- Diabetes can damage the nerves, the erectile tissue and small blood vessels in the penis, as well as other tissues in the body.
- Damage to the nerves, known as neuropathy, may mean that there is less sensation in the penis and less signalling to it from the brain, making it more difficult to get and maintain an erection.
- Damage to the erectile tissue will prevent the muscle fibres within it from adequately relaxing, so that the penis cannot fill with blood during erection.
- Damage to the blood vessels will also prevent the erectile tissues from filling with blood.
- Men with diabetes are more prone to high blood pressure. Many of the medicines used to treat high blood pressure can be responsible for causing erectile dysfunction.
- Diabetes increases your risk of hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). If this affects the blood supply to the penis, it can cause impotence.
Smoking and poor control of blood sugar make complications from diabetes, such as impotence, more likely.
This is why it is important your diabetes treatment is optimised: good control of the blood sugar level will help maintain the body's ability to produce an erection. Stopping smoking is always a good idea.
Sex and diabetes
Twenty-five per cent of all women with diabetes and about 50 per cent of men will experience some kind of sexual problems or loss of sexual desire as a result of their condition.
What problems does diabetes cause?
About 50 per cent of men with diabetes will experience some kind of sexual problem or loss of sexual desire as a result of their condition. In men, the commonest sexual problem caused by diabetes is erectile dysfunction.
Most people with Type 2 diabetes are overweight and experience only mild symptoms, such as thirst and the desire to pass urine more often, for years before the diabetes is even noticed.
Unfortunately, these mild symptoms don't mean the diabetes isn’t causing nerve and artery damage, and a high proportion of men newly diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes already show problems such as ED by the time it is recognised.
This emphasises the need for people to be aware of the possible symptoms of diabetes and to see a doctor if they suspect they have the condition.
In women
A number of women with diabetes may suffer from recurring vaginitis (inflammation of the vagina), which is usually due to yeast (thrush) infection. This makes sex painful. You may suffer itching or burning sensations, and a white discharge.
Women with diabetes may also get recurring cystitis.
There is also some suggestion that women with diabetes have problems with arousal, and just as the penis fails to become erect in the man, the clitoris in a woman may not respond to stimulation in the normal way.
