I’m 22 and I’ve been T1 for about 4 years now…I’ve noticed that whenever my BG is mid 200s or 300 that my sex drive goes way up…does this happen to anyone else? Is this a normal diabetes thing? My friend says the same thing has happened to her when her blood sugar levels are really high. I’m just kind of confused and want to know if anyone else has experienced this
LOL I have experienced this, it’s very strange because I feel pretty awful other than that sensation with blood sugars like that.
I think in my 20s my sex drive was always high, regardless. What I do know now is that persistent high Blood Sugars actually depress my sex drive quite significantly. That was one of the several symptoms (along with frequent urination, intense thirst, and being hungry all the time) that eventually got me diagnosed as diabetic.
It may be in a range somewhere, but now that my BG are in the “normal” range, my sex drive is back to normal. Then again, I’m in my 40s, so things change a lot in those 20 years.
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Just the opposite here. When I was diagnosed I was running in the 400’s all day, a1c 12.7 and felt horrible. I don’t know how long I had diabetes prior to being diagnosed but I was constantly tired, had gained 50 lbs or so, and quite frankly lost the drive I had in my 20’s. After getting aggressive about my bg control I find myself in the best shape of my life. All the things that are good for tight bg control seems to be pretty great for my physique as well. Between low carb eating and lifting weights 5 days a week I’m down 50lbs, up a lot of muscle, little to no body fat, and have more energy than ever. I’m not one to dwell on looks, but being in shape does boost ones confidence which is a huge plus when it comes to sex drive.
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Right?? Other than that I feel totally awful aha but yeah, I’m kind of glad someone out there can relate
I’ve personally never made this correlation. I tend to find broadly speaking if my blood sugars are out of my desired range my sex drive goes down, but that could be due to a whole range of factors, psychological and physiological. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some connection between higher BGLs and an increased sex drive to some extent.
Personally, I find it is low BGs that are the problem. There are three things I can’t manage if my levels are under 3.0 mmol/L. the other two are:
Transform the Schroedinger equation from rectangular to polar coordinates
Operate a chainsaw
Joel
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On low bg and erection problems, “me too”. Except for me the threshold below which it doesn’t work, is probably closer to 70 mg/dl (3.9 mmol/L). I have NEVER seen this officially documented anywhere as a hypo symptom but it’s incredibly reliable.
This was very confusing to me when I was much much younger and the adrenaline from having a low bg was indistinguishable from the adrenaline from being aroused. I’m not saying I’m never confused today but at least I’m not longer surprised or stressed out about it.
I’m more likely to wake up with a morning erection if my bg is, say, 140 or above. I think that’s always been true for me.
I’m not saying that the state of my plumbing could exactly replace my bg meter but it provides some pretty good clues.
I know when I’m high, my face tends to be flushed (as opposed to pale and sweaty when hypo), so I’m guessing there’s more blood flow to extremities generally when blood sugars are high. Presumably that would also include genitals, facilitating erections (for either sex, since clitoral tissue basically functions like a penis). So yeah, makes sense to me, especially if you’re high enough to have that increased blood flow symptom, but not so high (or atypically high for you) to feel really crappy/tired. I haven’t noticed the effect myself, but I’m going to be looking for it now ha.