Health Conditions That Can Affect Your Sex Life

by Big Jake

You will all agree with me that in marriage, healthy sex life is a must to help couples bond better, among other great benefits.

Intimacy with your partner should be one of life’s greatest amusements.

Sadly, battling a long-term health problem can take the joy out of sex. People with chronic health problems may have serious intimacy issues since they cannot be easily aroused and thus do not feel like having sex. They also have trouble reaching orgasms and get frustrated easily.

But every problem has a solution and knowing what the problem is could be the first step.

Below are some health conditions that can affect your sex life if not managed well.

Menopause

This is typically the period when a woman stops menstruating. This usually happens between the ages of forty-five and fifty. There have been few instances women younger than this age bracket have experienced menopause. Because physical changes resulting from low production of oestrogen occur at this point in a woman’s life, the walls of the vagina become thinner and drier.

This makes sex very uncomfortable and also slows down sexual response.
Because of these factors, it takes longer for a woman to be aroused and reach orgasm. Menopause comes with other mental challenges too. The Key is to talk to a medical practitioner or a sex therapist for options to improve sex drive and enjoy intimacy.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

This is a disorder characterized by a person’s inability to recover from experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. This condition can last for months or years leading to intense emotional and physical reactions and making it impossible for thinking about sex and enjoying it.

Talking to a psychologist is the way to go.

Chronic Pain and Arthritis

Experiencing chronic pain is another condition that affects your sex life since the pain leaves little or no room to think about sex and even engage in it. Again, good diet, exercise and medications are ways to nip this in the bud. Don’t self-medicate, talk to a doctor to see what will work best for your peculiar situation.

In addition, you can plan sex for the time when your pain is at its barest minimum or make a conscious effort at intimacy in which case it will be prudent to take your pain medicine thirty or so minutes beforehand.

You can also use massage to soothe your sore muscles as foreplay.

Diabetes

When you do not control your high blood sugar over time, your cells and blood vessels get damaged, and this hinders blood flow to your sex organs. This results in men having ‘rooting’ and ejaculation issues. Women on the other hand suffer low libido, vagina dryness, painful intercourse and orgasm issues making it impossible to enjoy sex.

The way to go is to effectively manage your blood sugar levels consistently to avoid cell or vessel damage. Do visit your health care professional regularly, exercise, and take prescribed medications.

I did two extensive articles on diabetes and how to manage it a couple of weeks ago. If you missed it, do make time to read it with the links below:

https://aaron-ansah-agyeman.com/2022/05/28/what-you-need-to-know-about-diabetes/

https://aaron-ansah-agyeman.com/2022/06/05/managing-diabetes/

Heart Disease

Having high blood pressure over time also causes blood vessel damage just like diabetes. Sadly, some medications for high blood pressure can cause issues with tumble time as well. The best way to go about this is to work with your healthcare provider to get what works for you.

Regular exercise, eating well and managing your blood pressure consistently can make a big leap of difference in bedroom matters.

Depression

This is tricky since it is very difficult to tell at a glance. It is a battle in the mind which eventually affect your body. People who are depressed over time lose interest in a lot of things, and sex drive is not an exception. If you have been feeling down for a while, please talk to a therapist or a doctor. They will help you make lifestyle changes and if necessary, prescribe something to help with it.

Cancer

Living with cancer takes a toll on a person’s image, and mental and physical health and this makes sex the last thing on your mind. Even when you wish it, treatment can leave you too tired or sick for sex. You may also experience physical pain with cancer which makes it almost impossible to think about sex. Talk to your caregiver to see what options are available to bring back some fun under the sheets.

Low Testosterone

Big word but testosterone is a hormone that stimulates the development of sexual characteristics in men. The ovaries in women produce testosterone too but in very little quantities.

A man with low testosterone suffers both physical and emotional problems. If unchecked, it may lead to chronic depression. Trouble with memory, focus, motivation, and self-confidence may also arise and these will impact negatively on sex drive.

People with type 2 diabetes, liver and kidney problems may be susceptible to developing low testosterone levels.

Again, making lifestyle changes and treatment, if needed are the safe ways to manage low testosterone levels. Don’t do it by yourself, talk to a professional health care provider.

HIV/AIDS

As is known, HIV affects a person’s body to make hormones. Treatment and psychological effects of the disease take a huge toll on people with HIV thus reducing sexual desire.

Working with your doctor to find options that work best for you is the way to go.

There is some useful information on HIV/AIDS in The Last Kiss. You may consider reading it here: https://aaron-ansah-agyeman.com/2018/10/03/the-last-kiss-episode-1/

Multiple Sclerosis

This condition affects the nervous system and sexual drive starts in the brain. Your brain sends messages to the rest of the body and if the path is affected by multiple sclerosis, arousal and orgasm become a daunting task.

Talk to your doctor about options to mitigate the effects of the condition and thrive sexually.

Parkinson’s Disease

This is an ailment of the nervous system that affects movement often with shakes. A person with this condition faces challenges with movement and reduced sexual feeling and function. Medications for is illness can also affect a person’s libido. Talk to your doctor for the best available options that will not affect your sexual desires.

Opinions

Lately, I’ve seen posts about the pages not growing as they should. If you are not privy to the stats and other things on the various platforms, you may not really see this. But the sad truth is we have a problem…and we don’t even know if people read what we post at all.

Feedback after reading a story or article is like the applause you give at the end of a performance. It helps the performer (in our case, writers) to know what works and what doesn’t. And shapes their future works. Without feedback, positive or negative, it is difficult to tell if the intended objective of a story or article is achieved.

Aaron used to ask me a lot of times if I think he is as good a writer as people indicate. And his reason was simple, he was not seeing any feedback on his or other works on the website, Facebook and other social media handles and that created doubts in his mind.

A simple comment such as read, nice, great read, lovely, sad, laughing, loving this, wished it didn’t end, more episodes, etc will be enough.

I think the problem is the Ghanaian attitude to things. We are not expressive enough, and that is okay but we can be if we want to be.

Those platforms that are doing so well are mostly Nigerian because they are proud of their authors and share their stories far and wide, tagging friends and family in their comments. I know we can do better if we put our minds to it.

Going forward, let’s start a hashtag on this. Let’s keep the dream alive.

Let’s grow the Klever fan base and keep Aaron’s dream alive by liking, commenting, and sharing the works on his website and other social media handles.

Yes, we can do this!

#lcs (like comment share)

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