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Diabetes, sexual and bladder problems: erection trouble, dryness and pain, leaks, trouble going, infections, and what helps
For anyone with diabetes whose sex life or bladder has changed, and for their partners. It passes on, by name, what the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, part of the NIH) says: why diabetes can change sex and the bladder, what makes it more likely, the problems men and women can have, bladder problems, and what helps prevent and treat them. It builds the words to say, for a talk that can feel hard to start, and prints a card for your notes. Nothing is saved.
Right now
- Suddenly unable to pee at all, maybe with bad pain or swelling low in your belly? Go to an emergency room now; if you cannot get there safely and quickly, call 911 (ours; see our page on urinary retention).
- A fever and chills with pain in your back or side? It may be a kidney infection: get care today (ours). An erection lasting more than 4 hours? Get care right away (ours). Chest pain during sex? Call 911 (ours).
- Thoughts of suicide? Call or text 988, any hour, free (ours).
More help
- On this site: Erectile dysfunction (ED) · Bladder leaks · Urinary retention · Bladder infection (UTI) · When blood sugar goes too low or too high · Heart, blood and hormones: find the right page.
- Alongside it: Diabetic neuropathy · Peyronie’s disease · Menopause · When it might be an STI · Kidney infection · The A1C test · Blood sugar log · My medicines.
- When it is hard to pay: When you can’t afford your medicine · When you need a doctor and can’t pay. Getting ready: Get ready for your appointment.
- In an emergency: Help right now (988, 911). All our free tools.
Your heart, blood pressure, blood sugar, thyroid or blood, and not sure this is the right page? The pages on this site for a heart attack or stroke, blood pressure, AFib, heart failure, cholesterol, diabetes and prediabetes, the thyroid, anemia, sickle cell and menopause, on one list.
Other guides on this site that go with this page
Free to read. We chose these ourselves; no professional did. Each guide was written with AI and has not been reviewed by a professional. They are general information, not advice.
- Diabetes, heart disease, and stroke: what raises the risk, the warning signs, the ABCs, and the medicines: diabetes, heart disease and stroke: why diabetes raises the risk, what else adds to it, the warning signs of a heart attack and a stroke, how doctors check your heart, aspirin, statins and the medicines to ask about, and your diabetes ABCs.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor or nurse has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 20, 2026 on NIDDK’s (NIH) page Diabetes, Sexual, & Bladder Problems (last reviewed June 2018; older than most of our sources, so ask your team what has changed). The numbers (ED 10 to 15 years earlier; more than half of men with diabetes; more than 3 times as likely) are NIDDK’s, and we add none. Ours: the Right now lines (taken from our own pages on urinary retention, kidney infection and erectile dysfunction, which pass on NIDDK); 988; seeing a doctor rather than buying ED medicine online; never stopping a prescribed medicine on your own; the lines to say; the card; the links to our other pages; and the order of the steps. What we left out: NIDDK’s references, its pictures and its outside links; we name no brands, no single medicines and no doses. Nothing you tick or type here is saved or sent.