Prostate Cancer & the Impotence Connection

For men suffering from prostate cancer, there are many other co-morbid health complications which lead to an overwhelming sense of confusion and can create emotional complications in the prostate cancer patient. Such co-morbid complications often involve issues associated with urinary and sexual health but men, as a whole, can be overcome by a combination of these complications.

One such complication, impotency, can lead to emotional and psychological deterioration when left untreated following prostate cancer treatment. For many men, some level of temporary impotency may be associated with an enlarged prostate or treatments of prostate cancer but, for others, the impotency is much more significant, resulting in the inability to sustain or even achieve an erection.

What is important to understand is that impotency, following prostate surgery, including orchiectomy and prostatectomy, and following radiation or chemotherapy, is quite common. In many cases, temporary impotence can last as long as 12 months. For this reason, taking radical steps to resolve impotence, immediately following one of these treatment options for prostate cancer, should be avoided as the impotency may resolve on its own after a few months of recovery.

When impotence fails to improve after 12 months post treatment of prostate cancer, the option to pursue more radical forms of impotency treatment may be considered. If confirmed as an impotency directly related to nerve damage, associated with the treatment of prostate cancer, the physician may consider the use of a combination of treatments including penile injections, the use of performance enhancing drugs such as Viagra and even opt to move into more radical treatments including penile implants, vacuum devices and radical surgery to re-route the major artery from the stomach to supply the necessary blood flow to the penis.

While all of these treatments of impotency are successful in their own right, most men will opt to pursue restoration of their sexual health, following prostate surgery and prostate cancer treatment, using only Viagra. In fact, the use of Viagra, coupled with meditation and relaxation techniques, has shown to provide some success in restoring some degree of erection in male patients with a history of prostate cancer. They key to health restoration, therefore, may lie in the patient's willingness to overcome the complication from a more holistic approach.

In recent surgical advances, the surgery to remove the prostate, and to remove associated cancer cells, has become more specialized, offering the male patient with a better surgical outcome in the treatment of prostate cancer. While surgery, in most cases, can not be avoided, there are techniques the surgeon can use to avoid affecting, permanently, the nerves which control the ability of the man to obtain and achieve erection. Be certain, before selecting a surgeon, that issues such as erection are clearly addressed so as to resolve any issues or complications associated with the prostate surgery and associated prostate cancer treatment.