Cancer treatment saves lives, but it can bring with it several physical complications and mental challenges. Unfortunately, one thing they never tell you about life after cancer is that cancer treatment can profoundly affect fertility, sexual health, and intimacy. It can be tough for cancer survivors to navigate these changes. Fortunately, there are many ways you can guard your fertility and restore sexual wellness and intimacy.
- In this article, we’ll review cancer and fertility, chemotherapy and sexuality, intimacy after cancer, and how to become sexually active again after cancer treatment.
How Cancer Treatments Affect Fertility
Cancer treatments can affect fertility, regardless of what type of cancer you have. This makes fertility preservation a pressing issue for anyone with cancer, but especially for those who may need chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery. Here’s more about how these modalities may affect fertility:
- Chemotherapy: Chemotherapy drugs attack fast-growing cancer cells, but they’re typically non-specific, meaning they attack all fast-growing cells. Unfortunately, this includes cells in sex organs, which can lead to early menopause in women and reduced sperm quality or sperm count in men.
- Radiation: Depending on the location and dose of radiation, radiation therapy can directly damage reproductive organs and threaten fertility. Radiation to the pelvic area is the most potentially harmful.
- Surgery: Depending on the type of cancer you have, you may need to have all or part of a reproductive organ or organs removed. Sometimes, more minor surgeries on the reproductive organs may leave fertility intact.
Managing Libido and Hormonal Changes
It’s also normal after cancer treatment to experience changes to your libido. You may be wondering why you have no sex drive and why you don’t want to have sex anymore. There are two major factors at play: physical changes and hormonal changes.
Hormonal changes, particularly for women, can make it difficult to get in the mood for sex. Treatments can cause female hormone levels to plummet, which leads to both low libido and physical changes – like vaginal dryness and hot flashes – that make it more difficult to have sex.
For men, some treatments can reduce testosterone levels, which could cause low libido or erectile dysfunction.
Hormone replacement therapy can be an option to restore sex drive. If you’re experiencing low libido, be sure to bring it up to your doctor to see what your options are.
Body Image and Emotional Healing
Cancer treatment can also affect your body image, changing the way you feel about your own body. Your weight may change, you may have surgical scars, or you may need to have a breast removed – all of these can drastically affect your body image and self-esteem.
It’s important to consider the emotional aspect of these changes, rather than the purely physical aspects. Emotional healing and acceptance are an important part of recovery after cancer treatment. You may want to consider options like group therapy support groups for cancer survivors or one-on-one or couples’ therapy to address more private concerns about your sexual wellness or body image.
Fertility Preservation and Post-Treatment Options
Before or shortly after starting cancer treatments is the time to consider and act on fertility preservation options. There are several ways to preserve fertility, including:
- Egg or sperm freezing: A common option for fertility preservation is freezing your sperm or eggs, which involves harvesting and freezing healthy sperm or eggs before chemotherapy or radiation begins. These can later be used in fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization (IVF).
- Embryo freezing: You may also choose to undergo IVF before starting cancer treatment to create embryos that can be suspended on ice for implantation at a later date.
- Ovarian tissue freezing: Another relatively new option is ovarian tissue freezing, which preserves the ovarian tissue. This may be appropriate for women who are unable to undergo egg retrieval.
After cancer treatment, there are still several options even if your fertility has been impacted. These include IVF (if you have preserved egg, sperm, or embryos), surrogacy, and adoption.
It’s imperative to start a conversation with your oncologist as soon as possible regarding your desires for fertility preservation. This way, you can promptly address it before starting your cancer treatment.
It’s imperative to start a conversation with your oncologist as soon as possible regarding your desires for fertility preservation. This way, you can promptly address it before starting your cancer treatment.
Rebuilding intimacy after cancer treatment is about more than just physical recovery. It’s about emotional healing, reconnecting with your partner, and accepting that things may not be exactly like they were before you had cancer. You and your partner may need time to adjust.
Open communication is an important part of rebuilding intimacy after cancer. Share with your partner about your thoughts, fears, desires, boundaries, and concerns regarding intimacy after cancer.
Remember, there are ways to be intimate that don’t involve sex – like holding hands, cuddling, or just spending time close to one another. You can take things as slow as you need to and return to sexual intimacy when you’re full and truly comfortable with it.
Couples therapy or sex therapy is also an option to consider. It can be incredibly helpful as you navigate the complex world of post-treatment complications. A trained therapist can help you work through body image hang-ups, emotional struggles, and your changing ideas around intimacy during and after cancer treatment.
Key Takeaways
Your fertility, body image, and sex life after cancer may be different. Cancer treatment can cause intimacy and fertility struggles. Fortunately, they’re not insurmountable. With support, education, understanding, and self-compassion, cancer survivors can restore their self-esteem and rebuild intimacy with their partners. There are also several strategies to help preserve fertility before starting cancer treatments.
By managing potential hormonal shifts, viewing your new post-cancer body with compassion, and practicing open communication, it’s possible to navigate intimacy after cancer in a way that’s fulfilling for you and your partner. With the right mindset and resources, it’s possible to enjoy intimacy again.