Low Sperm: Do You Have an Underlying Medical Condition?

Having a low sperm count not only affects your sexual health, it can really take its toll on your emotional wellness. However, the best thing to do is to try to determine what’s causing your low sperm count, so that you can protect your wellbeing against any underlying medical factors that may be depleting your sperm. So, what has made your guys stop swimming?

 

1. Varicocele: Pronounced VAR-ih-koe-seel, varicocele causes your veins to swell and this drains your testicles. As a result, your testicles can’t cool as they normally would, leading to reduced sperm count and fewer moving sperm.

 

2. Infection: Infections lower your sperm count in two ways; either they interfere with the production or health of sperm, or they cause scarring which blocks the passage of sperm. Infections to get tested for include sexually transmitted infections (STIs) – such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea – prostatitis (inflammation of the prostate), mumps orchitis (inflamed testicles due to mumps); and other infections of the urinary tract or reproductive organs.

 

3. Ejaculation problems: Some conditions and medications cause your semen to enter your bladder during orgasm instead of emerging out of the tip of the penis (retrograde ejaculation). Causes of this include diabetes, bladder surgery, prostate surgery, urethra surgery, spinal injuries and blood pressure medications (alpha blockers).

 

4. Sperm-attacking antibodies: These immune cells make the mistake of identifying your sperm as harmful invaders, and attempt to destroy them in order to protect your body. These well-meaning but misguided antibodies are more common in men who have had a vasectomy.

 

5. Tumours: There are many ways in which having a tumour can alter your sperm count. Whether it is cancerous or non-malignant, a tumour can directly affect your reproductive organs, or they can tamper with the glands that release hormones related to reproduction (such as the pituitary gland). On top of this, your fertility may be affected by the surgery, radiation or chemotherapy used to treat your tumours.

 

6. Undescended testicles: When you’re a foetus, your testicles descend from the abdomen into the sac that normally contains the testicles (scrotum). However, sometimes this doesn’t happen during foetal development – either to one or both testicles – and this can lower your sperm count and cause decreased fertility.

 

7. Hormone imbalance: In order to create sperm, your hypothalamus, pituitary and testicles need to produce hormones. However, when these hormones are altered – for whatever reason – your sperm production may become impaired.

 

8. Sperm duct defects: Your sperm ducts are the tubes that carry sperm, but illness or injury can damage these ducts. You may have been born with a blockage in the part of the testicle that stores sperm (epididymis) or a blockage of one of the tubes that carry sperm out of the testicles (vas deferens). In fact, if you have an inherited condition like cystic fibrosis, you may be born without sperm ducts altogether.

 

9. Chromosome defects: Your reproductive organs can develop abnormally if you have an innherited disorder such as Klinefelter’s syndrome. This means you’re born with two X chromosomes and one Y chromosome instead of one X and one Y. Other genetic syndromes associated with infertility include cystic fibrosis, Kallmann’s syndrome, Young’s syndrome, and Kartagener syndrome.

 

10. Celiac disease: Although this gluten-sensitivity digestive disorder can cause male infertility, you may be able to up your sperm count if you adopt a gluten-free diet.

 

11. Certain medications: There are a lot of medications that can impair sperm production and decrease your fertility. These include – but are not limited to – testosterone replacement therapy, long-term anabolic steroid use, cancer medications (such as chemotherapy), certain antifungal medications, and some ulcer medications.

Categories: carry sperm, Causes, cystic fibrosis, low sperm count, nbsp, reproductive organs, sperm, sperm count, sperm ducts, sperm production, Underlying Conditions, underlying medical

Delayed Puberty: Why Aren’t I Growing Like My Friends Are?

As a teenager, you start becoming more and more aware of your sexual health and wellness when you see your body begin to change, as well as everyone else’s around you. However, when everyone else seems to be changing, and you don’t notice any changes in yourself, you can start to become concerned about your wellbeing. While puberty generally starts when you’re between the ages of seven and 13 (girls) or nine and 15 (boys), some young people pass this normal age range for puberty without showing any signs of body changes. This is called delayed puberty.

 

Puberty enables your body to grow from a child’s into an adult’s. Girls notice breast development, more pubic hair, growth (both in terms of height and getting more curves) and you also begin to have periods. This is because your body is producing more of the sex hormone oestrogen. Guys will start to grow pubic and facial hair, have a growth spurt, gain wider and more muscular shoulders and your testicles and penis will get larger. This is because your body is producing more of the sex hormone testosterone. However, several things can get in the way of the puberty process, which is where delayed puberty comes in.

 

More often than not, delayed puberty occurs because it’s a family trait. If you think you may be experiencing delayed puberty, talk to a relative about others in your family, and you’ll probably find that a parent, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, cousin or all of the above developed later than usual, too. This is called constitutional delay (or being a late bloomer). It’s nothing to worry about, and usually doesn’t require any kind of treatment. It just means that you’ll develop a bit later than other young people. However, sometimes a delay in puberty can be caused by a more serious wellness concern.

 

Medical problems can get in the way of the puberty process, as the illness makes it harder for your body to grow and develop. If you having an underlying chronic illness – such as diabetes, cystic fibrosis, kidney disease, or even asthma – this may be delaying your puberty, but you can make this less likely to happen if you have proper treatment and better control of these conditions. Your pituitary or thyroid glands produce hormones important for body growth and development, so delayed puberty can also happen if you have problems in these glands.

 

You may also develop later than your friends if you’re malnourished, meaning that you don’t eat enough or you don’t eat the proper nutrients. This is often the case with teens who have the eating disorder anorexia, as they often lose so much weight that their bodies cannot develop properly. Girls’ bodies require a certain amount of fat before they can go through puberty or get their periods, so if you’re a girl who’s extremely involved in sports, you may also be a late developer because your level of exercise keeps you so lean.

 

Another reason why delayed puberty occurs is chromosomal problems. If you have problems with your chromosomes – which are made up of DNA that contain your body’s construction plans – this can interfere with normal growth processes. An example of this is Turner syndrome, in which one of a female’s two X chromosomes is abnormal or missing. This interferes with how you grow, the development of your ovaries and your body’s production of sex hormones. If you have untreated Turner syndrome, you may be shorter than normal, infertile, and have other medical problems. Males with Klinefelter syndrome are born with an extra X chromosome (XXY instead of XY). This condition can slow sexual development.

Categories: body, delayed puberty, family history, medical problems, puberty, puberty occurs, puberty process, sex hormone, turner syndrome, underlying medical, young people