How It Is Given
Getting Started
Most Common
Sexual wellbeing
Desire after menopause is rarely driven by one thing, which is why a single intervention so often disappoints. Working through them in order tends to work better than starting with the last one. Treated routinely at our Las Vegas clinic.
Where to start
Pain comes before desire in the order of things we check, because discomfort you expect to happen suppresses arousal regardless of what a Las Vegas hormone panel shows. If sex has become uncomfortable, desire falls in response, and no amount of hormone adjustment overrides that. Anticipating discomfort suppresses arousal reliably and sensibly.
Vaginal dryness is highly treatable. Low-dose local estrogen resolves symptoms in 80 to 90% of women who use it, and it takes eight to twelve weeks. Sorting that first frequently changes the entire picture.
Only once discomfort, sleep and mood have been addressed is it worth asking whether desire itself is the remaining problem. Quite often, by then, it is not. Worth reading next: vaginal dryness, joint and muscle pain and hair and skin changes for the rest of it. By the time those three are settled, the question has often answered itself, and a Las Vegas patient may need nothing further aimed at desire.
Working through it
Local estrogen for dryness, and time for it to work. This alone resolves it for many women.
Desire requires some spare capacity. Months of fragmented sleep removes it, and treating the sleep restores more than people expect.
Low mood suppresses desire, and several antidepressants do too. Both are worth reviewing rather than working around.
There is reasonable evidence for desire specifically, but adding it before the first three are sorted usually disappoints.
What the evidence supports
Testosterone occupies an odd position in Las Vegas, well supported by trial evidence for one narrow purpose and oversold for almost everything else. Trials show testosterone improves sexual desire in postmenopausal women against placebo, and international consensus supports prescribing for that indication. It is genuine evidence, not a marketing claim.
It is also off-label in the United States, uncovered by insurance, requires blood monitoring and costs between $45 and $100 for a supply. Reasonable to try once the groundwork is done, not reasonable as a first move. Related reading: testosterone for women, monitoring and follow up and what it costs go further into it. Sequence matters more than enthusiasm here, so a Las Vegas clinician will usually work through the other contributing causes before adding testosterone to the plan.
Other symptoms
Most women have several of these at once. They share a cause, which is why they often shift together.
Common questions
What causes it, what order to treat in, and whether testosterone helps.
Patient reviews
I had been waking three or four times a night for two years and had been told it was just stress. The consultation actually went through my cycle history. Six weeks on a patch and I am sleeping through.
What I wanted was someone who would talk about the risks honestly rather than sell me something. They walked through the clot data and why a patch suited me better than tablets.
The brain fog was the part nobody warned me about. Having a clinician tell me it was a recognized symptom and not early dementia was worth the appointment on its own.
It took two dose changes before things settled, which they had told me upfront might happen. The three-month review was booked before I left the first appointment.
From the blog
Next step
Discomfort, exhaustion, mood and then hormones. Taking them in that order resolves it for most women well before the last step.
Consultations are by appointment. Prescriptions are issued only where clinically appropriate.