Move a muscle, but we're not talking about your biceps. A strong pelvic floor enhances rigidity during erections and helps keep blood from leaving the penis by pressing on a key vein. In a British trial, three months of twice-daily sets of Kegel exercises (which strengthen these muscles), combined with biofeedback and advice on lifestyle changes — quitting smoking, losing weight, limiting alcohol — worked far better than just advice on lifestyle changes.
Yes, it's possible to cure erectile dysfunction. The first step is to find out what's causing it. For some men, it's as simple as changing medications. Some drugs - those that treat high blood pressure or depression, for example - can make erections fizzle. So can alcohol and recreational drugs. Other causes are also treatable, including hormonal imbalances, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes and smoking, all of which can impede blood flow to the penis. For some men, ED is all in their heads, so consulting a mental health practitioner to help resolve anxiety, depression or learn techniques for dealing with stress can take the "dys" out of dysfunction.
The downside to these prostheses includes the standard risks of surgery, the very low risk of infection — less than 2 percent in most patients, slightly higher in diabetics — and a slight drop in penis length versus a natural erection or other ED treatments. Also, unlike with other methods, any hope for a natural erection is abolished once a pump is implanted. The cost for surgical options varies, and insurance coverage is typically good.
The somatosensory pathways for erections originate in the penile skin, glans and urethra. Glans afferent sensory free nerve endings are 10-fold more than their corpuscular receptors, and are derived from Aδ and unmyelinated C fibers. The nerve endings coalesce to form the dorsal penile nerve along with other sensory nerve fibers. Through the pudendal nerve they enter the S2-4 nerve roots to terminate on spinal neurons and interneurons. The dorsal nerve is not purely somatic, however. Nerve bundles within the dorsal nerve contain nitric oxide (NO) synthase, found typically in autonomic nerves, and stimulation of the sympathetic chain can leak to evoked potentials from the dorsal nerve and vice versa (10-12).
The dorsal artery provides for engorgement of the glans during erection, whereas the bulbourethral artery supplies the bulb and the corpus spongiosum. The cavernous artery effects tumescence of the corpus cavernosum and thus is principally responsible for erection. The cavernous artery gives off many helicine arteries, which supply the trabecular erectile tissue and the sinusoids. These helicine arteries are contracted and tortuous in the flaccid state and become dilated and straight during erection. [9]
If you are taking medications (alpha-blockers) for problems with an enlarged prostate, you should discuss your prostate medications with your doctor. Alpha-blockers also can cause lowering of the blood pressure. Thus your doctor will need to carefully watch your blood pressure when you start the PDE5 inhibitor. Common alpha-blockers include doxazosin (Cardura), terazosin (Hytrin), and tamsulosin (Flomax).
Nerves originating in the spinal cord and peripheral ganglia innervate the penis. There are autonomic (parasympathetic and sympathetic), and somatic separate and integrated pathways. The autonomic pathways neurons originate in the spinal cord and peripheral ganglia from the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems, respectively. They merge to form the cavernous nerves that travel alongside the prostate, enter the corpora cavernosa and corpus spongiosum to affect the neurovascular events required for tumescence and detumescence. The somatic nerves send sensory information from the penile skin, glans, and urethra via the dorsal penile nerve and pudendal nerve to the spinal cord. The somatic nerves also initiate contraction of the ischio- and bulbocavernosus muscles.
The idea of using low-energy shock waves to treat erectile dysfunction comes from studies that show that these types of shocks help heart blood vessels regrow, a process called revascularization. Shock wave therapy may also work on the penis, and there have been some promising results, but it’s not currently an approved ED treatment. "It’s similar to the type of shock waves used to break up kidney stones, and it may cause revascularization,” says Bennett. “However, there are not yet any good controlled studies to recommend it to patients."
With the pumps, erections last until the user hits the deflate button, which Kohler says “doesn’t happen” accidentally. He adds that pump prostheses “are locker-room proof: Nobody can see that you have one.” (Obviously, this is not the case with the always-on malleable rod option.) Implanted pumps are reliable, experts say, with more than 90 percent of the devices working for 12 to 15 years.
According to a review of all randomized controlled trials evaluating sildenafil by the American Urological Association (AUA) Consensus Panel on Erectile Dysfunction, 36% to 76% of patients receiving the drug were "able to achieve intercourse" during treatment. For tadalafil, four randomized controlled trials revealed that 11% to 47% of patients were "able to achieve intercourse." Similar efficacy has been observed with vardenafil, although studies are fewer.19 A meta-analysis published in 2013 clearly demonstrated increased efficacy over placebo for all PDE5 inhibitors.24 Head-to-head comparison suggested that tadalafil outperforms sildenafil on validated measures of erectile dysfunction, including the international index of erectile function and sexual encounter profile-2 and -3.
Alprostadil self-injection. With this method, you use a fine needle to inject alprostadil (Caverject Impulse, Edex) into the base or side of your penis. In some cases, medications generally used for other conditions are used for penile injections on their own or in combination. Examples include papaverine, alprostadil and phentolamine. Often these combination medications are known as bimix (if two medications are included) or trimix (if three are included).
