What your doctor won't tell you about sex after heart attack

December 22, 2014  23:53

Most people get no advice from their doctors about whether or when it’s safe to have sex after a heart attack, according to a survey of American and Spanish patients under age 55.

Just one in eight women and one in five men reported being counseled on sexual activity within the month following a heart attack. And those who did discuss the topic with their doctors were likely to get overly restrictive instructions, researchers found.

“The guidelines say for an uncomplicated heart attack people should be able to resume normal sexual activity after a week,” said lead author Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau, director of the Program in Integrative Sexual Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

According to Newsmax.com, Tessler Lindau added that patients often don’t know if they had an uncomplicated heart attack, which is one that doesn’t result in complications to other organs or body systems.

When patients are confused, “that’s when the patient and physician need to speak,” she said.

About one in five heart attacks happen in adults under age 56, the researchers note in the journal Circulation. Heart attacks can lead to reduced sexual activity because people fear sex will trigger another heart attack, they add.

The American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association and European Society of Cardiology all support a relatively quick return to sexual activity after an uncomplicated, or "minor," heart attack.

To see if doctors apply those guidelines in practice, the researchers surveyed 3,501 heart attack patients from 127 hospitals in Spain and the U.S. between 2008 and 2012. The average patient was 48 years old. Two thirds were women. Most participants were sexually active in the year before their heart attack.

Most participants believed doctors should talk about sex and said they felt comfortable discussing the subject with a physician. But only 12 percent of women and 19 percent of men had such a conversation in the month after their heart attack.

Of the minority who did discuss sex with their doctors, about a third were told they could resume sexual activity without restrictions. The others were told to limit sex, to be more passive or to keep their heart rate down.

Spanish women were almost 40 percent more likely than Spanish men to be given restrictive advice, while U.S women were less likely than U.S. men to be told to restrict their activity. Overall, women in Spain were 36 percent more likely than U.S. women to be told to limit sexual activity.

Further differences by country were evident. For example, most U.S. patients who talked about sex with their doctors reported that they had initiated the discussion, while most of the Spanish patients said their doctor had brought it up.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter


 
  • Video
 
 
  • Event calendar
 
 
  • Archive
 
  • Most read
 
  • Find us on Facebook
 
  • Poll
Are you aware that in 2027 medical insurance will become mandatory for all Armenian citizens?
I’m aware, and I'm in favor
I’m not aware, and I'm against
I'm aware, but I'm still undecided
I'm not aware, but in principle I'm in favor
I'm not aware, but in principle I'm against
It doesn't matter to me