Kidney patients can develop a negative body image. Dialysis patients, for instance, can become painfully self-conscious about their fistula or catheter. Such feelings, combined with the anxiety of living with kidney failure, can create problems in their relationship with their partner and problems with sexual function.

Physical problems, caused by side effects of kidney failure, such as fatigue or male impotence, can also cause problems with intimacy.

Most of these problems can be solved. A normal sex life is possible for almost all kidney patients