How Prostate Cancer and Testosterone Loss Can Affect Each People

By Truth Random


Most men and women believe of it being a man's disease, but prostate cancer can affect each men and women.

Indeed, this disease affects most women who know and love men who have to contend with prostate cancer and its treatment side effects. Even over other cancers, it tends to improve intimate personal relationships among men and their spouses and partners. And women are also affected once this cancer and its treatment side effects strike their fathers, sons, brothers along with other male relatives and friends.

Prostate Cancer's Impact on Women

Prostate cancer can affect both persons in several ways. For instance, most men experience erectile dysfunction (ED) after prostate cancer surgical treatment or radiation. About 70 percent of men develop ED soon after surgery, and about 50 percent of patients who undergo radiotherapy develop ED, commonly within three to 5 many years right after treatment. How could this fail to acquire an impact not merely on them, but on their wives or partners?

When ED or impotence occurs, the wives of all too numerous survivors need to deal with their spouses' self-doubts about their manhood. In turn, a man's loss of self-esteem tends to cut into the intimacy he and his wife as soon as enjoyed. Like a prostate cancer survivor, I initially had many self-doubts without the need of being aware of it. For that reason I withdrew physically from my wife for months after my surgery. And this had an adverse effect on both of us.

In addition to this disease's effect in reducing sexual intimacy, quite a few women are also affected by their husband's urinary problems. These problems might be short-term or long-term, as permanent incontinence occurs in Five percent to 15 percent of men right after prostate cancer surgery (radical prostatectomy) or radiotherapy. A man's incontinence can be an dilemma for women if they think compelled to clean up following their husbands.

For 2 weeks right after my surgery in 2007, my wife lovingly took it upon herself to clean my catheter bags. In subsequent weeks, after I was even now not yet "leak-proof," she put my urine-stained underwear from the washing machine. Even when a woman doesn't take on a care-giving role, she might have dilemma dealing with her partner's self-esteem problems arising from incontinence.

In spite of the high survival rate for prostate cancer, most women discover it disturbing, if not downright frightening, to understand that a man they adore has cancer. Women often experience anxiety and stress just knowing that somebody they love is under duress.

The Testosterone Connection

How strange that a extensively respect website, HealthandAge.com, says, "There are particular health problems that only affect men, such as prostate cancer and low testosterone." Nothing could be further during the truth, as I've already illustrated.

What about testosterone - is it real that low testosterone affects only men? Hardly! First of all, a man's testosterone decreases about one percent a year during the time he reaches age 40. Prostate cancer and its treatment can intensify the pace of the man's testosterone loss. I know first-hand about this, because hormone treatment right after my diagnosis lowered my testosterone to a near-castrate level.

Reduced testosterone usually leads to elevated male anxiety, a lower libido, increasing muscle flab, and higher distractibility. Anyone in a close relationship with such men, particularly wives or partners, cannot help but be affected during what I call "MANopause." Add to this women's entry into perimenopause or menopause - around the time once many cases of prostate cancer come in between men - and you've a genuine lead to for marital conflict.

And what about a woman's testosterone? Just as men's testosterone levels diminish with age, so does a woman's testosterone. Of course, her level of testosterone is much lower than a man's to begin with. But a woman's continued loss of testosterone, commencing around age 40, as well as the loss of estrogen as she ages, impacts a woman's life and often reduces her energy, libido and physical fitness.




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