Myasthenia Gravis and Sexuality
 

First of all, and since I'm new here, hi to all!

(before starting: please, excuse my poor English level, as it isn't my native language. I'll try to write the following as best as I can)

I have reading a great amount of the posts written here about Myasthenia, and I'd like to thank you all for posting your valuable experiences and helping others who are new to it. My girlfriend, who is 19, was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis last summer, after having a huge respiratory crisis. Since then, I have been reading practically everything I can find about the disease, trying to be helpful for her, and to understand how she feels.

However, I haven't found any text which addresses the way the disease affects the sexuality of the person. I think that this is also an important aspect of the human body to be covered in the information which is given about the disease.

That's why I'm here, hoping some of you can help me to find more information about the way it affects the sexuality of the person, and some difficulties that may appear. As I'm still not familiar with the people posting here, I don't know if you are open to share personal experiences, or advice based on them. If you want, you can contact me using the personal messages function of the forum.

Thanks in advance.

funes18,

MG is such a varied disease amongst those that have it there is no way to give you a simple answer.
I think it does not have much direct effect - however I think what may dampen the mood of the affected individual is simply being very tired or worn down and thus loosing the energy to have the desire....
I think if the person plans for it during times when the energy levels are good life will be relatively normal in the bed room.... No doubt men seem to have those thoughts like every 5 minutes, so perhaps we can find those moments easier than females? As you well know it generally takes a little more planning for the gals to get fired up so it may be more of a challenge to find her energy levels up there when yours are....
Do what you can to take the workload off your gal and that should help....
Good Luck

Wow, thanks for the answer, Smokey56. I was beginning to think that no one would write :)

Unfortunately, she suffers the generalized type of Myasthenia, not the ocular one. Inside this type, she has the Grade IIb (classified as " mild generalized MG, predominant bulbar or respiratory muscles involvemen"). This means that, by the end of the day, she is usually very tired and really needs to get a great amount of sleep (one of the side effects of the prednisone is insomnia).

Again, thanks for taking the time to write that. I hope to see more posts by other members :)

hi and welcome
 

hi im 53 female with generalized type of Myasthenia and occular, and mg at 14 yrs old and my thoughts on this is, hey ask her when its best for her and work with that , just like any thing mg has limitaions at times and times it does not so just got to ask her whats best and go from there- and bravo for you to take intrest and look up info:winky:

Thanks for the response, nevadabound :)

Of course, I have talked with her about the 'issue', but she's too shy to ask her doctor the questions she has about the topic. In addition, she's still accepting that she'll have to live with a chronic disease and isn't mature enough to just say "what's best for her". That's basically why I want to know how other people felt about it after being diagnosed, which were their thoughts, etc.

HI, see i was young 14yrs old and it really did not dawn on me what mg truly was especially in 1975 mg wasnt a big topic so for me there wasnt to much to learn all the doc said was she has mg a autoimmune disease so what ever was happening with me the symtoms i did not even think if it was the "MG" or just me being a human-at age 14- thru 30 i never asked doctors question so i lived and learned and now i asked and read , we had no computer to check it out like now ( oh boy old sounding here lol) i just went with the flow of it and thats why i think its easy for me at age 53 to deal with it but being 19 i understand her if i was dianosed at this age i might have another outlook of it, and i meant whats best for her as in the sexual part if not a hip happing night that shes tired that its okay to be tired and not feel bad and you understanding . and everyone is different how they handle :winky:news of ones health and age has alot to do with it i think..

if your girlfriend is anything like me, she will not want to let the mg get in the way of it when the mood gets going because that can happen just as randomly as mg. so if she is feeling her symptoms coming on when the mood is high you might want to just take over and do most of the "work".....i personally dont let it stop me in those times but sometimes it becomes too much to be putting out that much effort. i personally feel so demoralized when mg gets in the way of things that i really want to do, so it might be good for you to offer to do the work for this one when shes not feeling good. it might help with the way she feels about mg on a whole.

Thanks for your kind words, brandonc. That's a good advice that I'll try to put in practice.