EP198: Life after radical radiotherapy to treat prostate cancer | PUTTING DR G ON THE SPOT - video Dailymotion

The Star

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.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

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]

EP198: Life after radical radiotherapy to treat prostate cancer | PUTTING DR G ON THE SPOT

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