Female Sexual Arousal Disorder and Its Treatment

By Jason GrayFeb 25, 20211103

Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD) is a condition that causes lack of sexual desire and lack of physical arousal, or it can be both. Suffering from FSAD can be very distressing for a woman. It can severely affect her self-esteem, relationships, and overall well-being.

Sexual response involves a complex process that includes physiology, emotions, experiences, beliefs, lifestyle, and relationships. Disruption in any of these stages can impact sexual desire, arousal, or sexual satisfaction. Therefore, the treatment includes different types of approaches.

According to a study, around 25.8% to 91% of women deal with some symptoms of FSAD. Another study found out around 64% and 31% of women experience desire and arousal problems, 35% report sexual climax dysfunctions, and 21% experience sexual pain.

What are the symptoms of FSAD?

For several women, the symptoms of FSAD can be on and off. While some might experience no arousal consistently when every time they try to have sexual intercourse or engage in sexual activity. Therefore, the symptoms and their frequency vary in each woman.

FSAD is one of several conditions that come under the female sexual dysfunction category. Female Sexual Arousal Disorder is identified by the following symptoms:

• pain during intercourse
• inability to orgasm
• lack of sexual desire or arousal

Other symptoms of FSAD include:

• No or few thoughts about coition: Women with FSAD rarely think about getting indulge in sexual activity
• Not initiating lovemaking: You may not initiate the physical romance and may be defensive or unwilling to your partner’s efforts to initiate sexual activity.
• Low sexual excitement or low pleasure during coition: Excitement and sexual stimulation that turned you on before is now no longer working.
• Declined arousal from internal or external sexual hints: You might fail to arouse sexual indications such as emotional intimacy, reading about sexual activity, or recollecting a passionate fantasy.
• Lack of genital sensations: During sexual activity, you might not feel sensations in your genitals or other stimulating areas.

How FSAD is diagnosed?

FSAD is difficult to diagnose even by doctors as it involves lots of different signs or symptoms. Additionally, several women are not uncomfortable talking to their doctor about their symptoms and their sexual life. It prevents lots of females from getting diagnosed with FSAD.

At first, doctors may start asking a chain of questions regarding physical, mental, and emotional health. Later, they may ask you for a pelvic examination to strike out any physical symptoms such as infection, injury, or nerve damage. In some cases, your physician may also ask you to take the blood count test for examining your overall health.

Once your health professional determines your symptoms are not associated with physical causes, they may refer you to a psychotherapist, a specialist in sexual health. This health professional can help you discover the causes behind Female Sexual Arousal Disorder and will recommend a treatment plan suitable to you. In case; if you are not comfortable talking to your doctor, start looking for a new professional.

Treatment of Female Sexual Arousal Disorder

There are several as well as approaches to treating Female Sexual Arousal Disorder. Mainly three treatment methods are widely used to overcome this distressing situation, as mentioned below:

• Psychotherapy or talk therapy

Talk therapy is a way of discussing the problem with the psychotherapist, or counselor specializing in female sexual health. They can help you to determine the factors that have led you to this distressing sexual disorder. A psychotherapist can help a woman:

• Learning new life skills to reduce stress and anxiety
• progressively changing their self-impression, and develop empathy towards themselves
• challenge some thoughts and believes that make them feel embarrassed about sexual activity
• Trying to communicate openly and confidently with their partner

If relationship disputes contribute to Female Sexual Arousal Disorder, a therapist will recommend you a relationship counselor, where the person’s partner should also attend the sessions.

• Medication

Women in the premenopausal phase can experience FSAD due to hormonal fluctuations. Therefore, hormone therapy is primarily to reduce symptoms of FSAD. It includes systemic or vaginal estrogen treatment, androgen supplementation, or selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs).

Doctors also use non-hormonal treatment in some cases to cope up with symptoms. Non-hormonal medicines include serotonin agonists, dopaminergic drugs, phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitors, Eros-Clitoral Therapy Device (Eros-CTD), antidepressants, and nutritional supplements.

The treatment is also based on eliminating some physical and mental health issues, and the medications are recommended accordingly. Therefore, there is no fixed treatment for FSAD, but combinational treatment methods work well.