As we age, it's easy to blame problems in the bedroom on our bodies getting older or stress related to things like kids, finances and marriage. Those issues could indeed be responsible, but another, lesser-known culprit may reside in our own medicine cabinets.
From your everyday, over-the-counter pain reliever to the latest chemotherapy treatment, all drugs have the potential for side effects. Common minor side effects for drugs taken internally include nausea and drowsiness. However, some of the most widely used medications also have the ability to produce unexpected changes in sexual arousal and performance.
For instance, lipid-lowering drugs like statins and fibrates can lead to erectile dysfunction and difficulty achieving orgasm for both men and women. Some antidepressants induce ejaculation failure, impotence and a lowered libido, while anti-anxiety medications list diminished orgasms and pain during intercourse as possible problems for patients. It's also known that diuretics/water pills and certain beta-blockers taken for high blood pressure are linked to erection dysfunction. And for those who take more than one type of medicine, one drug may interfere with the metabolism of another and result in heightened negative side effects.
Advertisement
Upon prescribing a new medication, a physician will typically mention specific guidelines and need-to-know information — for instance, make sure to take each dose with food, avoid alcohol, or expect to feel some nausea. However, one topic that isn't always discussed in the doctor's office is how certain drugs will affect a patient's sex life.
Some experts believe patients should be more aware of the influence of prescription or over-the-counter drugs, instead of simply blaming advanced age or stress. We spoke with Albert Wertheimer, professor of pharmacy administration at Temple University, and Patricia Bush, professor emeritus of Georgetown University School of Medicine, who recently co-authored the book "Your Drugs & Sex: How Prescription & Non-Prescription Drugs Can Affect Your Sex Life."
Q: Many people assume that their doctors would notify them if a certain medication could significantly influence their sex lives, but is this not typically the case?
Advertisement
Wertheimer: Most people 50 years old and over take drugs for conditions like diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, gout, asthma, depression, arthritis, allergies, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) — and many of these drugs cause profound effects on sexual performance. Most patients assume that declining performance is due to aging, and physicians are not schooled in this area. Often, even if patients have a suspicion the change could be due to a drug, they are too timid to inquire.
Bush: Remember "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and how we got rid of that in the military? Well, we need to get rid of that in health care, too. The problem right now is that patients don't ask about how drugs will affect their sex lives, and the doctors don't tell. Why don't the doctors tell? Because the patients don't ask.
Q: What kinds of unintended sex-related effects can prescription and over-the-counter medications have?
Advertisement
Bush: Cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins, antidepressants, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic drugs, anti-fungals, anti-ulcer and anti-epileptic drugs, oral contraceptives and cancer drugs can all have consequences on sexual arousal and performance. The kinds of things that they can cause as side effects include erectile dysfunction, difficulty achieving orgasm, ejaculation failure, impotence, decreased desire, pain during intercourse and lower testosterone.
Wertheimer: Sleeping pills decrease interest in sex, and the same thing happens with many antihistamines for allergies. Antidepressants make ejaculation difficult to achieve, so patients with premature ejaculation problems can use antidepressants to help.
Q: Why is it important that people be aware of these lesser-known side effects?
Bush: People are living longer, and in a lot of ways, that's a good thing because we are treating the chronic illnesses like diabetes, depression and high blood pressure that people have. As a result, there's been a big increase in medicine use altogether in the last years.
Advertisement
According to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the percentage of people aged 65 and up who took one or more medicines was 67 percent for men and 78 percent for women in 1988 to 1994. By 2009 to 2012, that number jumps to 88 percent for men and 91 percent for women. Those in the same age group taking three or more medicines went from 31 percent to more than double that, 65 percent, with the numbers roughly the same for men and women.
Share this articleShareBecause people are taking more drugs, the problem of sexual dysfunction caused by medicines is growing. Another big issue is that as people get older, they have more health issues that can then interact with these drugs, so actually the side effects get worse and are more likely to happen. For instance, aging itself can cause failures in sexual performance, let alone compounding issues like diabetes and so on.
Q: What can patients do if a drug they have been prescribed has negative sexual side effects?
Advertisement
Wertheimer: I recommend they chat with their physician and look up more information about their condition and drugs used to treat it. However, generally physicians know very little about if certain combinations of drugs might cause sexual difficulties. The answer is to experiment and change one of the drugs to see if it makes a difference. If one or more drugs are involved, our book lists other drugs for the same indication that are not usually associated with sexual function problems.
Bush: Another important thing to know is how to find good information. There's just a whole lot of rubbish out there about medications on the Internet, so the reliable Web sites we recommend for looking up drug information are the National Library of Medicine's MedlinePlus[nlm.nih.gov] and the Food and Drug Administration's Drugs@FDA.
For example, hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) is one of the most common drugs given for blood pressure, but it's also a major cause of erectile dysfunction because it's a diuretic. But there's a huge category of drugs that treat blood pressure, so you can go to your physician and tell him you want to try some other things.
Advertisement
Read more:
Modern men tend to overeat like cavemen as a way of showing off to women
Cutting sugar from kids’ diets appears to have a beneficial effect in just 10 days
Charlie Sheen’s HIV status and the dawn of the era of medical-data blackmail
For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9Joq6hlqaTCs3nHnpilrJhkxLF7kWlobmdhZnxzfI6hprBlpJ2ybrnEnaCcoZ6aerq71GarmqOVYrCiuoyipKmZk6l6urvUq2SsnahiuaqyxGg%3D