Using hormonal oral contraceptives for mood regulation/increased sex drive?

C

cool_snakedad

Greenlighter
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
3
This is my first post after lurking for a few months so I apologize if it's not in the category that it should be.

For years, I've had almost no sex drive or capability of physical arousal outside of my fertile/ovulation cycle as well as problems with depression and general moodiness. I was prescribed SSRIs for years but they just worsened my libido which worsened my mood. I've been off of SSRIs for about 7 years. For the past two years, I've been eating very healthy and have been aerobically active for at least 30 minutes every day. I have not seen any improvement with my mood or sex drive.

I tried hormonal BC for a while in my late teens/early twenties but experienced emotional lability. Looking back, this could be a false correlation but it's the only thing preventing me from immediately trying again.
Also a lot of the fact-sheets and anecdotal reports I hear about HBC is that emotional lability is one of the most common complaints- I work at a reproductive health center so I read A LOT of fact sheets and self-reported complaints.


About me:
I'm a 27-year-old female. Not a lot of overly-feminine secondary sexual characteristics. Naturally anxious, sometimes highly-caffeinated.

What little I know:
It is possible that I could be producing less estrogen than the average female. Even if that wasn't the case, being naturally anxious and especially highly-caffeinated, the cortisol is basically going to destroy what estrogen I am producing leaving me with no sex drive and no mood regulation.


I'm just starting out here, so any advice, suggestions, links to further reading, etc. would be very much appreciated. I don't want to get my hopes up too much but this would be a really, really easy solution to a problem that has plagued me and my sexual partners for about 10 years.
 
You mentioned your sex drive is better around the time of ovulation. Estrogen levels increase significantly during ovulation. So in theory, taking estrogen pills would fix your problem.
Another theory (which I'm not sure about) is that your sex drive is better around the ovulation time because that's when LH levels are high, and more LH = more testosterone.
If that's the case, you'll either have to somehow boost testosterone production, or take low doses of exogenous test, which is risky for a female.
I think HL is more appropriate, as this has nothing to do with bodybuilding.
Hope this helped :)
 
Another theory (which I'm not sure about) is that your sex drive is better around the ovulation time because that's when LH levels are high, and more LH = more testosterone.

This is most likely the cause of the increase in drive, though being primates, when the female reaches ovulation the brain also produces an excess of certain neuro chemicals that help increase the chance of "Pair Bonding" this is present in all the lower primates and in the Higher ones ( IE. US ) so in theory this could be partly responsible for the increase as well. HBC may increase your sex drive it may not it is an odd duck that is largely dependent on the type you choose, which I am sure you have read about. I would not mess around with exo test if you already don't have a lot of overly feminine secondary sexual characteristics, you may end up pushing the envelope the opposite direction too far. The SSRIs are whats doing it they do it to every one its rather shitty and leads to a lot of depression or feelings of inadequacy among couples. That being said, you may want to ask the same question in a few other areas, like Sex/relationships section. Though hopefully one of our Female browsers in this forum can chime in as well.

Edit- After a little bit more thought, there are a few things that may be leading to this.
1- Obviously your mental state here plays a large role; so some counseling may help.
2- Viagra, may help, they make a woman's version.

That being said,seeing how this is real life and not academic there is probably, a complex set of interconnecting issues here at work. Sexuality is a complex issue, and many factors come into play just for some one to be physically aroused let alone mentally and emotionally aroused by their partner. I went through a few very nice women that just didn't hit all the buttons for me, and I have been on exo test for a bit, and I still had issues with arousal and drive. Some times the body is game but the mind is not or the mind wants to play but the body has the breaks on, either way I am just trying to illustrate that it may not be as simple as some HBC. And while I said you may not want to try exo test, you may want to look into it in extremely small dosages. Do a little research on Google, talk to your Dr and see what you get there. We really cant say yay or nay with the little amount of info you gave us.
 
Last edited:
Blood work could be useful here as well. When guys can't get it up or just lack desire we tell em to get blood work as well. As a female: you have one fucking complicated endocrine system! Lol just saying. So it could be a number of things.
 
As a side note regarding your comment "highly-caffeinated".

Increase in coffee consumption. Caffeine intake from all sources is linked with higher estrogen levels regardless of age, body mass index (BMI), caloric intake, smoking, alcohol, and cholesterol intake. Studies have shown that women who consumed at least 500 milligrams of caffeine daily, the equivalent of four or five cups of coffee, had nearly 70% more estrogen during the early follicular phase than women who consume no more than 100 mg of caffeine daily, or less than one cup of coffee. Tea is not much better as it contains about half the amount of caffeine compared to coffee. The exception is herbal tea like chamomile, which contains no caffeine..


Something I've found:

Female Hormones

The two primary female hormones secreted by the ovaries are estrogen and progesterone. The properties of one offsets the other and together they are maintained in optimal balance in our body at all times. Too much of one hormone or the other can lead to significant medical problems.

Estrogen

Estrogen is produced in the ovaries. It regulates the menstrual cycle, promotes cell division and is largely responsible for the development of secondary female characteristics during puberty, including the growth and development of the breast and pubic hair. Estrogen therefore affects all female sexual organs, including the ovaries, cervix, fallopian tubes, vagina, and breast. As a general rule, estrogen promotes cell growth, including signaling the growth of the blood-rich tissue of the uterus during the first part of the menstrual cycle and stimulates the maturation of the egg-containing follicle in the ovary. It softens the cervix and produces the right quality of vaginal secretion to allow the sperm to swim and to lubricate during intercourse. Furthermore, it lifts our mood and gives a feeling of well-being.

In non-pregnant, pre-menopausal women, only 100-200 micrograms (mcg) of estrogen are secreted daily. However, during pregnancy, much more is secreted.

Estrogen in our body actually is not a single hormone but a trio of hormones working together. The three components of estrogen are: estrone (E1), estradiol (E2), and estriol (E3). In addition, there are at least 24 other identified types of estrogen produced in the woman's body, and more will be discovered. In healthy young women, the typical mix approximates 15/15/70 percent respectively. This is the combination worked out by Mother Nature as optimum for human females. Today, we use the word estrogen loosely to include also a family of hormones, including animal estrogens, synthetic estrogens, phytoestrogens (plant estrogens), and xenoestrogens (environmental estrogens, usually from toxins such as pesticides).

Estrogen is a pro-growth hormone. Since too much of anything is generally not good, the body has another hormone to offset and counterbalance the effects of estrogen. It is called progesterone.

I'm unsure how it works in a Female but too much Progesterone in a Male can completely knock out libido...!!

http://www.drlam.com/articles/estrogen_dominance.asp
 
Perhaps a more androgenic progestin containing pill may be beneficial. I do believe combo estrogen/testosterone would be more efficacious but as others said, it is not without risks.
 
Thank you all for your replies! I'm processing through them and researching out some of your suggestions. Please forgive the lag in my response, I'm only on the internet about an hour a day :P
 
Progesterone in females is generally also the 'stop' signal to the sex drive. However, it's never as simple as more oestrogen, less progesterone = higher sex drive. The balance is probably more important. And that balance set-point probably depends on a massive range of factors (stress/mood/dopamine/serotonin, immune condition - eg inflammatory markers like c-reactive protein/tnf-a/IL-6 etc - caloric intake and nutrition, physical activity, age, position in menstrual cycle, and so on).

You may actually have some success using some of the newer peptides like bremelanotide (pt-141), which you take a few hours before thinking about sex, than playing around with hormones. However PT-141 is not really a long-term solution, more of a stop-gap.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top