It’s a really hard thing to explain to someone, especially a doctor. For years, I felt like my body and my brain were two completely separate things. In my head, I still loved my husband, I still found him attractive, and I still wanted to be intimate with him. The desire was there. But the rest of my body just wasn’t getting the message. It was like the phone line between my brain and everything below my waist had been cut.

The best word I can think of is numb. Not numb like you can’t feel anything, but numb to any kind of romantic touch. A touch that should have started a reaction felt like nothing more than a simple touch, like someone tapping my shoulder to get my attention. There was no warmth, no spark, no physical response at all. And when your body doesn’t respond, it starts to mess with your head. I began to feel like I was faking it, just going through the motions. That led to this huge wave of guilt every single time. It felt dishonest. I felt like I was broken in some fundamental way that I couldn't explain.

This wasn't just a private problem I could ignore. It started to cause real distance between us. I started avoiding it. I'd pretend to be really tired, or I’d find a reason to stay up later than him. I think that was the worst part. I was actively creating distance from the person I wanted to be closest to, all because I was so afraid of that feeling of failure and numbness. He could feel it, of course. He started to think it was him, that I wasn't attracted to him anymore, which was absolutely not true. It just created this miserable cycle of guilt for me and doubt for him.

The Doctor Route That Went Nowhere

We finally had a long, difficult talk about it, and we decided I had to see my doctor. I was so nervous for that appointment. I just didn't know how to bring it up. I sat there and stumbled through an explanation, trying to make it clear that my mind was willing but my body had checked out.

To her credit, my doctor took it seriously. She said we needed to rule out any physical causes, which made me feel hopeful. I thought, great, they’ll find something, give me a pill, and it will be fixed. So we started a whole series of tests.

I must have given them six tubes of blood. They checked all my hormone levels, because being in my late 40s, the first thing everyone thinks of is menopause. They tested my thyroid, because apparently, that can mess up everything. They ran tests for diabetes, for anemia, for all sorts of things. I spent the next two weeks just waiting and hoping they would call and say, "We found it! Your estrogen is a little low," or something simple like that.

The call finally came, but it wasn't the one I was hoping for. It was a nurse, and she was very cheerful when she told me my results were in and everything was perfectly normal. Normal. I remember hanging up the phone and just feeling empty. How could this be normal? It felt like the furthest thing from normal.

At the next appointment, since the tests were all clear, my doctor gently suggested that the problem was probably psychological. Stress. Anxiety. She thought I should try therapy. I felt completely dismissed, like she had checked all the boxes on her list and since I didn't fit into any of them, I was now a problem for a different department.

We did try therapy. I wanted to show I was trying everything. And it wasn't all bad. It really helped us communicate better. My husband finally understood, deep down, that this wasn’t about him. It was a problem with me. But the therapy didn't fix the actual problem. It just made us better at talking about how much the problem sucked. The numbness was still there. I felt like I had hit a wall. Medicine said I was fine. Therapy helped me talk about not being fine. It was a total dead end.

Late Nights and a Glimmer of Hope

I felt like I was completely on my own. So, I did what so many people do when they feel lost. I turned to the internet. I would wait until my husband was asleep and then spend hours on my laptop, searching for anyone who felt the same way. I used search terms I was too embarrassed to say out loud. "Body doesn't respond to husband." "Physical arousal gone but desire is there."

Most of what I found was about low libido, but that didn’t fit. My problem wasn’t a lack of wanting, it was a lack of responding. It was a mechanical failure. Then, deep in some forum thread from years ago, I found it. A woman described the exact same feeling. The same disconnect. The same numbness. Reading her words was the first time I felt like I wasn't some strange medical mystery.

She talked about how she had tried a medication called Lady Era. She was very clear that it wasn't a magic desire pill. She said it did nothing for your brain. All it did was help with blood flow. It was designed to help the body respond physically if the mental desire was already present. This was the first thing I had heard that made any sense. My problem felt mechanical, so maybe it needed a mechanical solution. It wasn't about my hormones or some deep-seated psychological issue. It was simpler than that. Maybe the plumbing was just not working right. For the first time in years, I felt like I had found a path forward. It wasn't a guaranteed fix, but it was a logical explanation, and that was more than I'd gotten from anyone else.

If you feel like you're stuck in a similar situation, I really suggest looking into this resource I found: https://www.imedix.com/drugs/lady-era/