Thread: Help with wifes sex drive.

yohimbe is a herbal pill that increases a womens appetite.

I'm assuming your talking about sexual appetite, lol. Do you know anyone who has used it an where is a good place to get it???

Originally posted by Bevo
My wife has been on some antidepressants and they are great, as far as her moods swings, but have hurt her sex drive. And now that she's not moody anymore I want to have more sex. Anyone know of anything to help boost a ladies sex drive while on antidepressant. And when I say moody I'm sugar coating it, so getting off the antidepressents is not an option. Any ideas or is this common? She has tried other medications, she didn't like the other ones.

I know a solution. its called divorce! ha ha

Unfortunately loss of libido is a common side effect of taking antidepressants... best advice would be to go back to doc and see what he suggests

Originally posted by Bevo
Help with wifes sex drive.

Are you inviting us over? lol

There is a solution. Studies coming out of University of California, San Francisco in an open label trial by a Dr. Alan Cohen MD shows that gingko supplementaion can reverse the sexual dysfucnction seen with antidepressants up to 85% of the time (I assume she is taking a SSRI) and there are ongoing ones out of University of Chicago. (That's just incase her doc is not responsive to this.)Ginkgo biloba, a botanical derived from tree bark, may allow for better sexual functioning for people taking SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and other antidepressants.

He was speaking at the recent American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, in San Diego recently.
While ginkgo is very well tolerated, those taking it should be aware that it has multiple actions in the body and can interact with other medications, treatments, or diseases. It can mimic the action of anticoagulants, such as aspirin or warfarin, so patients already on these medications should use gingko with caution, he said.

The main side effects seen with ginkgo are gastrointestinal upset, specifically flatulence, gas, nausea, and diarrhea. However, this effect in patients has been resolved by slowly titrating the dose.

As for the usual dose, an oral formulation of 60 mg ginkgo taken twice a day; this dosage is then titrated up to 240 mg twice a day.


In addition, the you can add another antidepressant with a different mechanism of action called wellbutrin (acts on dopaminergic and norepinephrine sites) to the current regimine (150 mg a day) to offset the sexual sideeffects without coming off her current one that is working well. So for instance, if a patient is taking 40 mg of Paxil, we add the Wellbutrin 150 and more than 50% of the time the sexual appetite goes up.


Last resort, switch to an combined norepinephrine and serotonin reuptake inhibitor called Effexor. The one caveat is it needs to be titrated to the higher doses (150-300mg) since at lower doses (75mg) it acts as a pure selective serotonin uptake inhibitor and thus, has the sexual sideeffects only at the lower doses. At higher doses it acts as a predominantly norepipnephrine uptake inhibitor and therefore has no sexual sideeffects.

prescriptions ARENT the answer and dr's will just keep shoving them down her throat. mark my word if she went off the anti depressants and you two worked together to heal her the intimacy would come back. antidpressants are the easy way out but will ultimately hurt her in the end.

Many times, antidepressants are a temporary solution anyway. They Stabilise mood swings, or depression,and/or anxiety enough so that you can see a counslor and work things out. The shitty problem is that most HMOs and insurances don't pay for seeing a non medical counslor and so most people don't want to fork out the money for such a wonderful form of therapy. It's amazing how many won't see one for those very reasons. Too bad. Don't know why your girlfriend is taking them, but hopefully she won't stay on them too long but in the meantime, she can talk to her doc about some of the alternatives mentioned..I especailly like the ginkgo bulobae.

L-arginine (3 grams on an empty stomach daily) can help as well.

raising a woman's test levels usually increases sex drive but may have a whole bunch of other side effects...if you want to give it a shot try some andro poppers from pinnacle...they are low dose andro....HRT can be done under a Dr supervision and a hormone panel should be done to determine if test levels are low in this case.

Also you may want to try some 5-HTP as an alternative to the antidepressent and see if that helps..it will raise seratonin levels and is much safer and should have fewer side effects..just make suer if you go this route that you tell your Dr, because there can be problems with stopping meds too quick or with adding 5-HTP to a med.