GynoFiles

Vyleesi Is the Newest Medication For Female Libido Enhancement   Females have more trouble with libido and desire than they do with arousal and orgasm, a low desire medical condition called hypoactive sexual desire disorder that occurs in 10% of all women prior to menopause. Although male desire is often simultaneous with erection, females need to have their interest piqued before they lubricate and physically desire sex. This is why Viagra and Cialis are effective for males, but physiologically not designed for female sexuality. So the ‘Pink Pills’ have to work on a unique pathway that involves the brain, not the vagina, where as Viagra and Cialis stimulate the penis before the brain. Vylessi is the newest Pink Pill to win FDA approval.   Addyi was the first medication to be approved for low female libido. There are a few non-FDA approved herbal medications that have shown some promise, but in most studies they didn't out perform placebo. Dr. Tru...

When you show up for your first prescription or a renewal of your contraceptive method, your health care provider is likely to check your pelvic exam, see about any bleeding and review with you the effectiveness of your contraceptive method. What women really want to know, based on a study from the University of Utah is how your contraceptive method is going to affect your sexual experienced. Actually some of this research has been done on males. Males are much more likely to use contraception if it doesn't affect their penile erections, their sexual feelings, and their overall sexual performance. The study in Utah was undertaken and reported in November issue of OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY after studies from Europe and the Middle East actually showed improvement of sex drive in women using IUDs. Since some women have a fear of getting pregnant if they are not protected against pregnancy, many women will report a better sexual experience as they can 'let go' more easily....

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men. In the US screening by testing the PSA level has led to early diagnosis and fewer prostate cancers been found in advanced states. And now it has been reported at last year's annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA), was published online March 29 in European Urology that frequent ejaculation can lower risk of ever getting prostate cancer.  Although definitive proof of prostate cancer protection still needs to come in subsequent studies as a mere association may not prove that extra ejaculations are going to prevent disease consistently.  For men who want to improve their sex life and increase pleasure the P shot can do just that. The Priapus shot , or P shot, is provided by specifically trained clinicians to improve male sexuality. The P shot is a treatment using Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) to enhance male sexual performance. The shot is also reported to be successful in enhancing sexual feel...

Boy's are supportive of their girl's girl toys. Vibrators are recommended by most gynos for many reasons, including helping women to reach orgasm, to help a woman reach orgasm during intercourse, to enhance orgasm including helping to have a G-spot orgasm, to enhance arousal, to work the pelvic floor muscles and to spice up sex. Partner sex and intimacy and foreplay is not replaced by vibrators. Some women are hesitant to try a vibrator because women think that their partner might not be pleased they are using one. But in fact most women who use vibrators report higher levels of sexual satisfaction than did single women who use them, so actually vibrators have a place in a healthy partner relationship. Overall about two thirds of men state that they are supportive of their partners using a vibrator, and in fact, some men borrowed their partner's toys! So discuss with your gyno if you are having a sexuality issue. Vibrator use may be just the answer.

What is cholesterol? I have an image of the wagon of fat Oprah once dragged across the stage post diet? But that was fat. And there are good fats, and bad fats, and then there are all the factors that make facts good or bad: such as the factors that contribute to blood vessel disease and blockages and ultimately lead to strokes, heart attacks, poor kidneys, poor circulation in our eyes, and poor circulation in our brains and feet, and well as reduced sexual function!  Some critical sites for blockage due to plaque is due to factors that have to do with blood flow, the lower the flow in an area the easier it is for particles to dock and build the plaque. Thus when we want to know about the fats we have circulating, just a cholesterol test can only just give us the bare sense of what is going on. What we want to know is a lot more information about the immuneoinflammatory disease that blocks blood vessels. So the cholesterol test is not a measurement of your fat stores, it is not th...

To those with intimate gyno knowledge, the Clue cell is a nick name for vaginal wall cells, seen on a smear, that have bacteria on their surface. Your gyno will see these when you come in to be evaluated and she looks at a smear under the microscope. In actuality that is all that is needed for a fairly firm diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis, and it's a quick and relatively cost effective way of making that diagnosis too. These cells can be detected on smear when women have  Bacterial Vaginoisis (BV). This infection gets started when you loose the normal vaginal lactobacilli that produce the hydrogen peroxide discharge that keeps the vagina very acidic. If the pH changes, becomes too basic, other bacteria will overgrow. And those there are normally over 100,000 colonies of bacteria growing in the vagina, and those that produce BV are only 1%, a slight increase in that 1% can cause the infection. Vaginal itching is very common in with these infections, and it can occur in women of ...

Many of us judge our heart by how we are on the bathroom scale. If we are a healthy weight we assume the heart is in good shape. A few of us have realized it's every more technical and that we need to measure the waist, the inches (or centimeters) relative to measurement of your hip, your body composition, and the overall balance of your metabolism's handling of your fats and carbs. It really not just the scale that lets you know how healthy the heart is. And yet the scale is an important component. The waist measures the deep fat around our organs, and gives a clue to the levels of blood fats in our circulation. Too big a waist is not healthy for heart or circulation, especially if your waist is approaching the measurement of your hips, or even larger! How to get to that correct waistline is a further dilemma, and we are back to thinking that lower carb diets may help that the best . But you most certainly do not have to be slim to be fit. You need to exercise, eat well, lowe...

Sex can be safer, never completely safe, and how to avoid ctatching an STD is a topic we discuss often. Tracking where the STDs are occuring, and their rates is something gynos and their epidemiologists do spend a lot of time on. And where in the world the infections are is something to gab about. If you want to avoid getting HPV, it turns out that you are least likely to aquire this disease in Spain .  Based on  how we track infections we look at what the rates are and the factors that cause HPV infections. Data from the Cleopatre study   states that the more partners you have had the more likely you are to have HPV. The older you are the more likely you were to have both started sex earlier and to have had more lifetime partners. The average age of sexual onset was 16 there and now is 22. Later onset of sexual activity translates into fewer partners and lower HPV levels. Risk factors for getting HPV also includes having had another STD, and being a smoker, particula...

When to schedule date nite? We've discussed date nites before , and they are an important part of any relationship. We're busy, so we have to book fun into our schedule. But what should you do about your hormones, will the sex be better on one day v the other? I have always said, pay attention to your body and your cycles, as women vary individually depending upon what their hormones are doing. But we do know estrogen peaks at ovulation, that's an occasional boost to the woman not on a birth control pill, and testosterone levels tend to be greater in the second half of the cycle.

Tropical Flower by W. Scifres Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder is still the most common form of sexual dysfunction. Gynos see patients all day long who are hoping we have finally synthesized that perfect 'love' potion that we have sought since antiquity. One of the most poetic renditions of a gyno consultation for a love potion can be found in Ovid, the Metamorphoses XIV. It describes the consultation by Glaucus with the sorceress (shall we say sorceress/gyno). It was a fateful consultation for object of his affection, as Circe fell for her patient, thus when he rejected her advances she transformed his beloved into a rock. .And al these eons later, we are still actively doing research on the modern day "potion" for instance with the Bloom Trial .which is no longer enrolling, but the data is being studied. In that case the potion is actually testosterone in a lotion, so perhaps it pushes the definition of potion a bit far, but still, a bit of fun in the bed room...

A new study looking at conception rates depending upon when you have sex during the week around ovulation has been recently published. And so often when research like this comes out, I think by the title: "duh" did we need a scientific study to prove this? Like you are cleaner if you bathe more than people who never bathe, really? Did we need to prove that. So when I read the title, about conception probability based on the menstrual cycle, I thought, "duh" you get pregnant if you nail the ovulation date (only some pun intended). And we know that sperm live for about 48-72 hours and that eggs only live for about 24 hours, and it has been shown that having sex on the earlier side is probably better. But then there was another fascinating aspect to the new study reported in the September issue of Fertility and Sterility, and performed at the Sichuan Reproductive Health Institute, more sex was NO MORE likely to occur even if you have sex more frequently! Interesting....

Sexuality after hysterectomy. What should a woman expect? Is sex better, is it worse after having a hysterectomy? What have you heard? Every few years this is something gynos do look into. How we look at the issues of sexuality is an important determinant. A new study from Brazil seems to indicate that not all women need to feel desire, in the traditional sense, to feel satisfied. So understanding how to study our patient’s overall sexuality as well as her physical sexual function becomes In a study called “Hysterectomy and sexual well-being: prospective observational study of vaginal hysterectomy, subtotal abdominal hysterectomy, and total abdominal hysterectomy, by Drs Roovers, van der Bom, van der Vaart, and  Heintz in the British Medical Journal in 2003. Their patients had a variety of medical problems and they didn’t include women with prolapse or other pelvic floor disorders. They studied sexual pleasure, sexual activity and bothersome sexual problems. And found that it wa...

The study of human sexuality had been mostly in the hands of poets, artists and lovers until William Masters and Virgina Johnson, using EKGs, ECGs, cinematography and all manners of probes brought the study of sexuality to a scientific place with their landmark work Human Sexual Inadequacy in 1970. Edgar Masters was born in a small town in Illinois, and was a fairly prolific although not well recognized writer until his Spoon River Anthology, a poetical set of musings from townspeople set in a town not unlike his own beyond the graves. In some of the original poems of the Spoon River Anthology, The Hill, Kate, a 'simple soul' is said to have died of a 'thwarted love.' Louise Smith let her "love turn to hatred" as she refused to let it flower, but poisoned it. Mrs. Merritt thought she "maddened her nineteen year old lover's brain with the gift of her body" and he killed her husband. So after some 50 years of some of those echoing poems in rural ...

The newest Female Condom is made with nitrile instead of latex rubber. We know that consistent male condom use is very protective against STI's and consistent female condom use is as well. In fact it may reduce not only getting STIs like the HPV virus, but in tern can prevent women from getting cervical cancer. So if you are latex allergic and have been avoiding condoms, don't!

Dr. Julian Davidson It's almost a decade after Dr. Julian Davidson's death and more than 40 years since I was one of several undergraduate assistants in his laboratory at Stanford University. He was known for his work "of rats and men" on testosterone affects on behavior. Jobs of mine included hand making the testosterone implants, as well as watching and tabulating rat copulating behavior. I think and talk about the implications of that work regularly. I was lecturing about the effects of estrogen on mood and memory and talking about the areas of the brain that most respond to estrogen, and then just the other day discussing how these effects might change learning before and after menopause with another researcher. Although I mostly think of his work, it's probably more impressive to see what others have to say about Dr. Davidson as a man . So when you think of hormones and behavior, or are mulling over that first book of his give a bit of a shout out to Dr...

You should always plan your pregnancy, and there is a lot on line, such at the World Health Organization about how to conceive a healthy pregnancy, or at ACOG , or read about it at Mayoclinics online . And then when you are ready, most women are really ready to hurry up and conceive. Well if hot times in the summer make you more interested in sex, good news, you are more likely to conceive a healthy pregnancy in the summer! A study was made of the seasonal variation in all births, and births in Switzerland recorded between 1876 and 1990 at the Folkhalsan Institute of Genetics, Population Genetics Unit, Helsinki, Finland. Over the one hundred years studied some series of decades had more seasonal variations than others! They noted for instance that there was an increase seasonal variation for births was noted for the period 1876-1930, with strong seasonal variation holding for 1921-1980, then less seasonal variation after that!. Twin births showed a strong seasonality for the perio...

In medicine we are usually giving new bad news: prior blood cholesterol that was ok, no good, BPs that used to be ok, now are too high, to name a couple. But good news boys! Your counts that were thought too be too low, are Good Enough!  So where did you stuff that lab report? Get out the pen and paper, and get together with your gal for another gyno talk. Those counts might just be not as bad as we thought. And then there are little aids that can be done. Ready for a boost and a splash? We have the swim up technique too!And it's not a pool party, but then those can help the cause too! World Health Organization reference values for human semen characteristics.   Cooper TG; Noonan E; von Eckardstein S; Auger J; Baker HW; Behre HM; Haugen TB; Kruger T; Wang C; Mbizvo MT; Vogelsong KM  Hum Reprod Update. 2009 Dec 4.

You can sniff out your mate. Ok, so it's not just sleuthing, and whether he smokes. It's more elemental than that my friends. Smell apparently does factor into why we pick mates. Sounds primeval. Sounds provocative. Trust your instincts, or should you? What if you discover that your birth control completely flipped your sense of mate sniffing ability? And all this time you just thought opposites attract! But there is so much more coming on the scent scene all the time! Men are attracted to us when we ovulate, and even their testosterone levels climb when they sniff the shirts of ovulating women!

Washing the female condom. Really? Can’t quite picture it! But then I hate washing pretty much anything! Studies have been done washing it up to 10 times, yes to save money. And it can be, apparently, but after about 7 holes more consistently start to appear. Male condoms, no, too flimsy, they break right away. But remember, each are sold as disposables.

Biting, witty, incitful, provoacative? What did you get out of re-reading some of your favorite JD works after learning of his recent death? In true Gyno Gab style I was reminded about the "Racy, Colorful" lives of poets and he even mentioned "spectacular flaw(s) in character" such as "romantic addiction..and.... marital infidelity." Kept me glued to English class homework back in the day!