Several options can help boost female sexual desire, ranging from prescription medications and hormonal treatments to supplements and lifestyle changes. What works best depends on whether your low libido is a recent shift, a long-standing pattern, or tied to something specific like stress, a medication side effect, or a hormonal change. Here’s what the evidence actually supports.
Prescription Options
Flibanserin is the most well-known FDA-approved medication for low sexual desire in premenopausal women. It’s a daily pill taken at bedtime that works on serotonin and dopamine activity in the brain, shifting the balance of brain chemicals involved in desire. It’s not a quick fix: you take it every night, and it typically takes several weeks before you notice a difference. The most common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, and nausea. You also need to avoid alcohol while taking it, because the combination can cause dangerously low blood pressure and fainting.
Bremelanotide is the other FDA-approved option. Unlike flibanserin, it’s not a daily pill. It’s a self-administered injection you give yourself in the thigh or abdomen at least 45 minutes before anticipated sexual activity. It works through a different pathway, activating receptors in the brain tied to arousal. Nausea is the most commonly reported side effect, especially with the first dose.
Both medications are specifically approved for premenopausal women diagnosed with persistently low desire that causes personal distress. That distinction matters: a temporary dip in libido during a stressful month isn’t the same condition these drugs were designed for. The clinical threshold is a persistent or recurrent absence of sexual desire or fantasy that causes marked distress.
Testosterone Therapy
Testosterone isn’t just a male hormone. Women produce it too, and levels decline with age, especially after menopause. There’s no testosterone product officially approved for women in the United States, but doctors frequently prescribe it off-label for low desire, and the evidence behind it is strong enough that international medical societies have published formal guidelines on how to do it safely.
The standard approach uses about one-tenth of a typical male dose of testosterone gel or cream, roughly 300 micrograms per day applied to the skin. In practical terms, that’s about four drops from a standard tube of 1% testosterone gel. Your doctor will check your testosterone levels three to six weeks after starting to make sure the dose is right, then every four to six months once things stabilize.
Side effects to watch for include acne, oily skin, increased facial hair, and thinning hair on the scalp, all signs the dose is too high. If any of those appear, the dose gets reduced. Your doctor will also want baseline bloodwork, including liver function and cholesterol levels, before you start.
Supplements With Clinical Evidence
If you’d rather start with something over the counter, two supplements have the most research behind them for female sexual desire: maca root and ashwagandha.
Maca Root
Maca is a plant native to Peru that has been studied in several clinical trials for sexual dysfunction. The effective dose in research is 3 grams per day. In a randomized, double-blind study of people experiencing sexual side effects from antidepressants, those taking 3 g/day saw significant improvements in overall sexual function scores, while those on the lower 1.5 g/day dose did not. Libido specifically improved across both dose groups, but the higher dose was more consistently effective for overall sexual function. It typically takes at least eight weeks to see the full benefit.
Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha root extract has shown strong results in a placebo-controlled trial of healthy women. Over eight weeks, women taking ashwagandha saw their sexual function scores rise from 14.2 to 22.6 on a standardized scale, compared to a smaller improvement (14.2 to 19.3) in the placebo group. The improvement showed up across every measured category: desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and reduced pain during sex. That’s a notably broad effect for a single supplement.
Neither supplement is regulated the way prescription drugs are, so quality varies between brands. Look for products that have been third-party tested.
Check for Underlying Causes First
Before reaching for any pill or supplement, it’s worth considering whether something identifiable is suppressing your desire. Low libido is often a downstream symptom rather than a standalone problem.
Iron deficiency is one commonly overlooked culprit. A study of reproductive-age women found that those with iron deficiency anemia scored significantly lower on every dimension of sexual function and satisfaction compared to women with normal iron levels. The anemia group had average ferritin levels around 10 μg/L, versus 61 μg/L in the healthy group. Critically, other research has shown that when iron deficiency anemia is treated, most sexual function scores significantly improve. If you have heavy periods, fatigue, or a history of low iron, getting your ferritin checked is a simple first step that could make a real difference.
Certain medications are another major factor. Antidepressants, particularly SSRIs, are notorious for suppressing desire and arousal. Hormonal birth control can lower free testosterone levels, which for some women translates to noticeably reduced libido. If your desire dropped around the time you started a new medication, that connection is worth exploring with your prescriber.
The Role of Mental and Relational Factors
Sexual desire in women tends to operate on a dual system: one part accelerates arousal, and the other acts as a brake. For many women, low desire isn’t about a weak accelerator. It’s about having too many brakes engaged at once. Stress, relationship tension, body image concerns, exhaustion, feeling “touched out” from caregiving, and lack of novelty all activate that braking system.
This matters practically because no supplement or medication can fully override brakes that are constantly engaged. If you’re chronically sleep-deprived, resentful toward a partner, or dealing with unresolved anxiety, those need attention too. Sometimes the most effective “treatment” for low desire is reducing what’s suppressing it rather than adding something to force it through.
It’s also worth knowing that many women experience primarily responsive desire rather than spontaneous desire. That means you may rarely feel desire out of nowhere, but once you engage in physical intimacy or are in a context that feels safe and appealing, desire shows up. This is a normal variation, not a dysfunction. If you feel desire during sex but not before it, that pattern alone doesn’t mean something is wrong.
Putting It Together
For most women, the practical starting point looks like this: rule out medical causes (iron levels, thyroid function, medication side effects), address the obvious lifestyle factors (sleep, stress, relationship quality), and then consider targeted options if the problem persists. Maca at 3 g/day and ashwagandha are reasonable low-risk starting points. If those aren’t enough, testosterone therapy and prescription medications like flibanserin or bremelanotide are the next tier, each with a different profile of benefits and tradeoffs. The right choice depends on whether you’re pre- or postmenopausal, what’s driving the issue, and how much the low desire is actually bothering you versus how much you feel it “should” bother you.