Having a low sex drive could be one of the reasons why some struggle in a relationship. But watch this video as Dr. Rena Malik ...

six-causes-of-low-libido-that-you-might-not-know-about-yet

Six Causes of Low Libido That You Might Not Know About Yet!

are you feeling just not that into sex lately I'm Dr Reena Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and today I'm going to talk all about low sex drive in men sexual desire is driven by three different factors one is Drive second is motive and third is wish now what exactly is low sexual desire or low libido it's defined as having diminished or absent feelings of sexual interest or desire you may not have those thoughts or fantasies at all and you'll have a lack of responsive desire meaning that if someone approaches you and wants to have intercourse with you even after trying to feel intimate with them you won't really actually desire them and then having really absent motivation so you don't have reasons or incentive to try and become sexually aroused and the most important thing here is that it's causing personal and or interpersonal distress now is there an amount of sex that you should be having that says it's normal well not really again it's a matter of bother so if you feel like there's a change in your sex drive and it's causing you bother then absolutely it's important now in research settings they have looked particularly in young men under the age of 55 and you're having sex less than once every 2 weeks in research settings they've described that as low sexual desire but what does it mean that it's bothersome so if your sex drive has dropped but it's not a cause of like a serious health problem and it doesn't really bother you like it does not affect in your relationship you're happy your partner's happy then it's not a problem but if it is a problem it's time to talk about what we can do about it now it's normal to lose interest in sex occasionally like it happens time to time for example if you didn't sleep well the night before or you have an injury recently then having sex might not be as big of a deal for you but if you notice that this loss of Interest lasts a really long time then it's important to actually go get seen and get help how common is low desire in men well when you look at the studies of large populations of men we see anywhere between 8.5% to 15% of men actually struggle with low sexual desire so it's not as uncommon as you might think now where do you start well what are the different causes of low sexual desire well first and foremost you want to look at the medications or drugs you might be taking so certainly medications like ssris or anti-depressants hair loss medications or medications for an enlarged prostate like finasteride dutasteride all can have significant effects on low desire in men so you want to check all the medications you're on and see if they may be affecting your sexual desire also if you're taking recreational drugs those can also impact your sexual desire number two other medical conditions can contribute to low desires so optimizing those may actually help your overall sexual desires this can include things like obstructive sleep apnea strok epilepsy HIV coronary art disease heart failure renal failure and of course things like taking exogenous steroids with bodybuilding or even extreme exercise can affect your body's hormone production which can then affect your sex drive another category of conditions that can affect your sex drive that deserves its own mention is depression and anxiety and other psychiatric issues even like post-traumatic stress syndrome so in these cases it's really important to treat the depression and anxiety now what comes first is the low sex drive causing the depression and anxiet or is it the other way around and ultimately it's really important to be careful about which medications you're taking to help treat the depression because as I mentioned before some of these medications can cause low desire so when you see the psychiatrist or your primary care doctor to get these medications please tell them about your low desire another cause can be relationship issues if you are having relationship issues with your partner then it's very difficult to feel desire for them so it's important to then reassess and evaluate is this a relationship issue and fix that one first another type of condition that can create issues are endocrine problems so remember testosterone is the main hormone for sexual desire and when you have a problem with your hypothalamic pituitary gonadal axis with other endocrine issues it can affect the production of testosterone as well as your desire so this can include things like abnormal thyroid function having abnormal cortisol levels or high levels of cortisol from stress can also also affect this and high levels of cortisol from extreme working out like high endurance exercise also things like prolactin levels which can be tested with the blood test also need to be assessed to make sure they're not affecting your sex drive now lastly when you're talking about testosterone as a cause for low sexual desire low testosterone is a very common cause for low sexual desire what we found is that you need to have a minimum level of testosterone in order to experience sexual desire however it's not a linear relationship meaning doesn't mean that the more testosterone you have the more desire you'll have in fact in a study looking at men who experienced low sex drive they found that people more often reported having low sex drive with testosterone levels lower than 430 nanog per deser and they subsequently developed erectile issues more commonly when their levels were below 230 nanog per desat so low testosterone is very important to evaluate and this is often evaluated with a blood test looking at toal testosterone free testosterone which is usually calculated using shbg and albumin and then also looking at these other endrin markers that could be affecting the production of testosterone now lastly if we've tried other things and they don't work and there's not another medical correctable cause for this issue then there are options that we can look at and this is often trial and error and trying different things so one of course is psychotherapy to assess whether this is more of a psychological issue other things that can help is also things like buproprion which has been studied in some small studies and then there are some off Lael medications like flerin and bremelanotide which can help with low sexual desire but again these are off label and there are still also some investigational drugs as well so I'm going to make a full video on pharmacologic treatment of low libido in men so keep a lookout for that and of course if you've enjoyed this video please make sure to subscribe and share this Channel with anyone who might need it if you've been coming here a long time you know I really do this because I want to empower people to take care of their sexual health talk about their sexual health and their Urologic health because these are very difficult things to talk about and they're very intimate and for a lot of people they suffer at home and I don't want you to suffer so if you have decided to see a doctor and you are interested in seeing me I am now taking appointments you can check out www.ram Malik md/ slappointment to make an appointment in my Newport Beach location or a tele medicine appointment if you're located in the states of California New York Florida Illinois New Jersey Maryland Virginia and Texas if you're not located in these areas that's okay I can still see you for an educational visit so please go ahead and make an appointment with me and if you enjoy this video you might enjoy learning about a medication called fanin that's used for low libido in premenopausal women so check that video out and as always remember to take care of yourself because you're worth it

Dr.

Related Videos

Consultation & Treatment

Consult With Loading Doctor Data