Excerpts from an article in the Jerusalem Post about a subject that rarely gets addressed. The whole article is worth reading.
The article refers to the work of two clinicians: Prof. Sharon Bober, a clinical and research psychologist at Harvard Medical School’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Dr. Rivka Klein, a Jerusalem-based clinical social worker and sex therapist who received her PhD in social work at the Hebrew University
How to bring the loving back after cancer
It’s unfortunately an “unmentionable” subject that even makes many physicians blush – and many others avoid raising the subject at all. But as growing numbers of cancer survivors want to resume intimate relations with their partners, raising awareness of the problem and offering clinical help need to be put on the agenda.
... Returning to one’s previous level of intimacy can often be a problem, because surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and hormonal medications may cause a lot of long-term side effects that interfere with sex.”
Sexuality, she says, is an experience at the junction of mind, body and relationship, and cancer treatment can affect all of those elements. From the first session, she tells patients that sexual dysfunction deserves as much attention as any other quality-of-life issue; that the problems should not cause embarrassment or shame; and that there are treatments that really work.
Cancer treatment may result in heart damage, kidney problems and disruptions of both male and female sexual function.
Men can become impotent, while women who had ovarian cancer can be propelled into early menopause. Other types of cancer can also have side effects.
....the example of one 38-year-old woman who suddenly lost her ovaries to cancer. “She hadn’t been told about what would come next in her life. She wasn’t ready for it. Her doctors told her she should be happy to be alive. But she and her partner suffered from her hot flashes, vaginal dryness, fatigue, dramatic loss of estrogen and lack of libido. She was depressed.”
Usually, either the patient is ashamed to raise the issue or afraid to embarrass their doctor – or the physician doesn’t know enough to raise it or afraid to embarrass the patient.”
The longer patients wait to undergo rehabilitation of their sexual functions, the harder it is to preserve.
“There are a lot of people who specialize in sexual medicine, but only a small subset who work with cardiac and cancer survivors and medical illness. Even younger cardiologists and oncologists may feel no obligation to talk about sexual function with their patients or don’t like to discuss it themselves. We have studied primary care doctors, many of whom weren’t prepared for broaching the subject.”
But “patients usually need psychological treatment, an integrative mind/body model. Women who have had a mastectomy, for example, usually feel very unattractive.
“It would be great if not only doctors were educated and willing to discuss these issues, but patients were also willing to hear about them,” they conclude. “There is no reason why people have to suffer in silence. They have suffered enough already."
Sexuality, she says, is an experience at the junction of mind, body and relationship, and cancer treatment can affect all of those elements. From the first session, she tells patients that sexual dysfunction deserves as much attention as any other quality-of-life issue; that the problems should not cause embarrassment or shame; and that there are treatments that really work.
Cancer treatment may result in heart damage, kidney problems and disruptions of both male and female sexual function.
Men can become impotent, while women who had ovarian cancer can be propelled into early menopause. Other types of cancer can also have side effects.
....the example of one 38-year-old woman who suddenly lost her ovaries to cancer. “She hadn’t been told about what would come next in her life. She wasn’t ready for it. Her doctors told her she should be happy to be alive. But she and her partner suffered from her hot flashes, vaginal dryness, fatigue, dramatic loss of estrogen and lack of libido. She was depressed.”
Usually, either the patient is ashamed to raise the issue or afraid to embarrass their doctor – or the physician doesn’t know enough to raise it or afraid to embarrass the patient.”
The longer patients wait to undergo rehabilitation of their sexual functions, the harder it is to preserve.
“There are a lot of people who specialize in sexual medicine, but only a small subset who work with cardiac and cancer survivors and medical illness. Even younger cardiologists and oncologists may feel no obligation to talk about sexual function with their patients or don’t like to discuss it themselves. We have studied primary care doctors, many of whom weren’t prepared for broaching the subject.”
But “patients usually need psychological treatment, an integrative mind/body model. Women who have had a mastectomy, for example, usually feel very unattractive.
“It would be great if not only doctors were educated and willing to discuss these issues, but patients were also willing to hear about them,” they conclude. “There is no reason why people have to suffer in silence. They have suffered enough already."
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