Between The Sheets

Spiking sugars. Falling sugars. Long-term complications. Diabetes can get between you and a fulfilling sex life. Our experts dish on the benefits and common issues of sex (and how to solve them), the conversations to have with care providers, and thoughtful ways to keep this disease out of the bedroom.

Three Steps To Better Sex

As a person with diabetes, you have every reason to expect a terrific sex life. But diabetes can be an occasional nuisance or even a constant bogeyman in the bedroom.

“It may be a day of rollercoaster glucose readings that steals your extra energy, or you’re just feeling awkward about wearing an insulin delivery or glucose monitoring device,” says Janis Roszler, co-author of Sex and Diabetes: For Him and For Her (American Diabetes Association, 2007). “It could just be a day when burnout is getting the best of you.”

But you can minimise the challenges and maximise sexual pleasure, whatever baggage you bring to the boudoir.

1 Communicate openly about what you’re feeling. Take your attention off the glucose levels for a while; you might consider wearing CGM. It helps with spontaneity.

2 “Apply a sense of humour,” is Roszler’s suggestion. “It helps you both laugh off the challenging moments.”

Long-term, years of glucose swings along with risk factors such as excess weight, cigarette smoking, and uncontrolled blood pressure and lipids can take their toll, including on sex organs.

Circulatory and nervous systems play lead roles here. A form of diabetic nerve disease called autonomic neuropathy damages nerves that manage automatic functions, from controlling blood pressure to digesting food and, yes, the behaviour of your sex organs. Then there’s blood flow. If it’s hampered, you might not receive enough blood below the belt to get aroused.