Back to Homepage
“A common woman’s sexual health condition is female sexual arousal disorder. The acronym is FSAD. These are women who, despite efforts to engage in sexual activity, remain dry and poorly lubricated. They don’t swell. They don’t have engorgement. There is no, uh, responsiveness to the peripheral genital tissues. Very common women who have this condition are in menopause. They’re typically missing hormones. We do lots of examinations on women with FSAD. We particularly, we do a test called Vulvoscopy so they’re in their traditional gynecologic position, but we have a magnifying equivalent to a magnifying device, about a foot away from them, so we can see all their tissues at a very, very close and magnified view. In typical, we’ll see the genitals more atrophied, more small, more dry. We have just a basic Q-tip and we can touch in various areas.
And we usually see there’s pain and discomfort, in the regions where there’s dryness. So we typically draw blood tests in women. We get nine tests here. They include tests like testosterone and sex hormone, binding globulin, and dihydrotestosterone and estradiol and progesterone and thyroid stimulating hormone and prolactin, various other tests. And we’ll identify if there are abnormalities seen on these tests and provide treatment. If the patient agrees, after treatment is provided, the hormonal states are re-established. We can see the tissues become more lubricious, more healthy appearing, less tender. It’s a lovely opportunity to reestablish their arousal that’s bothersome and distressing.”
