Sexual Health – Androgen Therapy

Transcript

Androgen therapy for female sexual dysfunction or for decreased libido has been found to be quite effective. However, there are no current FDA approved options available for androgen or testosterone treatment in women. Now, a lot of places are using testosterone or androgens off label, meaning that doctors under close supervision are prescribing testosterone for women and monitoring women for response. So if that were to be done, if you were to have a prescription for testosterone by your healthcare provider, it would be really important to have baseline blood work done. In other words, have a look at your blood count, your liver enzymes, your blood cholesterol, or your lipid profile. And where is your current testosterone level sitting? And it’s important when you have testosterone provided from your doctor in an off-label fashion. Again, not FDA approved that you get close surveillance and that you have blood work done approximately every six weeks monitoring those variables.

You want to make sure your liver enzymes stay normally, your blood lipid profile or your cholesterol stays normal, and that your testosterone levels are being monitored. So why is that? Well, we know that women who have extra testosterone in their body are going to feel more energized sometimes, also they may have more anger. They may have more aggression, but they absolutely have more energy and almost always have greater libido or sex drive. So it’s a masculinizing effect. It kind of helps women to feel a little more like a man if they have more testosterone in their body,