Sex Tips To Consider
Talk with your doctors and healthcare team. It may seem a bit awkward and you could be shy and embarrassed, but it is vital that you talk over issues of importance with those that will be recommending and providing treatments. In some cases, your goals and interests may swing the decision to continue with one alternative for treatment vs. another. For example, in some cases a radical surgical procedure or chemo plus less radical surgery can be equally efficacious, but the impact on sexuality may be quite different. You should be in the thick of things in decision-making. There are also nurses and counselors available to address sexuality and intimacy issues BEFORE they're a permanent problem. Find them. Talk to them.
Talk with your sexual partner. Your mate should be closely involved in assisting you to make decisions and to help you cope and recover. Working together you'll be able to explore various lubricants, remedies, dilators and other devices, and so forth. As mentioned above, a few sexual habits may need to be changed and sexual intercourse positions tried out. It can be a supportive growth adventure which could bring you closer together.
Experiment with intimacy choices. There are many ways to be intimate other than penile vaginal penetration. There are many variations of clitoral manual or oral stimulation, anal genital contact, sex toy aids and more. Caressing and cuddling are not to be discounted either. The idea is to explore, reduce anxiety and stress, enrich and reinvent your intimate connections.
Seek out cancer survivors and support groups. These days support groups and individual contact with survivors facing the same troubles can be face to face or on-line virtually. Whatever makes you most comfortable, there's power in numbers in sharing solutions and mutually making lives better. You'll be able to find some relief in knowing that most survivors have been able to bring back intimacy and sexuality in their lives. It requires creative thinking in some cases, exploration of choices and alternatives, active engagement in searching for solutions, but it is most unquestionably achievable.
