Consultant urologist Dr George Lee Eng Geap, or a.k.a Dr G, answers a question posed by a reader who wants to find out how men can recover their libido and sexual urge after undergoing radical radiotherapy.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 This week, we're going to talk about radical radiotherapy
00:03 and how that can affect men when it comes to the erection
00:08 and also sexual function.
00:10 (upbeat music)
00:13 Radical radiotherapy is sometimes necessary
00:19 in order to eliminate the cancer cells in the prostate.
00:24 Before doing that, the operation itself
00:28 or the intervention itself will require
00:30 the prostate to be shrunken
00:32 and that is using hormonal suppression.
00:35 The hormonal suppression effectively put men into menopause
00:39 and that can have suppress of their libido
00:43 and also to some extent, erectile dysfunction.
00:47 So many men following radiotherapy
00:50 will also encounter problems of erectile dysfunction
00:53 because of radiotherapy itself.
00:56 So is there any way to overcome this?
00:59 In fact, as far as libido is concerned,
01:01 the suppression of the testosterone is absolutely necessary
01:05 because if men are given testosterone supplement
01:09 or testosterone replacement,
01:10 the prostate itself may actually grow bigger again
01:14 and that may stimulate the prostate cancer cells.
01:17 Therefore, wait until the end of the treatment plan
01:21 and your testosterone will slowly go up after radiotherapy.
01:25 Usually it's about a year to two years.
01:27 Following that, men who still continue
01:30 to have erectile dysfunction can think about the blue pills
01:33 such as PDE5 inhibitors or other things
01:36 such as the injections into the actual penis itself
01:41 in order to enhance circulation.
01:44 So therefore, it is not absolutely detrimental
01:48 after radiotherapy as far as the erection
01:51 and libido is concerned
01:53 because there's always like at the end of the tunnel
01:56 when the completion of treatment
01:58 after elimination of the cancer,
02:00 then the testosterone will slowly get back to normal
02:05 and the erection hopefully will return.
02:07 For the final installations of Movember November,
02:10 we're gonna talk about if all fails, what do you do?
02:14 And that obviously will require
02:16 a little bit more aggressive treatment of penile prosthesis.
02:20 So for those men who are curious
02:22 about what exactly is penile prosthesis,
02:24 stay tuned for next week's Putting Dr. G on the Spot.
02:28 (gentle music)
02:30 (gentle music)
02:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]