Great Sex After Cancer

Revitalize Your Sexuality and Intimacy

Have you found yourself asking any of these burning questions?

  Is reigniting intimacy after cancer a painful challenge?

  Are you increasingly frustrated after hearing, “Not tonight, Dear”?

  Have treatment side-effects robbed you of all passion and desire?

  Do you question whether you will ever find romance again?

  Is your partner or spouse really exhausted or just downright evasive?

  What are the chances that you will ever be able have an orgasm again?

  What can you do to get him or her to pay attention to you?

  Will you remain celibate the rest of your life, even if you stay married?

  Is the loving over?

Reigniting great sex after cancer is a painful challenge for many severely ill people. This includes....

Free Webinar May 9 - Reigniting Intimacy After Major Illness

Experiencing major illness does not need to mean the end of sex or intimacy. I invite you to join me on Wednesday, May 9, for my presentation, Reigniting Intimacy After Major Illness. 

In this program, hosted by the Relationship Coaching Institute, I will share: 

• My Cancer Journey and Mission

• When Major Illness Disrupts Intimacy

• Three Strategies for Reigniting Intimacy and Sexuality:

1.“Making Love” versus “Having Sex”

2. The S-T-I-C-K Method for Whole-Body Sex

3. Rabbi Ed's "Open Communication" strategy

• An invitation to Greater Intimacy & Sexuality

Please pass the word about this important program to your interested friends and family members. 

Date: Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Time:  5:00 pm Pacific/ 8:00 pm Eastern

There's  no need to pre-register - just click here to attend this free webinar presentation via computer or telephone. You can ask questions during the presentation and access a replay afterward.  

To get maximum benefit from this program please complete a quick pre-webinar survey.  On this survey you can also register to win a complimentary copy of my home study course, 10 Strategies for Reigniting Intimacy After a Major Illness, a $49.99 value.

I look forward to having you on the webinar!

How Can I Help You?

If your love life has been disrupted by cancer or another serious illness or its treatment side-effects, please take this quick 5 question survey to let me know how I can be of help to you:
 
This survey takes just a couple of minutes and it will give you an opportunity to briefly reflect on your primary relationships, while helping me determine how I can be of service to you and others.
 
To be entered in a drawing to win a free copy of my intimacy home study course, Ten Strategies for Reigniting Sexuality and Intimacy After a Major Illness, just enter your email address on the last line of the survey.

Thank you!

ED and Orgasms

A woman named Valerie shared this somewhat off-colored joke on a prostate cancer blog:

Question: "What goes in dry, comes out wet, and brings warm satisfaction? Answer: A tea bag."

In writing this suggestive joke I doubt whether Valerie was aware, or recalled that all men who go through prostate cancer surgery as I did, whether robotically or open, can only have dry orgasms, and that's true of many if not most radiation patients. 

Why do we only have dry orgasms? Because the prostate and seminal vesicles, which produce most of a man's seminal fluid, are removed during prostate cancer surgery. A man's testicles produce sperm and some fluid but require the help of the other reproductive organs, especially the prostate, which serves as a pump driving seminal fluid for the ejaculation of sperm.

Teleseminar Series Features 20+ Relationship Experts

I'm honored to be one of about 20 relationship and sexuality coaches you can hear by phone or online from February 6-23. The teleseminar series is called Blissful Living and Loving: A Virtual Conference on Love, Sex and Relationships.

My session takes place on Tuesday, February 21, at Noon Eastern time, when I will present "5 Ways to Reignite Sex and Intimacy after Cancer and Other Illnesses."

I invite you to click here to sign up to attend my session and some or all of the other presentations led by relationship experts on a variety of themes of interest to cancer survivors and the general population. Each presenter has a lot to offer. Apart from my subject, other topics include "Setting Your Life for Love," "Practicing Deliberate Sexuality," "Beyond Orgasms," and "Building Healthy Relationships." I hope you can join us.

As it happens, I've been invited to offer a similar presentation, "Reigniting Intimacy and Sexuality after Cancer," at the Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Cancer Therapies Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 2. If you'd like to register for that event and hear me and others address some timely topics, please contact me by email using the link beneath my photo in the column on the right. 

Great Sex and Intimacy after Cancer? How to Get Rid of Your Anger First!

If you want great sex and intimacy after cancer, you'd better first set aside any anger that may be gnawing at you. Clearly if you want to “get it on” with your partner after an illness like cancer – and also when no disease is present, you're best off slipping into an upbeat mood to reinforce the romance. As many relationship coaches would advise, don't lose sight of that EVER, let alone as Valentine's Day approaches just three weeks from now!

Anger and disappointment are inevitable in any relationship. But our capacity to “turn it around” by transforming anger into humor is highly desirable…if desire is to have the upper hand!  This point of view is underscored by guest columnist, humorist Lee Anne Jashaway (THINK: “josh- away”!?!), who artfully describes how to convert anger into laughter.

--Rabbi Ed 

Fun Tip of the Month:  Converting Anger to Laughter

The name of my newsletter has always been Don’t Get Mad, Get Funny. This is also the title of my first book on using humor to lighten up about stress and the topic title of my most popular keynote presentation. I’m not trying to say that anger isn’t a valid and valuable emotion—it’s just that too many of us go there far too often and for tiny little stressors that don’t deserve our anger energy.

Cancer Treatment Side Effects and the Loss of Manhood

After cancer treatment, sex and intimacy is a tall order for many men and women. This is so particularly after surgery or radiation for the treatment of prostate cancer, when a large proportion of men may withdraw from their spouses or partners.

After such treatments men often feel embarrassed or compromised by treatment side effects like ED and a reduced libido. They are frustrated in part by their inability to get sexual satisfaction.

They also feel they can no longer do right by their wives or partners in terms of offering sexual fulfillment. Fearing you might disappoint your significant other can lead to self-loathing and depression.

Coping with E.D.

There are many causes of ED or male impotence: certain cancer treatments, medical conditions like diabetes that stop the flow of blood to the penile area; libido-lowering medications such as the hormone Lupron; alcohol; and depression. In fact, certain medical procedures like prostate cancer surgery (a radical prostatectomy) to remove a cancerous prostate, leave 50% to 75% of men physically impotent.

Unfortunately, impotence can contribute to a man's loss of self-esteem and lead to further withdrawal from previously close relationships with his wife or partner.

Low Libido in Women

A woman can experience a lessening of her sex drive at many different points in her life, not necessarily connected to menopause.

Click the audio player below to listen as Dr. Veronica Anderson, host of the online radio show Wellness for the Real World, interviews several experts about why women experience low libido, and most importantly, what they can do about it. Guests on the show include:

• Kim Whittemore, a Director at San Diego's The Institute Of Sexual Medicine

• Heidi Houston, Executive Producer of the new movie Hot Flash Havoc, a film of menopausal proportions

• Menopause & sexual dysfunction specialist Dr. Alan Altman, an expert for the film, and author Making Love The Way We Used To...Or Better

• Maureen McGrathm, "Canada's Sexpert" and creator of YourSexualHealth.ca

Click on the audio player below to listen to this informative show. (If you can't see the audio player on your screen, please click here to listen.)

Listen to internet radio with DrVeronica on Blog Talk Radio

I have appeared as a guest on the Wellness for the Real World show several times. Click below to listen to my interviews on intimacy:

Low Libido In Men, August, 2011.

Sex and the Senior Citizen , March, 2011. (I'm the final panelist on this 90-minute show.)

Sex and the Bible , March, 2011.

Communication is Key to Satisfying Sex After Cancer

All too often erectile dysfunction following cancer treatment causes men to feel they’ve lost their manhood. And a woman can feel like "less of a woman" following treatment for breast cancer and other cancers.

The net result is that cancer survivors may withdraw from any intimacy with their spouses or partners, adversely affecting both people.

It took my wife and me considerable time to learn how to be open with each other again after my prostate cancer treatment and subsequent side effects. By now both of us have readily managed to communicate our frustrations and desires. As a result, we have immersed ourselves in rebuilding the intimacy that characterized us for most of nearly 38 years of marriage.

What Men and Women Can Do

To avoid disappointment with sex after cancer treatment, spell out your needs to your partner rather than asking them to second-guess what’s important to you. Be clear but gentle, and maintain the give-and-take relationship that can endear you to each other—the way my wife and I have . . . most of the time!

Above all, men and women should avoid self-recrimination or mutual blame. We should not put ourselves down for our inability to function as the “studs” or “babes” we once were. Acknowledging this will help cancer survivors and their wives alike. Together we can attain the physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy we desire and deserve for satisfying sex after cancer.

 

Sexual Dysfunction and Depression

Many survivors of cancer and other major illnesses discover that either the disease or its treatment can cause depression due to sexual dysfunction. This medical side effect disrupts many couples' intimacy.

Depression occurs all too often among cancer survivors. Many find that various treatments such as penile or vaginal rehabilitation, through creams, pills, potions and devices are helpful, at least intermittently. Others find these treatments consistently unhelpful.

Depression due to loss of sexual function is quite understandable, but it need not be a permanent fixture in your life.

There are several ways to avoid "feeling down" when confronted by ED (or for women, FSD), a low libido or other sexual dysfunction. Let's explore a few approaches that can help.

To start with, there is an array of medically prescribed pills, potions and devices. For example, Viagra, Cialis or lavitra; vacuum erection devices (VED's); alprostodil (prostaglandin E1) injections, MUSE tablets, or other approaches, in  varying proportions, potentially make erections possible by increasing bloodflow to the penis.

If other less invasive medical or psychological approahes fail to work, men who suffer from ED want to look into a prosthesis, aka, a penile implant. That is a good option to consider for those who can't seem to regain a sense of manhood that might be at the root of their depression.