Does BPH Cause Erectile Dysfunction?

If you're over 40 and waking up 3 times a night to use the bathroom, your body is trying to tell you something. A lot of men are turning to CBD to help with prostate inflammation, but it comes with one major hidden catch. Today we're talking about BPH, your sex life, and how to protect both.

This podcast is for you, the modern man. I'm Dr. Anne Truong MD, your host. I'm an intimate health medical doctor and bestselling author of the book Erectile Dysfunction Fix. I'll do a deep dive into sexual health and performance and how it affects men of all ages and backgrounds. So let's get started and be sure to visit my website at sexualhealthformenpodcast.com for more information and resources from the show. See you on the inside.

If taking 5mg of tadalafil daily for BPH, can I also take a CBD tincture? The short answer to that question is yes. CBD tincture, you're taking it to calm yourself, taking it for sleep, you're taking it for pain. CBD can help with all that. Help with anxiety, help with sleep, help with pain, help even with inflammation. So it depends what you're taking it for, but you can take tadalafil with CBD, just make sure that CBD do have some THC in there as well. And you may test positive on urine tests. So if you work in an environment that require urine tests, you have to be clean. You have to be very careful with those products. Okay. And 5mg of tadalafil, very common for BPH because it does work well. BPH is essentially enlargement of the prostate. Anne Truong MD: And here's the prostate. Here's the bladder. Imagine your body cut in half like this, the man. Here's the bladder. Here is the prostate that sits right below the bladder. And this is the seminal vesicle that stores sperm. The prostate function is to add semen fluid to the sperm so it can survive in the vaginal canal and travel up to the uterus for implantation. So this is the pubic bone. This is the pubic bone right here. And the pubic bone should be more like above right here, but this model's like— and the urethra, which is the pipe that connects the bladder that goes through the prostate, go to the penis. So that way you urinate. That's how you urinate. And as when you ejaculate, it comes from the prostate, it goes through again, the urethra. The urethra is the— pipe that you also bring out urine, right? So go through and come out. So urine and semen go through the urethra here. Okay. And this is the prostate. Oftentimes the prostate can be palpated or touched by just external, right underneath the scrotal area. At least you can touch it and feel the prostate. And some men, I do ultrasound to look at the prostate. And in some men, it's about 2 centimeters or 1 inch just below the skin. It's very superficial. You can actually feel it. It's about an inch below the skin right here, just inside. You can see it. But the best way to reach the prostate is through the rectum right here. When doctor do a finger exam, put a finger in here and feel for the prostate internally and check the size for the prostate internally. So this the best way is internal exam where the doctor put the finger in and feel for the prostate. And if you're a man and now is over 40, you should get your prostate checked through finger exam as well as getting a PSA. Because men, when you get older, you have an enlarged prostate. And so enlarged prostate is more common than you think, but doesn't necessarily mean that it's cancer. It's enlarged. Oftentimes it can be enlarged as long as it doesn't affect your urine stream because the urethra, which is the pipe that takes out your urine, go through the prostate. If the prostate is enlarged right here, then it will compress the urethra, which is the tube that brings out your urine. It will compress the urethra, and therefore that's why you have symptoms of decreased stream. The stream is not as long when you're younger, and that's why it takes you longer to urinate. Also, sometimes you have to do double void because when you go urinate, you don't empty everything in the bladder because the prostate's clamping down on that. Other symptoms is that you tend to leak when you're not urinating. And other symptoms is also nighttime. You, at nighttime, you go like 2, 3 times, 4 times a night to go to the bathroom. So when you have enlarged prostate, it affect your sleep. You have to get up and go to the bathroom. And enlarged prostate doesn't necessarily cause ED, but indirectly can cause ED because it's interfering with your sleep and it's causing you stress to manage the symptoms. And also there's a nerve, the nerve that goes to the penis lies on top of the prostate. And sometimes when the prostate is enlarged, it can affect that nerve as well. So enlarged prostate directly does not cause ED, but indirectly can also contribute to ED, but not the primary factor. All right. And the reason why men that are older have enlarged prostate because of low testosterone as well as inflammation. Drinking a lot of liquor can cause inflammation of the prostate. But interestingly, men that have at least 3 times sexual intercourse in a week tend to have less enlargement of the prostate and less prostate cancer and live longer. So essentially, if you are sexually active 3 times a week, then it will help with enlargement of the prostate. Okay. And development of prostate cancer. So normal size of a prostate is like a walnut. It should be like a walnut size like this, or 30 grams. 30 grams is normal size of a prostate, probably the same size as this right here, 30 grams. But you'll know when you have enlarged prostate because it's going to affect your urine stream. It's called lower urinary tract symptoms or LUTS. That's when you determine whether you need to do a procedure called TURP to go in. So they go into your urethra and they go in through here and make a larger opening so that way you can urinate again. But one thing is this, if you have such an enlarged prostate and it compresses down on the urethra, it's going to cause retrograde, the urine kind of go backward to the bladder. Sometimes even semen will go backward, retrograde ejaculation. And also the bladder starts to get stiff and was filled with scar tissue. So the bladder becomes not as flexible either. So it doesn't get the urine out. So it has like a backward effect as well. So not only will it affect your urine stream, it may affect the erection, will also affect the functionality of the bladder because of the compression on the bladder itself. If you find that you are urinating more than 2 times nighttime and your urine stream is not as strong, go see a urologist and get your prostate checked. Oftentimes it's enlarged and it's affecting your urine stream. You're going to be taking medication, but I would tell you this diet, Mediterranean diet. If you follow Mediterranean diet, it will also help with decreasing the size of the bladder because it's anti-inflammatory. And also, if you moderate your alcohol content, I mean, keep your alcohol consumption to about 14 drinks or less for the week because alcohol is inflammation to the prostate. And so those two main things can help with the size of the prostate. It mainly is medication, but you can take supplements like saw palmetto, ashwagandha will also help as well too. So ashwagandha, saw palmetto, all of that will also help. And we have that available as Prostate Support. Prostate Support is in our store at ED No More. All the ingredients that you need to help with inflammation of the prostate. Now the prostate, it's a very, very complex structure. It is between the bladder, then it's between the penis, and it affects your erection. It affects your semen. It also affects the bladder and can cause retrograde ejaculation. It can cause sometimes so much enlargement you can't can't even get the semen out as well, you definitely have to get it checked. Don't ignore it because it could also be cancer. Cancer is small, but could also be— but especially you need to get it monitored if you have a family history of prostate cancer. I like to talk about the prostate and what it is because it's very common for men. And if you're 50 years old, 50% of you will have a large prostate. If you're 60 years old, 60% of you will have a large prostate. And now we're seeing prostate cancer showing up in younger men in their 40s. Used to be a cancer of men in the '60s and '70s, but now we're seeing it in men in their 40s as well too. So that's why the recommendation is to get checked around 45. Okay. Used to be that get checked around 60. Now it's like 45 and even in your 40s. So I hope that helped. Let me know what you guys think. Okay, Modern Man, if you're struggling with weak erection, low energy, the food you eat could be the big part of the problem. One of the best research-backed ways to boost circulation, support healthy testosterone, and improve sexual performance is the Mediterranean diet. It's packed with food that open up your blood vessel, lower inflammation, and fuel your hormone naturally. I've seen men notice real improvement in both energy and erection within weeks when they shift to this style of eating. So check out the Mediterranean diet link right here below and get that as soon as you can. Stronger testosterone and better erection.

Thanks for listening to the Sexual Health for Men podcast. If you love this episode, then please take a screenshot on your phone and post it on Facebook, Instagram, or wherever you post, and be sure to tag me and let me know why you like this episode and what you'd like to hear in the future. That will help me know what's great for you, and I would love to give you the most incredible free gift designed to help you improve performance quickly. Go to my website at sexualhealthformenpodcast.com to get the book, The 5 Common Costly Mistakes Men Make When Facing ED. I would appreciate it if you subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and just know that you can have sexual vitality for life. I appreciate you. Until next time.