Pian, Depression, Meds & Sex

Hello All,

Coming here from the Prostate Cancer Forum I may come off as being a little liberal about the subject of sex. On the PC forum, we discuss all kinds of physical & mental sexual problems that we encounter with this horrable disease. It has helped countless guys and their wives understand and learn about these problems by talking about them. Maybe I'm out of line bringing it up but I think it's an important issue that most of us are suffering with. I appologise to those of you who are not married or have a signifigant other but I just know alot of you are feeling like I am. Many of the meds we take reduce our libido which may be very hard for our partner to understand. Then there is the constant pain, for most of us, if we do get a break and get our pain levels down to a acceptable level, its time to rest or sleep to catch up from all that we had missed! As some of you may have read in another post, I recently cut my Effecsor dose hoping that I might get a little of my long lost sex drive back. I was foolish for trying without talking to a Dr. and I paid the price with a bout of depression that caused me to post here several times in which I said things that I wish I could have taken back. I am having troubles with my 28 year marrage and I think one of the big problems is sex. There is none. OK friends, I opened this subject for discussion because I think its a important issue to all who suffer from cronic pain. Anyone like to chime in?

Your friend,

Pete

My story is quite similar but yet a bit different. My husband of almost 13 years knows what it is like to deal with an injury to the lower back and to this day he still from time to time has troubles with his back that prevents him from being able to become intimate with me. But not only am I dealing with the pain that courses through my legs and back everyday that lowers my libido and the pain medications but too I am dealing with another situation that only a woman could really understand.....Menopause. At almost 45 years of age (I hit this big number the day before I have to bury my father this week) I am going through Menopause which lowers a woman's libido. This coupled with the pain and the medications has frustrated both of us and we have tried many things to enhance our intimacy with no luck of course.

But I think after 13 years of marriage that has been fantastic and more trusting then any that I have ever been in hubby and I talk about things and he knows that even though I am mostly not in the mood that I would do anything to please him even if that meant going through the motions without the satisfaction in the end (if you understand my meaning). This is not an easy topic for me to speak about cause I am a very private person when it comes to a topic like this but I figured I'd put my two cents in.

Scarred

Pete,

Thank you for having the courage to start this tender thread. It is a common problem for any of us on pain medications and/or living with chronic illness. I too have the problem that pain meds bring on...no desire. It breaks my heart so much that I'm tearing as I type. Hubby is not one of those guys that has to prove something to anyone...thankfully...but it's still not fair for him to do without. I do my best to keep him happy but I still don't feel like I am the wife he deserves because of these dang! pills. Without them I have no life at all tho so I'm lost as to what the answer is to this problem. Tears are pouring...will check back in later.

Thanks again, Pete,
Chutzie

Hi Pete,

 

I usually post on the fibromyalgia forum but one in awhile post here as I have tons of chronic pain issues.  I posted a simalar post on the fibro forum.  I struggle with the sex issue everyday.  It's like I am terrified when my hubby Jayson even hints at sex.  I also am no idiot at some of the comments that I know pertain to me not being a willing partner,like last night my hubby and I were watching TV and he made a comment of "at least he's getting some" and then when I was upset he said it wasnt about me and he was only joking ,ya right.

 

When Jayson  and I first got together 9 years ago it was with me getting out of a terribly abusive marriage and him not being with anyone for 3 years so there was sex galore in every room in the house sometimes several times a day.  I had lost a bunch of weight right before meeting him and he was 50 pounds lighter too and even though I had some pain from having my tailbone removed several years before,I had been going to a gy 3 times a week and was in the best shape I had been in years.  Then 4 months after he moved here I fell down the stairs and broke my back and hurt other multiple things on the way down.  So I was thrown into massive pain for many months.  The outcome though was chronic pain on a daily basis and weight gain.  Then you throw in the deppresion and meds for that and all the pain killers and so no libido.  I got to the point where if I never had sex for the rest of my life it would be fine with me.  It did not change the way I felt about Jayson though as in how much I still loved him and did want the affection just not sex.

 

Jayson has been pretty patient in all of this and as the years went by with him gaining the 50 pounds his libido has lowered alot as well but we would have sex every few months and I did throw in pleasuring him every few weeks.  I did not feel bad about taking care of just him.  It was my only way of feeling close to him in that way on a reg basis and he even said he felt somewhat guilty about it like I was just doing it to make him happy but I was getting some satifaction out of it myself too because it made me feel close to him.  Then I got fibromyalgia and even that changed.  I now have all over muscle and joint pain and many days I walk around the house looking like an 90 year old lady specially now in the winter as the cold makes me hurt even more.  Now when we attempt sex more times then not I have to stop because of pain,mostly pain in my back.

 

One of the issues we have is that Jayson used to be alot more active when we had sex but since gaining all the wieght we literally have something that has come between us....his stomach.  He tires easily and is short on breath too so that leaves me to do all the work.  He basically lays back and start to finish its up to me to do all the work.  I am very short so being on top of him is impossible its like sitting on a teeter totter.  For me to be in a sitting position on him requires me to use my legs for the motion and that kills my legs and low back and he is opposed to any going in from behind because he says it makes him feel "weird" sighhhhh.  We have talked about how much better things could be if he lost wieght and became more of an equal partner in out love making but shows no sign of that ever happening as he has become very addicted to food.  Its like he acts like he wants more sex but does nothing on his part to make that happen and I just cant do this on my own but he acts for the most part like its because of me that we dont have much sex.

 

And there have been times when I phych myself up all day to have sex and actually get in the mood and make sure I have just taken my pain meds and then he turns me down.  Its usaully some totally bogus excuse too,the old I have a headache or I banged my leg at work and it hurts even though when he first came home he said he was feeling fine and was not limping till later.  I take that as he is feeling fat and slugish and just doesnt want to make the effort what little effort there is.  It does make me resentful that the reason I have trouble having sex is because of things beyond my control but him losing weight is totally something he can control and that its not worth the effort to get rid of the weight if not for him then for me.  He knows how hard it is for me to do everything and he knows how much easier it would be for me if he dropped the pounds but I feel like I a not worth the work of losing this weight.  The only time he even seems happy anymore is when he is eating and his gluttony is making me more and more turned off by him.

 

And its not just about sex in our household.  Its about him not putting any effort into anything but his job.  He used to help out around the house alot and now its a fight to even get him to vaccum.  I do many things at home like dusting,bathroom,dishes,all the cooking and most of the laundry and overall picking up and keeping things tidy.  All I ask of him is to vacuum the stairs and landings and to mop the kitchen and bathroom floors.  He tired saying "oh I keep forgetting" so we have a dry message board riht on the side of the fridge and I told him anything I need you to do I will write it here.  Ya,still doesnt get done and like the vacuuming of the stairs it gets to the point where I was practically begging him to do it and still nothing so I end up doing these things myself and he goes"I said I would do it why did you do it?"  sheesh,he knows that those things hurt me like hell and put me in a fibro flare but he doesnt care, obviously.  This all in turn causes tons of pain and makes it impossible to even try sex.  So where do I go from here? its like we are at a standpoint in our marriage and I frankly dont know how much longer this can last as it is?

 

Soft Hugs,

Karen

Pete, one of your last comments, just a old broken down Guy! Pete that is how i feel! I don't post much for certain reasons. And I feel for you!  Since I have started detoxicing and trying to get a new Doc, my pain is worse than ever. I am at the point where all I want to do is sleep, because the only place i can get any relief is lying in bed, and then I get sleeping and that is it.

 My wife who I love dearly, never says anything about our sex life any more, for a while she would mention that I was attracted to who her anymore, but I think she has come to realize that that isn't it a tall. I have no sex drive a tall, At first I blamed it on the meds. But I think my problem is a combination meds and pain. And I mean no offense to the wowen on here, but when A man has no sex drive, it does something to his self respect that is unbeilable! Some people on here know about my Doc. thing, which I havn't gotten straiten out yet, but the deal is, my doc doesn't want to treat me any more, and mine being a Work Comp case, it takes a act of congress to get anything done! So I started to detoxic off the pain patch, and had this doc lower the mg. Thinking 2 things, maybe I would get back some of my sex drive. and maybe I was just a junky. Neither one has changed , i still have no sex drive, and my pain is worse. So I am lost. All I do is lay around wanting to do things, but knowing the more I am up the worse the pain is. I even thought about taking vigara or something like that, but If I am in pain, I don't know If it would be helping either  one of us!

Pete, if you ever get anything that helps, please let me know!

ACE

Wow, this is a tough topic. I guess even I have "bedroom" problems. My husband is afraid of hurting me so he does not want to have sex with me very often. I also have menopause related issues due to a really pissed off ovary so I suffer with a lowered libido as well.

This is a tough thing to talk about. Pete, this thread is what made me realize that my problems are not going to go away and I have to learn to live this new life of mine. Wow is it hard to finally realize I won't get to do all the things I wanted too in my life. No babies, no crazy stuff like climbing Machu Pichu or anything like that.

ok, gotta go now.

Sarrah

Hey Ace Buddy!!!

You my friend must get your testosterone checked and soon! You have the classic hypogonadizm sympoms! That being tired thing, that sounds just like when I was at castration levels of T. The low libido, I didn't even look at girls or get any sexual thoughts at all. Every man who has a normal level of T can't help but look at girls, no matter what they look like! You know what I mean, all guys do! That doesn't mean you are going to go cheat on them or do something stupid, ( been w/ Lisa for over 30 years and never cheated!!!} it's just normal no matter what our signifigant other may think when they catch us turning our heads looking. Do your breasts hurt at all? Are your nipples very sensitive? Do you have no intrest in anything, even things you love to do? Do tyou get wild hot flashes, start sweating like a water fall for no reason no matter if its hot or cold? If you have any of these symtoms, I'd bet the farm that your boys {testicles} are not producing enough T!!! It was the worst 3 & 1/2 years in my life! If it were not for my two sons and my wife there is no question, I would not be sitting here writing to you right now!!! It can be caused by long term narcotic use, among other things. How old are you Ace, if you are over 40 and haven't had your prostate checked>>>Get going!!! You don't want PC and if you do, the earlier they catch it the better. I don't mean to scare you my brother but if you do have low testosterone, it can be easilly fixed.

Andrea, I'm so sorry to be complaining and whining to you and others who are alone. I agree, I can't imagine what I would do if I were alone. You are one strong LADY! I'm terrified that my wife may fall out of love with me! I'm less than half a man without her! If she were to leave me I don't know what I would do! I have my bird Angie here with me. She is my constant companian while I'm alone in this house. She is sitting on my shoulder giving me kisses right now. Lisa has the other 3 birds and our loving hound Rosie {1/2 cooker spaniel & 1/2 blue tic coon hound}, The most loving dog south of the Mason Dixon line!!! A whole other story! The rescue and adoption of us by Rose the Wonder Hound! I am going to stop now as Angie wants to party! I came home and got on the computer then took a short nap and she has been waiting patiantly for play time and it's passed her bed time so Good night all you brave souls!!

Thank God for pets!

I'll look forward to reading any night owls posts in the AM.

Luv & Hugs to all>

Pete

PS> You hang in there Ace, there must be a reason!!!

Dear Pete,

You were doing pretty good till ya got to the him missing his beautiful,healthy wife who had sex 3 times a day. Ok got to admit I got a bit offended on that one cause your right I dont have the sex )but he couldnt handle it either)and I am not healthy but ya took away my dang beauty too!! lol but I am over it =) And last night I did take a good hard look at myself and ya even some of that beauty is gone too. I was always so vibrant and made sure my clothes were nice and my hair and makeup done and ppl thought I looked to be more in my early 30's then approaching 50 and I do still get many ppl thinking that I am younger then my years but Jay looks older so we kinda met in the middle as I am 15 years older then Jay. So I could personaly try harder there. Maybe part of my problem after so many years of abusive men in my life I just dont feel like taking any kind of crap anymore and I do feel that Jay is way too old for his crude joking and not helping out around here.

But I did get on the scale myself last night and have gained almost 20 pounds in the last 6 months!!! and yes I do look a whole lot more frumpy then this past summer. So I have problems to address myself before things get too far out of control as I used to weigh 300 pounds and wear a size 28 in clothes and had got down to a 16 but those are tight now and I sure dont want to go back to where I was. I think for me mostly with the weight is that with the cold weather I am not out walking like I was before. This cold makes me hurt so bad and its like every muscle I have constricts specially outside and I am having a hard enough time staying warm in our apartment without going to the poor house on the heat bill so ya bundled up in tons of sweatshirts and sweaters and wearing my fav pair of non constricting jeans for pain relief hasnt helped. That and eating too many wrong foods,comfort foods.

I do plan to have a talk with Jay tonight about my trip to the scale and what I want to do about it and if he wants to come along then my hand is out to him but if not then I dont know what will happen with us. To top things off Jay has no medical and is not in good shape. His blood pressure is sky high to the point where the pharmacist told him to start planning his funeral. We both smoke but Jay has doubled the amount he smokes this past year and now has a cough and he has an umbilical hernia that is about to pop since his tummy has gotten so big. Now Jay was a big man when I met him,about 6'2" and 220 but now is in the 275 range and mostly in his middle but I didnt mind some smellow but not this much to where he can hardly eat and breath at the same time? not too mention the belches from eating too fast and the oh it slipped gas ya right. I am offended by these habits and he knows it but doesnt do a thing about it so its many things. I have gained some weight but still have manners and show him respect and respect is not a thing that I can just let slide,its very important to me after crawling my way past years of disrespet and abuse. Not to mention ppl are commenting on how he treats me now and its not good.

Because I do love him I will try and work things out but I am getting tired of waiting for him to pull his share in this relasionship and to tell ya the truth I would much rather spend the rest of my life alone then to go back to being some cowering ,voiceless woman who just settles once again.

Hi Karen & Andrea,
First let me tell you that when I saw your post Karen, I wrote a book trying to explain and appologizing for how & what I wrote while I was at work in my spare minutes. Then while switching out of the screen, I ERASED it! It's the second time I did it this week> GRRRRRRR!!!!! Well I'm home now and other than my little Angie yelling at me, I have time to rewrite some of what I wrote.
It did sound worse than I thought or meant it to be when I reread it. I'm really sorry! I'm sure you are still a beutiful woman, I didn't mean that you were not anymore! It came out so wrong! I was just trying and hoping I could maybe explain that there might be a mental reason for the way Jay acts the way he does but after reading your last post I don't think I'm going to try to defend the guy anymore! There is no reason for anyone to be treated the way you are by him. I'm also very sorry to hear that you have been mistreated by a bunch of *** hole men in your life. All I can say is we are not all like that.
Geeze, by the sound of it, I'm almost Jay's twin physically. I'm 6'3" and haven't been on a scale since before the hollidays but I'm guessing about 300lbs but hoping for 275lbs> NOT, I know I'm not. It's also right in the middle so when I look at myself in the mirror I don't look too bad, Im very careful not to turn to my side> YIKES!!! My wife used to bug me about it but she doesn't anymore. Like everything else she's just sick of it. I have gone on so many diets and its always the same, loose 20lbs really fast, then 30, 40 and start cheating and up I go again. There is a medical reason that may be affecting my weight which like all the rest of my helth problems, I need to go see a doc. about 10 years ago, I started having problems swallowing, not enough to stop my eating but I finally had it checked and to cut one off my babble-on stories short>> thyroid cancer. That was my first cancer. Well it was like a big spider about the size of an egg and it completely surrounded my 2 glands so after 2 biopies that came back inconclusive, I told the doc you are going to cut it out anyway, well get cutting because you are NOT sticking that needle in my neck again! So I don't have a thyroid anymore but luckily cancer either! So between that and my worthless testicles, my horemone are a mess! I used to go to a Endocronoligist named Dr. Pepper but stopped going after a couple of years when he didn't do anything but collect the $$$. I'm still taking the same dose of thyroid med I did 10 years ago.
So are we going to go on a diet together? I kind of am always on one, a failing one. Especially since my wife left. It's so depressing, I used to cook a real nice ballanced meal every night when the kids were here and even after they left, I still did for Lisa & I. But now getting home exausted from work, I have no motivation to cook. I do sometimes on weekends and freeze single portions for meals but my freezer is full of them. Most times I'll just eat a sandwich or bowl of cereial. I have to do something soon, it's killing me!
I also have one other bad habit! I have pretty much quit drinking, been about 5 years but the last vice from my crazy days still has me, smoking> YUK! I'm embarrast to even tell Y'all because I feel like I'm not only weak but stupid that I haven't stopped. Two cancers and I still can't stop! Lazors, hypnotizm, patches, chantics, welbutron, lozegas, gum> you name it, I've tried it. Lots of $$$ waisted.
Well, I have to get something good to eat for Angie and me so I'll say fairwell and I really hope I didn't offend or insult anyone this time!!!
Love to my HWCP Girls and Gize!!
Pitiful Pete!!

WARNING>>OFF TOPPIC!!
Andrea & Karen,
Angie and I had a big dinner! I was lying on the couch with the dinner plate on my chest and she was right next to my face making her happy sound eating the fish, green beans, and salad with me. I don't mean to gross you out but she is like a little kid and I love her. After dinner I called my boss, thought I was getting laid off because things were getting really weird at work today. As usual he got pissed at me for asking and said that I wasn't going anywhere and they needed me. He is a crazy workaholic millionare who is about 10 years my junior. I'm still not sure I beleive him.
YES my wife works! That is another reason she is up in the country, She works or babysits for a group of doctors who travel all over the country teaching healing techniques using hypoberic chambers. We were going to move up there and build a house, had a builder and plans drawn out. I was going to get a job from one of my vendors who had a branch in Ocala. When she told her employers she was going to move up there, they broke down and said she could work from home as the docs liked her and didn't want to lose her. She moved there back in May and was working with the builder to get started on the house. Then my job offer fell through because of the economy, they stopped hiring and startyed laying off their guys. Then with all the foreclosures on houses in Fla. (2nd in the nation behind Cal.) House prices plummeted and my 300k house turned into a 100k house that I can't sell! If she moves back here she will have to go back to work in Boca and I can't ask her to do that! I am just gratefull to still be working or that we both are. I'm going up to see her this weekend which I'm very excited about even though it sucks driving up Sat. and back Sunday. I bought her an electric gate opener for Christmas and told her I would install it. Last time I was up I went out in my boat fishing instead of doing chores (mentalhealth day). Wow, this post got way off topic> sorry all!
9:00 and time for me to start thinking about bed, 4:00am comes real soon and I've been up past 11:00 every night this week so>>>GOOD NIGHT ALL<<<
I hope everyone has a great nights sleep and those #6-7-8-9+10's stay away tonight!!!!
Big warm fat guy florida hugs for all!
Pete
PS>>>Our low here tonight may be 32 degrees!!! 35 last night!!!

Hi again,
Andrea, do you still smoke? My Mom is 81 y-o and has smoked since she was 13! She smoked while she was in labor with me! Maybe I got conditioned to the effects of nicatine while I was in the womb and thats why I can't quit? I have to have some excuse, unlike my fat, I can't blame it on my thyroid or lack of one! He He, I made a funny! My back is
Kiiiiiillllliiinngg me today, meds haven't touched it! Oh the stress from yesterday and last night about work! I guess that would be another good post since this one has pooped out! How stress affects our CP!! I guess all the brave souls already posted about their pain & sexlives. I keep bumping it up to the top but no one else will speak up so maybe we should let this one die. Thanks to y'all that posted!
Your pain-riddled friend,
Pete

Mom>
Please don't feel like it's your fault or guilty! You sound like you have a wonderful understanding hubby, you are very lucky. I don't know how you do it w/ all those kids, Holy Shmoly!! I'm surprised you & your husband even remember the word sex! You are an angel for taking care of him the way you do but if he is making you at all unconfortable or hurting you, you should tell hem. I think he would be upset if he found out, I know I would be! Thanks so much for posting, I thought this one was finished!
Your friend,
Pete