Erectile Dysfunction
Updated: May 31, 2021
More than 85% of men experience erectile dysfunction (ED) at some stage during their life time.
Diabetes for example damages veins and can lead to long term damage to veins making erection difficult. Or you may have a high stress job sapping your sexual energy.
Even though you may be going through your own personal crisis; take heart, the problem is more common than you could begin to imagine and there are a number of different options for treating ED.
Diagnosis
The first step you have to take is to discover if your ED caused by a specific medical condition or if other factors are the cause.
Medical Conditions That Cause Erectile Dysfunction:
Aside of the neurological, anatomical and hormonal conditions, the usual suspects causing ED are
Diabetes.
High Blood Pressure. (Hypertension)
Cardiovascular Disease leading to Atherosclerosis or in layman speak; hardening of the arteries.
High cholesterol levels.
Medical conditions that cause ED are best treated by a Specialist prescribing the appropriate drugs and I urge you not to ignore a “soft situation” but make an appointment with your GP and start solving the problem.
Other Factors That Lead To Erectile Dysfunction:
Are you feeling “let down” by your erection? Maybe you are able to get hard – but not stay hard. Do you wake up with an erection, but when you want to have sex – you simply not hard enough for penetration; this is commonly referred to as a ‘weak erection'.
Perhaps you would like to maintain an erection throughout the foreplay – but you just not ‘staying the course?’
Lifestyle causes of Erectile Dysfunction:
This is a very touchy subject as no man likes to be told his tool box is mess or he is not drilling the right way.
I have seen way too much ed caused by wrong lifestyle choices to just ignore the topic.
Obesity
Obesity is most likely the most common problem as adipose or fat tissue envelopes the nerves and veins making erection extremely difficult. In most cases obesity is caused by lifestyle like diet and activity or rather lack of activity choices.
Addiction and abuse
Alcohol and drug abuse also influences erection. Substance addiction is habitual behaviour and treating habitual behaviour is best addressed by world wide networks like Alcoholics Anonymous and specialized rehabilitation facilities.
Two Ways To Decide If Your ED is Medical Or Mental.
One
Do you wake up with an erection?
The best indication of the difference between medical causes and mind games is waking up with an erection.
Two
Do you get erect while you are asleep? Even if you are just vaguely aware that you are getting hard when you are asleep.
These two are signs that you are capable of getting erect and it is most likely your mental state influencing your ability to get erect while you are awake. Please read The post about performance anxiety. Click here.
A Smidgen of Trivia: Good Old Fashioned Stamp Test For Erectile Dysfunction.
Here is the old fashioned, yet, rather simple way of determining if you are getting erect during the night:
Take a few postal stamps, lick them to make them a bit sticky and place – or rather paste them around your penis before you go to sleep. If the perforations are snapped the next morning – then it means you had an erection while you were asleep.
I think it may be just as difficult these days to find carrier pigeons than it would be to find postage stamps.
So the next easiest way would be to monitor if you wake up with an erection or “morning glory” as that will give you an indication that you are capable of erection when you are in an unconscious state of mind. The trick then is - to train your self to be able to get erect when you are conscious.
Five Case Studies
Two Diabetics
I met a man last year – he had been referred to me as he simply could not get himself hard. He has suffered with diabetes for 27 years.
I used all my skills but there was nothing I could do for him.
This is the sad reality about Diabetes – The veins eventually get completely decimated and it becomes physically impossible for blood to travel into the penis to enable erection. He was rather disappointed and quite frankly so was I – However, a few years ago I worked with a man who had such sever diabetes that he had a small tube poking out of his stomach for applying his insulin and despite that he got an erection.