Why Have I Lost Interest in Sex?
By Diane Hayden, PhD and Deanna Cherrone, MD I
sat down with Dr. Deanna Cherrone, founder of Natural Health & Healing in West Hartford, who has been studying and practic- ing functional medicine for over 9 years. I wanted to have a frank
conversation on a topic all too familiar for many of us…SEX…or more specifically, the lack of it!
Dr. H: Dr. Cherrone, why is it that so many women lose interest in sex after they have been married for awhile, have children, and hit midlife?
Dr. C: Let’s say that you are a woman in her mid-to-late forties and you have it all…the perfect partner, wonderful kids, an exciting career, a beautiful home, financial stability…and NO interest in having sex. In fact, not only do you have no interest, you are so exhausted at the end of the day, it’s the furthest thing from your mind. It takes a lot of energy and work to maintain the perfect partner, family, career, and home. In fact, it takes so much energy that if you’ve been running full speed since you were about 25 years old and now it’s almost 25 years later – guess what…you hit the wall.
Dr. H: That sounds like just about every woman I know! We are so consumed with creating the perfect life, we don’t realize the impact it has on our health.
Dr. C: That’s my point exactly. I have many patients who come in complaining that they are so exhausted they can barely get out of bed in the morning and no amount of sleep seems to help.
Dr. H: Let’s talk about what’s going on for these women.
Dr. C: When you constantly push yourself to do more and more, without paying attention to the signs that you may be overdoing it, you can develop a state of chronic stress. We are designed to deal with stress for short periods of time but then immediately go back into a relaxed state. This can happen over and over, like the fight or flight response in the animal kingdom. Unfortunately, in our current society many of us are forced into, or choose, situations of chronic long-term stress with no relaxation or down time. We can deal with this for awhile, but over time our body moves from a state of alarm into adaptation and then finally, exhaustion.
Dr. H: Normally when we adapt to something that’s a good thing, but not in this case, right?
Dr. C: Exactly. Adaptation to chronic stress is the last place you want to be and can lead to multiple chronic diseases and eventually, death.
26 Natural Nutmeg - May/June 2015
Dr. H: I know many women must feel even more overwhelmed when they see how many things can be affecting their hormone balance and health. Even trying to eat healthier can be a huge undertaking – buying organic, antibiotic and hormone free food; meal planning and preparation; getting the right balance of carbs, fat and protein; having healthy snacks on hand, it never ends. Then we have to worry about getting enough exercise and sleep and I can’t even think about what toxins I may be exposed to?!?
Dr. C: Yes – many people come in to see me and they know what they need to do but just can’t do it. The overwhelm almost para- lyzes them. So what can we do? Let’s start with baby steps. If you need guidance, I recommend that you find a functional medicine practitioner to talk to about therapeutic lifestyle changes, and to do some initial testing to identify any hormonal and nutritional deficiencies. They may also get you started on some baseline bioi- dentical hormone replacement depending on your hormone lev- els and symptoms. It can do wonders for mood, energy levels and
Dr. H: What is actually happening physiologically?
Dr. C: I’ll briefly describe some of the changes that occur. The body releases cortisol in response to stress. Cortisol release allows the body to maintain a steady supply of glucose so that you can fight or flee. It’s a very primal response.
Having high cortisol circulating throughout the body has
negative impacts and delicate hormone balances are disrupted. Levels of progesterone drop because it is needed to make more and more cortisol. There is lowered production of DHEA, testos- terone and estrogen because everything is being shunted to make more cortisol to deal with the stress. We may also see rises in cho- lesterol because cholesterol is the building block needed to make hormones in the body. Levels rise because the body is producing more cholesterol to make more of the hormones that are being depleted due to stress. It’s a vicious cycle.
Dr. H: So it sounds like the root cause is our crazy and hectic lifestyles?
Dr. C: Absolutely. The first thing I look at with a patient is their lifestyle. I want to know what they are eating, are they exercising, how much sleep are they getting, their exposure to toxins and plastics, do they smoke, do they have nutritional deficiencies and, of course, how much stress they have in their lives. The reason lifestyle is so important is that all of this can contribute to hor- mone imbalance. And, it is something we have control over and can change.
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