Living with cancer

Changes in your sex life

Nasal or paranasal sinus cancer and its treatment may cause changes to your appearance and how you feel about yourself. This can affect your sex life. There is support available to help you cope.

Physical effects

After treatment for nasal or sinus cancer it might take some time for scars to heal if you had surgery. Or you might have some skin soreness if you had radiotherapy. You might need to wait for any scars or soreness to heal before it is comfortable to kiss. You can still be intimate with your partner through cuddling or touching though.

How you might feel

Changes to your appearance due to the cancer or its treatment might affect the way you feel about yourself. You might also worry about how you think others see you. This can make you nervous of intimacy or you might feel less confident about sex.

Cancer can also cause many different emotions such as fear and anger that can make intimacy more difficult.

Talking to your partner

Your partner might also have very strong emotions. Talking openly with them can help them to understand how you feel. It can also help you to deal with any fears that they might reject you. Most of the time partners want to try to understand what you're going through and help if they can. This experience is also new to them.

Who can help

If you find it difficult to talk to your partner you could try:

talking to your doctor or specialist nurse
getting your GP to refer you to a counsellor

More information

We have more information about sex, sexuality and cancer in our general cancer section.

Last reviewed: 22 Jan 2024

Next review due: 22 Jan 2027

Living with nasal and paranasal sinus cancer

There is support available during and after treatment to help you cope. This includes support from your clinical nurse specialist, cancer charities, community services, and family and friends.

Changes in your appearance

Nasal or sinus cancer and its treatment might change the way you look and how you feel about yourself. But there is support available.

What is nasal and paranasal sinus cancer?

Cancer can start in the lining of the space behind the nose (nasal cavity) or the nearby air cavities (paranasal sinuses) and sometimes spread to lymph nodes and rarely other parts of the body.

Treatment for nasal and paranasal sinus cancer

Your treatment depends on several factors. These include what type of nasal and paranasal sinus cancer you have, how big it is, whether it has spread (the stage) and the grade. It also depends on your general health.