How Endometrial Cancer Treatments Change Your Body
Here are the most common changes that can affect body image in women who have undergone endometrial cancer treatment.
Surgical Effects
Surgery is often part of endometrial cancer treatment. Depending on the stage, it may involve removing the uterus, cervix, fallopian tubes, and the ovaries.
For Heide Spence, a single mother of two children who was diagnosed with stage 1 endometrial cancer at age 36 and treated with a hysterectomy, the physical and emotional effects were hard to process. “Without having a piece of me, losing an organ that allowed me to give life, was a struggle that I had to begin to wrap my brain around,” says Spence, now an Endometrial Cancer Action Network for African Americans (ECANA) ambassador. “None of my friends could understand. Some were still having babies.”
Hormonal Changes and Early Menopause
Spence experienced sudden hormonal changes, which brought weight gain, mood swings, and depression. And being younger than most women with the diagnosis made her feel isolated, she says.
Weight Fluctuations
After treatment “I didn’t want to do anything. I just wanted to eat whatever was easy, including junk food, but it didn’t help my emotional or mental state,” says Spence. She recalls how the weight kept gaining, and the unpredictable mood swings made everything more difficult.
Hair Loss and Skin Changes
As Spence was managing weight gain, her long, healthy hair was something she held onto for confidence. But when she started oral chemotherapy and her hair began coming out in clumps, it felt like losing another piece of herself. “That became another battle,” she says.
Sexual Adjustments
For some, intimacy becomes another area affected by treatment. “Women with endometrial cancer often express fear of sexual interactions,” says Priscilla Chang, PsyD, a postdoctoral psychology fellow in the department of supportive care medicine at City of Hope.
Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy can cause physical changes to the vagina and genital area, which can make sex uncomfortable or painful. Beyond the physical side, there’s often an emotional component: feeling less desirable, worrying about how your partner sees you, or just not feeling connected to your body in an intimate way anymore, Dr. Chang says.
Spence admits to feeling frustrated and even angry about how cancer changed her confidence. “I was single, and I kept thinking, Who’s going to want me now? I was already struggling to feel like myself and trying to navigate the weight changes,” she says.
She remembers the uncertainty of deciding how much to share about her diagnosis when dating. She had to figure out when and how to explain what happened to her and hope the other person didn’t run in the opposite direction, she says. “It took time, but I realized that what happened to me didn’t just change my body, it changed my life. It also gave me a new sense of purpose,” Spence says.
Living With a Urostomy or Colostomy
It’s a deeply personal adjustment that can affect confidence and social comfort. Learning to manage an ostomy takes time, and many women feel self-conscious about their body and are concerned about odor, leaks, and how it looks under clothing.
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