Breast cancer survivors struggle with sexual intimacy after treatments

For many women, the fight against breast cancer is public, with support from friends and family and frequent discussions with healthcare professionals about side effects and treatment. But part of that fight is intensely private -- rarely more so than when it affects their sex life.

Certain chemotherapy drugs send women into early menopause within a few months. That, coupled, with hair loss and disfiguring mastectomies, leave some breast cancer survivors struggling to be intimate again, a new study finds.

Gigi Burnside went an entire year with one breast before having reconstructive surgery for a mastectomy. “The man I’m with has made life so much easier,” the Florida resident told the Orlando Sentinel. “One [breast], two [breasts], he doesn’t care. I had to figure out how to be attractive to myself because I was already attractive to him.”

The paper tells the story of women like Burnside and their attitudes toward their post-cancer bodies in “Feeling sexy after breast cancer.”

The Susan Komen Foundation advises breast cancer survivors to talk with a healthcare provider or join a support group (and of course their mates) to find solutions to their problems with physical intimacy in its online guide “Sexuality & Intimacy.”

Still, chemotherapy saves lives. And there’s no one-size-fits-all treatment for breast cancer; so much depends on the type of cancer and how far it has progressed. The National Cancer Institute provides an overview of five standard treatments — surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and targeted therapy — on its website.

To stay on top of the latest breast cancer findings and news, go to HealthKey.com.