For men with testosterone deficiency, testosterone supplementation may be a good way to raise their testosterone levels to get them into the normal range. Bringing low testosterone levels into the normal range can have positive benefits such as increased sex drive, increased muscle mass, denser bones, and improved mood. Nevertheless, testosterone therapy is not recommended for men who already have normal testosterone levels, and it may even cause severe side effects.

Recently, an international panel of experts convened to develop a set of guidelines for sexual health care for patients with prostate cancer and their partners. The panelists used available evidence and their own expertise to develop these guidelines, accounting for patients’ unique cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds as well as their gender identities and sexual orientations.

We are pleased to announce the ISSM Podcast!

Initiated by the ISSM Podcast subcommittee, as part of the ISSM Education Committee, ISSM launches a podcast bi-weekly on various topics in the field of Sexual Medicine.
Special thanks to our hosts Shelly Varod and Karl Pang who will address interesting topics by interviewing experts in the field. Easy to listen to for both health care professionals as well as the public.

Listen to this first episode of the ISSM Podcast with expert Cobi Reisman, urologist and NVVS-sexologist, on the topic: What is Normal Sex?, hosted by Shelly Varod, certified sex therapist from Israel and media sexologist.

A fetish is sexual desire or attraction to an inanimate object or a part of the body that is not typically viewed as sexual.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a group of red blood cell disorders that cause the red blood cells to break down and morph into a “sickle” or “C” shape. Healthy red blood cells are round and contain a protein called hemoglobin that carries oxygen. In this way, red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body.

Understanding one’s own sexual and reproductive anatomy may help a person be better informed when it comes to taking care of their sexual and reproductive health. It can also help a person when they are experimenting during sexual activity to find what feels pleasurable to them.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that is triggered by a traumatic event or series of events such as an accident, a natural disaster, war/combat, assault, or abuse. It can involve nightmares or flashbacks related to the trauma, heightened reactions to external stimuli, anxiety, depression, and other symptoms that can negatively affect a person’s life.

You may have come across information online or in a doctor’s office that refers to “high-risk sexual behavior.” However, if you are not familiar with this term, you may not know what it entails.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a chronic condition that affects the lungs and airways. It can cause difficulty breathing, coughing, fatigue, weakness, and energy loss. This condition can be associated with anxiety and depression, and since the majority of COPD patients are former or current smokers, sometimes they experience feelings of guilt about their smoking.

Erections occur when an individual with a penis becomes sexually aroused, but how exactly do they work? A combination of nerve signaling, blood flow, muscle control, and hormones contribute to functional erections.

A radical prostatectomy is a treatment for prostate cancer. It is the surgical removal of the prostate and some of the tissues around it such as the seminal vesicles and sometimes nearby lymph nodes. Removing the prostate, which is the gland that is responsible for making some of the fluid in semen, can have a big impact on a man’s erectile function.

Introduction

Life-altering events such as experiencing an injury or a serious diagnosis can have an impact on a person’s sexual and mental health. For example, women who have had a traumatic pelvic fracture may experience damage to the pelvic neurovascular structures that negatively affects their sexual functioning. Additionally, pain, stress, limited mobility, and changes in body image (e.g., feeling less attractive) may give rise to issues with sexual desire, arousal, and satisfaction.