Testosterone for Women

A common complaint of many women and their partners, on occasion, is the female’s lack of sex drive and desire.  Contrary to popular belief, women suffer from their lack of desire to have sex about as much as their male partners do and are often willing to invest quite a bit of energy in finding a solution to reignite their sex life with their partner.  Unfortunately, there are a lot more options out there for male impotence, such as Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, than for women.

The issue of low sex drive is a more pressing concern for women who are post surgically-induced menopause, as the lack of female sexual organs further affects hormone levels.  One solution for this problem is the result of new research which supports the claim that women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD), or the persistent or recurrent deficiency and/or the absence of sexual fantasies or thoughts, and desire for sexual activity show great improvement in desire and sexual function following low dose testosterone treatment.  Two randomized double-blind, placebo controlled trials in surgically postmenopausal women with HSDD demonstrated that use of the transdermal testosterone patch treatment resulted in significant improvements in the frequency of satisfying sexual activity and sexual desire, as well as a decrease in sexual distress.

Results revealed a significant increase in frequency of satisfying sexual activity and sexual desire based on women experiencing the treatment as beneficial.  More women on testosterone experienced a meaningful benefit and, in fact, the odds of experiencing a meaningful benefit on testosterone were 2.4 times greater than with the placebo.  Since the women were also able to judge for themselves whether or not the treatment was beneficial, those who experienced benefit were interested in continuing treatment (no surprise!). These results are seriously significant for the field of sexual health and gives hope to women suffering from HSDD and their partners that there is a treatment–the low dose testosterone patch– which can bring to the quality-of-life of surgically post-menopausal women with HSDD.