Sexual Side Effects of Chemotherapy

Video Transcript

"Hello I'm Dr. David Cathcart and I'm a family practice physician from the Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph and we are going to talk about chemotherapy drugs and their side effects. Chemotherapy certainly has many side effects including those that are sexual in nature. For adults certainly the libido or the desire for sexual activity decreases when you are undergoing chemotherapy mainly because you just don't feel good, you're sick. However, if you are feeling o'kay there is certainly no problem, there is no consequences of engaging in sexual activity while you are undergoing chemotherapy. However, there are some more significant side effects, some physical for example when one loses hair it is not just on top of the head it's total body hair loss so any genital or pubic hair is likely to be lost. It may come out in small amounts or it may come out in clumps but almost invariably if your chemotherapeutic drug causes hair loss it will cause hair loss in the genital areas as well. There are problems with infertility, that is usually temporary with chemotherapy drugs although it can be permanent. Certainly in females because of chemotherapy affecting those rapidly dividing cells that we have talked so much about it can also affect the rapidly dividing cells inside of the vaginal mucosa or the lining inside the vagina which is likely to cause some pain during intercourse. You know if the irritation is mild some vaginal lubricants such as KY jelly or something along that line may be helpful but suffice it to say that with respect to sexual side effects in chemotherapy there undoubtedly will be good news as all side effects or almost all side effects of chemotherapy that these are usually short lived, they are transient and they will go away. This is Dr. Cathcart talking to you about the sexual side effects of chemotherapy."