Cancer And Sexual Dysfunction: Life After Treatment 

Cancer is an incurable disease that kills millions around the globe. Thanks to advances in medicine, the vast majority of cancer patients are no longer in a short-lived survival state. But for most cancer patients, bodily and emotional harms have been inflicted. It’s the post-chemo side-effects of cancer, and the sexual complications that cancer patients suffer from. Let’s explore here how chemotherapy alters sexual function, and how to maximize sexual health and other domain-specific functions after cancer.

Cancer And Sexual Dysfunction: Life After Treatment

Cancer and Sexual Dysfunction

Sexual dysfunction is a widespread side effect of cancer therapy, both in men and women. Sexual dysfunction manifests itself in remarkably specific ways depending on the type of cancer and the treatment protocol. erectile dysfunction, libido and orgasm is the most prominent symptoms in men. Women will experience vaginal suckiness, sexual aversion, decreased sexual drive, and difficulty with orgasm.

The factors that lead to sexual dysfunction in cancer patients vary. Chemotherapy, radiation and cancer surgery can all damage the nerves, blood vessels and organs that drive sex. Sexual dysfunction is also influenced by hormone fluctuation during treatment. Second, cancer diagnosis and treatment can have psychological implications, including anxiety, depression and body image concerns, all of which affect sexual function.

The Impact of Sexual Dysfunction on Cancer Survivors

Sex dysfunction can ruin the lives of cancer patients. It induces a sense of loss, rage and inferiority. Relationships can be also undermined by sex dysfunction, leaving us feeling alienated from our partners. For cancer patients, sex dysfunction can be a reminder of their cancer trajectory, and they mourn the loss of their pre-cancer sex life.

The downside to sexual dysfunction is that most cancer patients do not want treatment. They may feel ashamed or embarrassed to tell their doctor, spouse or friend about their sexual problems. What’s more, clinicians might not screen for sexual dysfunction, and cancer patients may have no way of intervening to remedy them.

Addressing Sexual Dysfunction in Cancer Survivors

Solving cancer survivors’ sexual dysfunction calls for a co-operative approach to the disease’s physical and psychological dimensions. GPs and other healthcare professionals can detect and manage sexual issues among cancer survivors. These might include educating them on the predictable recurrence of sexual dysfunction after intervention, recommending treatments, and sending patients to sex therapists or urologists.

The medicines for erectile dysfunction in men include sildenafil (Viagra) or tadalafil (Cialis), vacums, or injections of the penis. Women may use vaginal lubricants, hormone therapy, or vaginal dilators to relieve vaginal dryness and pain during sex.

For cancer survivors, it’s crucial to address the mental side of sexual dysfunction as well as medically. Such therapy or counselling may deal with anxiety, depression or body image problems. Couples therapy can also enable couples to discuss sexual concerns and practice maintaining closeness and intimacy.

Strategies for Improving Sexual Health

Although sexual dysfunction is a byproduct of chemotherapy for cancer, medical staff seldom discuss it or ever try to address it. This is to say, cancer survivors should be encouraged to engage in sexual health advocacy. Here are some of the ways we can work to resolve sexual dysfunction in the wake of cancer treatment:

1. Open Communication with Your Partner

For cancer patients, communicating with the partner is the only solution to sexual dysfunction. Uncensored and unadulterated descriptions of both partners’ feelings, anxieties and concerns allow them to accept each other’s experience and how to move past it in order to fortify their sexual relationship. Survivors of cancer can experience physical and emotional changes that impact sexual functioning due to exhaustion, self-image distortion, discomfort and depression. It can also be a way of talking to one’s partner about these changes, adjusting to new forms of closeness such as the open-ended discovery of non-dominant sexual behaviour, the abandonment of sly closeness, and the open-ended consumption of sex toys and other sex toys. Talking can result in increased trust, greater knowledge and lover-to-lover intimacy that might be linked to higher sexual happiness.

2. Sexual Concerns and Your Healthcare Provider:

While health care professionals are undoubtedly important agents when it comes to confronting the embodied aspects of cancer, they may also play a role in addressing sexual dysfunction among survivors. For instance, some of the most successful routes to confronting and treating sexuality problems are starting to talk to one’s doctor about it, seeking help and support, and finding out if you need treatment. What your physician refers to as causing sexual dysfunction might be hormonal or neurogenic damage, or a side-effect of medication. They might even introduce you to other professionals who will further coordinate appointments and treatment: sex therapists, urologists, gynaecologists.

3. Intimacy in New Ways:

Cancer patients may need to be taught to have sex no longer with one another. There is no way cuddling, holding hands, massaging, kissing could possibly be enough to keep your significant other in your embrace. They may engage in non-penetrative sex, like touch or mouth prostitution. In finding new forms of sex, cancer patients could regain their strength and rebuild sexual connections during a sickness – for pleasure and intimacy, not pyrotechnics.

4. Seeking Professional Help

If sexual dysfunction is stressing you out and jeopardising your relationship, it’s time to talk to someone who knows what they’re talking about, a therapist that specializes in sexual health. Your sex therapist might also provide a confidential discussion room for you to share any worries, feelings or concerns you have about your sexuality. They might provide scientifically proven advice and tricks to improve sexual function, communication and enjoyment. Couples therapy might be able to identify in your relationship what may be triggering your sexual dysfunction, such as communication, fear or withdrawal.

5. Caring for Your Overall Health:

You should keep a healthy life through exercising, the right nutrition, and handling stress. All these will, in a way, help to keep you healthy and contribute to sexual dysfunction. Training is very handy because it helps circulate blood and generates energy, so sex is straightforward. Well-balanced nutrition plays a huge role in hormonal regulation, while coping with stress via mindfulness, meditation or yoga calms anxiety and boosts mood. Any treatment of the psychiatric problems that go with this condition, such as depression and anxiety, would need to be incorporated into treatment for sexual dysfunction in patients with cancer.

Conclusion: Cancer And Sexual Dysfunction: Life After Treatment

Sexuality is heavily impacted by cancer treatment, and survivors suffer psychological pain and lost friendships. But sexual dysfunction is a natural side-effect of treating cancer and, if handled properly, it can be remedied quite easily. Communication openly with your partner and physician, new ways of being sexual, professional support, and taking care of yourself are all integral to healing from cancer and to increasing your sexual and emotional well-being. ‘Cancer patients should never be afraid of discussing their sexual issues and getting guidance to live a happy, healthy post-treatment life.