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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    Sex and having children after a spinal cord injury

    Related Topics
    Neurology Spinal Cord Injury Trying To Conceive
    I have incomplete or partial Spinal cord injury. What can I expect sexually as a result of the accident and will i be able to have kids one day? Will it impact my fertility?
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    • Dr Matthew Hodgson
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    Dr Matthew Hodgson

    Chiropractor

    Matthew Hodgson has over 20 years of experience and specialises in correcting the underlying cause of peoples problems. He uses advanced diagnostic techniques and leading-edge … View Profile

    I think I can help you with this question. I am a Chiropractor, I also have a T5 complete spinal cord injury of 13 years and I have two children. As to sex it is hard to know where you are at with an incomplete injury. I have a friend who is C5 partial and he has no problems at all. Your best bet is to see a Clinical Nurse Specialist who specializes in sexual health , there are some very good ones in Royal North Shore hospital in Sydney. Be asured there is something that will work for you.

    As to conceiving children it is absolutely possible. The main determinant once you are having sex and things are working is the female partners age. This makes a huge difference in your chances , they start to change at age 36. If you go through IVF the statistics are you have about a 30% at age 38. This varies from one IVF clinic to another. 
    The process of IVF is one of the toughest things anyone can do, it is emotionally and physically taxing. We went through six complete rounds before we had our son. The toll this took on our marriage was enormous, its not for the faint hearted. But the end result is irreplaceable.
    The interesting thing for me was the IVF specialists we saw thought nutrition and your basic health played no real role. As long as you were not overweight and didnt eat terribly they were happy.
    We ended up seeing a naturopath who specialized in fertility and we modifed our diets greatly based primarily on a book called the Better Birthing Method which is by a london trained Obstetrician. We had full Blood work done as there are some trace elements that can help or hinder your chances of conceiving.We also had acupuncture immediately before and after embryo transplant as we found some evidence that this can help. Once again none of this was endorsed by our IVF specialist.
    We also made sure my wife saw a Chiropractor to ensure her nervous system was functioning well. Did all this help? Who really knows? In the end we felt like we were contributing to the process and were not just passengers that could do nothing.
    The good news is we now have two wonderful children that are amazing to us.
    I hope this helps in some way. You are welcome to call me and if I can help in any way I would be happy to.
    Good luck.
    Regards,
    Matthew Hodgson 
    Chiropractor

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