How might my body be thwarting my libido?

April 17, 2015 2:44 PM

I'm female, mid-twenties, and over the past 3-4 months have lost almost all interest in sex. What might be going wrong?

Just talked to my gynecologist about this; she has no idea what's going on (in a kind way!) and suggests I get a mental health referral. But I'd like to more thoroughly understand potential non-brain causes before assuming this is in my head.

Here's the stuff I think isn't going on:

- Me just misunderstanding how desire is "supposed" to work. Before this, I've pretty much always been very interested in sex, and easily aroused both "responsively" and "spontaneously." Now not only am I not randomly aroused but lovely foreplay makes no difference--it's like my body just won't cooperate. Things that would typically be very pleasant at that point I'm at best indifferent to, but they're generally ticklish or painful instead.
- My relationship with my partner of about a year is stable and amazing--there's no perceptible tension or loss of interest that could be behind this. He's not putting any pressure on me to work this out faster than I'd otherwise want to. And the lack of interest isn't specific to him; thinking about other people/situations makes no difference.
- No body image stuff, no shame-about-sex stuff, no trauma stuff that feels in any way like it's affecting me currently.
- I'm not on any form of hormonal birth control and never have been (do have a copper IUD which is solidly in place.) Not taking any psychoactive medication and haven't for over a year.
- Sex doesn't hurt.
- Thyroid function check, complete blood count, vitamin D are normal.
- I'm not drinking beyond standard "moderate" limits, although I used to (a few years back).

Here's some stuff that might be:

- Stress/poor sleep/not enough exercise. Possibly narcolepsy--currently figuring that out. On the other hand, none of this is at all new and my response to stress always used to be wanting more sex.
- My period has gone a bit funny during the same interval--still very regular, but I haven't gotten any of the painful cysts in my breasts that used to be an extremely reliable predictor of my period.
- I've also gone from about 115 to 100 pounds unintentionally over about the same interval; I don't know why. 115 was healthy for me but I've been underweight before without any impact on libido.

I'm curious about
a) potential physical causes (and how, specifically, to test for them)
b) things I/we could try on our own! so far we're basically focusing on the fake-it-till-you-make-it strategy and on me playing with a vibrator before we start anything together, which helps but doesn't get us to where we used to be.
c) what sorts of medical-type folks would take the possibility of physical causes seriously and/or take a very empirically-grounded view of psychological causes?

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (7 answers total)

I would take both physical and/or psychological causes seriously--I would first want to understand why I had lost 10% of my body weight and was underweight. Until that is sorted out I would put concerns about your libido aside. How tall are you (BMI)--and how do you explain your loss of weight? was this reviewed with your physician (I assume so) and what were the considerations.
posted by rmhsinc at 3:03 PM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

First, this is completely anecdotal, but I've noticed my libido fluctuates a ton with my "monthly" cycle. And I put monthly in quotation marks because my cycle has always been more on the scale of 6-8 weeks, sometimes more. I wouldn't be surprised if this is some sort of hormonal fluctuation for you as well.

I also agree that a 15 pound weight loss in someone of your size is very significant. (I've been in that same weight range before.) Have you spoken with your PCP about this? Your primary care doctor is usually a good first step, but given the combo of the weight loss + decreased libido and some change in your typical menstrual cycle, I would also look into getting an appointment with an endocrinologist. They would probably be most likely to come up with some tests or avenues of exploration that might shed some light or rule out things.

In your next appointment, whether it's your PCP or a specialist, I would also stress the other issues (weight loss, etc) in addition to the libido change, since the concrete physical symptoms might make the doctors less likely to attribute your decreased sex drive to psychological causes. In particular, I think unexplained weight loss is something that doctors will tend to really pay attention to.
posted by litera scripta manet at 3:37 PM on April 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

Stress can cause weight loss and lack of sleep. Being tired all the time definitely makes you not want sex and makes exercise really difficult.

There is definitely a real and concrete correlation between stress, lack of exercise, lack of sleep and low libido. I'd start right there with no need to look much further.
posted by quincunx at 4:07 PM on April 17, 2015

The times I trim down 5 lb to about 93 lb (I'm small), my libido drops to zero. It's a body fat thing. 15 lb is a huge loss in weight for someone with 115 lb as healthy weight and I agree this is concerning. Over what time interval are you speaking of?
posted by bread-eater at 4:24 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you do get everything checked out (and you should) you could just be going through a slump.

This has happened to me once or twice where I'm just not feeling it for NO reason, but then I get all up in my head about it and I'm stressed that foreplay isn't working, maybe I'm sick, maybe, maybe maybe, and I can't even relax and focus on the sex because it's just like PRESSURE TO PERFORM.

if this is what's happening to you, I actually think your strategy will work. Just try to stop making a big deal about it (I try to dismiss it as "maybe I'm dehydrated") and probably one day you'll just have gotten back to normal and not noticed.

There's absolutely nothing natural and sexy inspiring about making out with someone and thinking "I should be getting responsively turned on! I don't think I am! I must be broken! I have no libido! What if we never have great sex again! What if we have a bed death marriage? I can't resign him to that!" Stress can kill your libido, and I think stress ABOUT your libido doubly so.

Get the health stuff checked, and then cut yourself some slack and try not to dwell. It will most likely bounce back.
posted by euphoria066 at 6:04 PM on April 17, 2015

Unintentional weight loss without obvious causes (skipping meals etc.) is bad. Have you been very thirsty lately? Get a blood glucose test, type I diabetes can strike at any age.
posted by benzenedream at 11:53 PM on April 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

I agree you should rule out medical causes, but as you say you're looking for things that you could experiment with:

I've noticed a positive effect on my libido from regular weight lifting and eating plenty of protein. If I'm getting even 20-30 minutes of strength training 3-4 times a week, my overall energy jumps and some of that manifests as sexual energy.
posted by shattersock at 8:10 AM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]