Painful and debilitating, Crohn’s disease can adversely affect your sexuality. Crohn’s disease can also negatively affect your quality of life. It can even ruin your self-image and impair your relationships with other people.

            Crohn’s disease is actually one of two types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The other type of IBD is called ulcerative colitis. Either one of these two diseases can result in sexual dysfunction. Find out what Crohn’s disease is and how it can affect your sex life.

Overview

            If you’ve experienced a particularly painful episode of diarrhea, try imagining going through it over and over again. Crohn’s disease is a chronic disease, which means that the symptoms recur every now and then.

            Crohn’s disease basically makes your digestive tract inflamed. Since your gastric tract is inflamed, you’ll feel a lot of pain in your abdominal region. You’ll also suffer from severe diarrhea. This can lead to various other problems like weight loss and fatigue.

            There are also times when Crohn’s disease leads to life-threatening complications such as malnutrition and colon cancer. However, the part of the digestive tract which gets inflamed due to Crohn’s disease may vary from person to person.

            One of the biggest problems about Crohn’s disease is that the inflammation doesn’t just stay in one part of your digestive tract. It can actually spread and affect the deeper layers of your bowel tissue. Once this happens, it can cause serious complications such as bowel obstructions.

            As of the moment, there is no cure yet for Crohn’s disease. However, there are available therapies and medications that can help ease the symptoms and relieve your discomfort. The exact causes of the disease are also still unknown, although experts suspect that genetics and a malfunctioning immune system play a role.

Symptoms of Crohn’s Disease

            Although the location of the digestive tract inflammation may vary among people with Crohn’s disease, the most commonly affected parts are the colon and the tail-end part of the small intestine.

            When it comes to symptoms, Crohn’s disease is quite unpredictable. Symptoms may develop gradually or they may appear suddenly, and they may range from mild to severe. There may also be long periods of remission wherein you don’t experience any symptoms at all.

            The most common symptoms of Crohn’s disease include mild or severe diarrhea accompanied by abdominal pain and cramping. Fever and fatigue are also typical symptoms, sometimes resulting in weight loss and a reduced appetite.

            You may also experience mouth sores as well as blood in your stool. There are also cases wherein Crohn’s disease causes pain around the anus. Although not quite common, Crohn’s disease may also be accompanied by inflammation of the liver, bile ducts, eyes, skin, and joints.

Crohn’s Disease and Sexual Dysfunction

            Sexual dysfunction often occurs as a complication of a chronic illness, and Crohn’s disease is no exception. When you suffer from an inflammatory bowel disease, it means your bowel frequency increases.

            Crohn’s disease can also cause incontinence, abscesses or skin tags near or around your anus. Coupled with abdominal pain and cramping, all these symptoms can affect your self-confidence and body image. Hence, a reduced libido is a common complication of Crohn’s disease.

            Chronic pain and persistent fatigue are also strongly associated with Crohn’s disease. Both can cause a reduction in your libido and even affect how well you perform sexually. In fact, patients with Crohn’s disease often suffer negative impacts on their sexuality.

            If you’re too preoccupied with controlling your bowel movement, or too worried about not being able to control it and needing to go to the bathroom again, that can easily make you lose interest in sex. It can even kill your erection. This also helps explain why men with Crohn’s disease often develop erectile dysfunction.

            The negative effects of Crohn’s disease on your sexuality are both due to physiological and psychological factors. Crohn’s disease is strongly tied to anxiety and depression, and both these mental health problems are also known to cause erectile dysfunction and other sexual dysfunctions.

            Just imagine trying to have sex when you have diarrhea. It would be miraculous if you can even get an erection in such a situation. And if you do manage to get an erection, try imagining what would happen if you need to go to the bathroom in the middle of having sex. It’s not just inconvenient. It’s a mood killer and an embarrassment.

            With Crohn’s disease, however, it’s not just diarrhea and abdominal cramps that can prevent you from being sexually aroused. Chronic pain is also something you have to battle with. And if you have lesions, abscess, and fistulas near your anus, that’s something that you may not want anybody to see, thus preventing you from engaging in sex with your partner.

Other Complications of Crohn’s Disease

            Aside from sexual dysfunction, Crohn’s disease can also lead to various other complications. These include bowel obstructions, fistulas, and ulcers. You may also develop anal fissures or colon cancer.

            Bowel obstructions may happen if the inflammation in your digestive tract causes scarring and affects your intestinal walls. This can cause some parts of your intestine to become narrow and constricted, blocking the flow of food and waste material through your digestive tract.

            Ulcers can develop anywhere in your digestive tract, even in your mouth or your anus. When an ulcer extends through your intestinal wall, it can lead to a fistula, connecting your intestine to another organ or to your skin. A fistula can form an abscess if it becomes infected.

            Painful bowel movements sometimes cause anal fissures, causing a tear in the skin or tissues surrounding the anus. When this becomes infected, it can also lead to a perianal fistula.

Enhancing Your Libido

            For men suffering from a chronic disease, reduced libido is an additional problem. If you need to boost your sex drive, you should take one of the most popular all-natural male sex enhancement supplements today.

            This contains natural ingredients that not only act as aphrodisiacs and improve your libido but also enhance your erectile function and sexual performance. It is made with maca, Tongkat Ali, horny goat weed, damiana, and Butea superba. It also contains muira puama, Tribulus terrestris, and L-arginine.