And if you happen to be using recreational drugs, such as marijuana or taking anabolic steroids, check that out. If your sex drive has been lowered since you’ve been doing that. And hopefully, once you figure out what’s going on and you correct that issue, you’ll be back to having this awesome sex life because who doesn’t want that?
If you have any questions you can email, you can put it below or email me. I’m at renee@thegensexologist.com. And in the meantime, I will see you next week. Have a wonderful weekend. Bye.