The prostate cancer is a disease with serious side-effects and it can gravely disrupt the normal life you are having. Sex problems are not uncommon and usually the patient diagnosed with a prostate cancer can overcome these problems only with the help of his partner. The after affects of the prostate cancer aren’t noticeable, not until the tumor starts spreading or if the patient begins a treatment. Also, almost all conventional treatments have some side-effects and impotence can be one of them. The erectile problems you experience can be temporary or permanent, some being caused by shifting moods or strong feelings such as anxiety or the lack of confidence. In these cases the treatment is not to be blamed for the difficulties you encounter. The best thing is to talk about these problems and share your feelings with someone like your partner, your personal doctor or a sex therapist.

Like I’ve mentioned before, impotence may appear shortly after being diagnosed with a prostate cancer and started a treatment for it. Impotence is seen as an erectile dysfunction when someone is not able to maintain or develop an erection of the penis for a satisfying sexual performance, not even when aroused. The causes are multiple: past traumas, side-effects of the prostate surgery, the radiation therapy and almost all types of hormone therapy or the operations for removing both testicles and drugs side-effects. If they lack information about this body malfunctioning, men will start to get all sorts of crazy ideas like starting to worry not to infect their partner with this disease if they have sex. The prostate cancer is not infectious and even though it could ruin your intimate life because of impotence, that does not mean that cancer could be passed in the semen. You may also experience some loss of interest to have sex, but that probably is also because of the treatments you follow, especially the androgen deprivation therapy.

Impotence is not the only side effect which may affect your sex life: incontinence, diarrhea, urinary catheter or tiredness are some of the most common side-effects and they usually wear off some days or weeks after finishing your treatment. After a treatment, patients sometimes report penis shrinkage or a decrease of the amount of ejaculation. This is the alarm signal for you to immediately contact your doctor and replace the treatment you follow at the moment. Some treatments, such as brachytherapy are quite problematic. For example, the radioactive pellets implanted in the prostate gland and left there to slowly decay could easily find their way out of the prostate capsule and migrate to the surrounding areas such as the bladder, urethra and finally passed in the urinary liquid.

Because there is always the possibility for the seeds to migrate through the sperm, doctors recommend the use of condoms and in case they don’t want to use this safety protection, men could also masturbate a few times after this therapy. As you can probably notice, the side-effects are quite common so before choosing a prostate cancer treatment make sure to gather all the information about it.