Ever wonder if your medications can be affecting your sexual health? Various medications can have side effects that alter your libido or physical ability to perform.
Many drugs can reduce libido as a side effect, basically causing a sharp decline in sexual desire. Another problem would be the ability to maintain sexual arousal, to the point that the ability to achieve orgasms can sometimes be affected negatively. The sustainability of an erection can also be a problem in males, though there appears to be no corresponding problem for females. Whether this is due to the perceived difficulty of sustaining sexual arousal in a female or because there are no side effects of that sort for women is a matter of debate.
Antidepressants are among the many classifications of medication that can affect a person’s sexual health. Most antidepressants work by inhibiting various neural receptors in the nervous system and brain, such as serotonin. There are some circumstances where the mix of a person’s biochemistry and the effects of the drug can result in any number of side effects, not the least of which can have repercussions in the sexual arena. The effects from this sort of problem usually last for about as long as a person is taking the type of antidepressant that initially caused the problem. In most situations, a simple change of antidepressant (which may or may not be a simple feat to accomplish) is enough to alleviate the immediate effects.
The flow of blood is very important to sexual performance, though the purposes of it are more painfully obvious for the male half of the species. As such, any medications or drugs that affect the circulatory system can have drastic effects on a person’s sexual health. Any medication used to treat hypertension and high blood pressure can potentially have effects on things like erection, arousal, and performance. Blood pressure and the overall health of the cardiovascular system can have effects on endurance and the ability to sustain physical activity. While these are not directly related to sex, they can affect it.
