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Sex and intimacy through a big change, honestly

Started 15 September 2024 · 24 replies · 286 hearts · read 2.1k times

RuaridhFort William, UK · 15 September 2024
1.8 years ago

A question rather than an update: Sex and intimacy through a big change, honestly

Anyone else navigating this? I feel as though every piece of advice I read was written for someone with a completely different week.

I am aware some of this may be nothing. I would still like to know whether other people have had it, because I have spent a fortnight assuming I am the only one.

My prescriber has been fine, genuinely. The problem is that I get nine minutes twice a year and there is no version of nine minutes that covers this.

Sorry for the length. If anyone has been here, I would very much like to hear it.

95

OmarAmman, JO
#1

Similar here, and mine turned out to be a completely unrelated deficiency picked up on bloods.

12

TeganNewport, UK
#2

I have been in this circle a year and this question comes round every few months. It is not a silly question. It is the question.

7

RufusGuildford, UK
#3

Yes. All of this. I had the same in my third month and I remember thinking there was something specifically wrong with me, which there was not.

14

MapleToronto, CA
#5

My experience was very boring, which I offer as data. Some of us just get a dull time of it.

11

NikitaYerevan, AM
#6

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

What helped was lowering my own expectations of the week rather than trying to hold the week together.

14me too 5

BessLouth, UK
#7

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Please do not read the comments under news articles about this. I lost a fortnight to that.

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OssieWolverhampton, UK
#8

I asked my nurse the same question and she said something I have repeated ever since: that the aim is to keep you on treatment, not to get you up the schedule.

15

NolwennRennes, FR
#9

No advice, just recognition. That sounds exhausting and I am sorry you are in it.

7

OzrenZagreb, HR
#10

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

I keep a two-line diary and it is the only reason I could answer this question about myself. Worth starting even now.

13

CormacWaterford, IE
#11

Mine lasted about seven weeks and then lifted over a few days. I cannot tell you why. I can tell you it lifted.

13me too 7

RuaridhFort William, UK
#12

the reply above said something I want to sit with for a second.

Two things that helped me, neither of them clever: small amounts more often, and drinking a lot more than felt necessary.

5

OmarAmman, JO
#13

I would take that to a clinician rather than to us, and I would do it this week. Not because it is definitely serious — because it is the sort of thing that is much easier to rule out than to worry about.

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TeganNewport, UK
#14

Different experience here, for balance. Mine did not improve and in the end I stopped, and that was the right call for me. Both outcomes exist.

15

RufusGuildford, UK
#15

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

I am the person who had the frightening version of this. I went in, it was investigated, and it was not what anyone feared. Going in is the whole of my advice.

11

ObiLagos, NG
#16

Coming back to this a fortnight later to say it settled. Leaving the update because I hate reading threads that stop.

11me too 3

MapleToronto, CA
#17

Practical, boring answer: write the three questions down before you go in. I have never once remembered them otherwise.

10

NikitaYerevan, AM
#18

Gently disagreeing with the reply above, or rather adding the other half of it.

I did exactly the same and felt terrible about it. You have not done anything wrong.

15

BessLouth, UK
#19

Building on what the reply above wrote rather than answering the original question.

The thing that changed it for me was going slower, agreed with my prescriber. I am not suggesting you do that. I am saying the conversation exists.

12

OssieWolverhampton, UK
#20

Have you got anyone who can be with you when you do it? It made an enormous difference to me and I felt silly asking.

10

NolwennRennes, FR
#21

Can I gently push back on one thing? Not the substance, just the framing — you have written twice that you should be coping better. Who told you that?

9me too 3

OzrenZagreb, HR
#22

My pharmacist was more use than anyone. Ten minutes at the counter, no appointment, no charge.

11

WrenFacilitatorLeeds, UK
#23

Thank you for writing this. I am not going to add information to it. I am going to say that what you have described is very common and very rarely said out loud.

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RuaridhFort William, UK
#24

What the reply above described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

I am about four months behind you and I have been dreading exactly this, so thank you for writing it down before I got there.

12