How Diabetes Can Affect Your Sex Life

How Diabetes Can Affect Your Sex Life

Diabetes has far-reaching consequences beyond dietary considerations, apart from taking a toll on a person’s mental health and self-esteem significantly affecting sexual well-being through various sexual problems or loss of sexual desire. 

Our article explores the relationship between diabetes and sex and helps uncover how diabetes can affect your sex. 

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a long-lasting health condition that affects how your body turns food into energy. 

The food you consume is metabolized into sugar (glucose) by your body and then released into your bloodstream. As your blood sugar levels increase, it notifies your pancreas to release insulin, which allows the blood sugar to enter your body's cells and be used as energy.

With diabetes, the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin, or the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces, resulting in too much blood sugar staying in your bloodstream. 

Over time, that can cause serious health problems, such as heart disease, vision loss, and kidney disease.

Common problems

Living with a chronic illness can lead to anxiety, potentially causing sexual issues. Moreover, sexual dysfunction exists more commonly in those who can poorly control diabetes. 

This condition can harm blood vessels and nerves, leading to reduce blood flow in the genital area, potentially causing vaginal dryness in women and erectile problems in men. 

Furthermore, health conditions associated with diabetes, such as heath disease and depression, also elevate the risk of sexual dysfunction. 

Continuous fluctuation in blood glucose levels, whether higher or lower, can contribute to fatigue, disrupt sleep patterns exhaustion, and influence a person’s mood, energy levels, and sexual desire. 

Common impacts experienced by women with Type 2 Diabetes include:

• Difficulty with lubricants 
• Experience fewer orgasms
• Avoidance of sex

Common impacts experienced by men with Type 2 Diabetes include:

• Erectile dysfunction (stems from problems caused by poor long-term blood sugar control that causes damaged nerves and blood vessels).
• Lack of sexual desire
• Less sexually satisfied

Problems related to sexual dysfunction can often be complex. If you feel your sex desire slowly diminishing, it is important to monitor your diabetes and take necessary actions to stabilize your blood glucose levels. 

Actions to reduce sexual complications:

• For women, the most common symptom of sexual complications is vaginal dryness. To help reduce persistent dryness, adding a lube such as Durex Maxima Lube will help replace moisture lost due to diabetes-related symptoms with a long-lasting, slippery, and super smooth gel.
• Being overweight can contribute to libido difference or even its loss. According to research, losing body weight can help you boost self-esteem and improve sexual functioning. So, if you want to control diabetes while enhancing your appearance, losing weight can help you improve your health significantly.