How To Overcome The Challenges Men With Erectile Dysfunction Face

In today's episode, I'm going to talk about the 10 common challenges that men with ED may face. So stay tuned and we're going to talk about it and go over different strategies and how to cope with it.

This podcast is for you. The modern man. I'm Dr. Anne Truong, your host. I'm an intimate health medical doctor and best selling 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 it and be sure to visit my website@sexualhealthformenpodcast.com for more information and resources from the show. See you on the inside.

Well, hello there. In today's episode, we're going to be focusing on erectile dysfunction and the common issue that that affect 30 million men in the US and we're going to talk about the common challenges that men with ED face when trying to regain their ability to achieve an erection. We're not talking about the physical, but other general challenges. So to kick things off, I want to establish a basic understanding of what ED is. So the definition of ED is the persistent inability to achieve or maintain an erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance. Now that's a wide definition. So ED can still mean that you can still have an erection, you just can't maintain it enough for penetration or for satisfactory sexual performance. Or it takes longer for you to get an erection that is considered ed. Or, or that you get an erection and during penetration it goes soft or that you get an erection but you cannot orgasm or you cannot ejaculate. So just know you can still have an erection and still have ed. So while occasional difficulty may occur, it's not uncommon. I've talked in my last episode that an erection, when you have an erection.

You can go from hard and then.

Somewhat semi hard and then hard again. So the erection firmness actually can fluctuate. However, ED can become a chronic condition if it impacts upon a man's quality of life and relationship. Now let's discuss about the common challenges that men with ED face. So number one, let's discuss about the psychological factors such as anxiety, stress, stress and depression and relationship issues can all contribute to and exacerbate ed. I talked in my last episode that the brain is the largest organ. The brain has to be relaxed in order for you to get a sexual response, meaning an erection. Your brain has to start transmission of the arousal messages from the five senses that you have, which is your eyes, your nose, your, your Mouth, what you hear and what you touch. It has to initiate from that to create an arousal response in the brain. But then the brain, those messages are then relayed to your emotional state. So if you're feeling anxious, stressed or depressed, or you've been having relationship issues with your partner, that confound the messages and sometime may not transmit 100% to then the hormone center that are in the brain. Now the six system that I talk about, my six easy steps to get hard is that it starts in the brain, then it goes to your emotion, then it goes to your hormone, then it goes to the nerve, then it goes to the blood vessels and then the penis tissue. So if you having anxiety or depression or stress, overcoming these issues may require you maybe perhaps to go to a couple counseling ways to manage stress such as meditation, doing yoga or even exercise. Just know that stress can play a big role in affecting your sex life. The second challenge is physical factors. Physical factors such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease or condition that contribute to poor blood flow, such as neuropathy, such as immune disease, that can all contribute to ed. And we discussed about that extensively. But the number one thing I want to stress is that please, if you have those conditions and you have ed, discuss with your doctor and get blood work. Oftentimes just controlling your high blood pressure or just losing a little bit of weight or just getting on a Mediterranean diet will go a long way in restoring your erection. Again, the last thing you want to do is to really try to treat it yourself when you know, you know what, the last time I had sex with my partner, I wasn't performing as well. The last thing you should do, go on google and take an ED medication. Because just simple little treats such as sleeping better and exercising will go a long way. So number three, medication side effect. Now some medication including antidepressant and anti high blood pressure medicine can worsen ed. Now usually doesn't cause ed, but if you already have some underlying causes, high blood pressure or diabetes, high cholesterol, and it can definitely contribute to the pool in worsening ed. So if you are taking these medications, perhaps discuss with your doctor about other alternative. Don't get off of these medications, but simple things such as changing your diet to Mediterranean diet, eating less red meat, eating less processed food, less carb, and just maybe walk 30 minutes a day or doing some type of exercise, about 30 minutes a day or three hours.

A week will go a long way.

Because you may be able to get off of your high blood pressure Medicine and even your cholesterol medicine and your diabetes medication as well by Maybe just losing 10% of your body weight. And I have seen my patient just lose about 15 pounds or so. And I see their concern. Cholesterol level normalizes, their blood pressure becomes normal and their testosterone level almost double. And their blood pressure normalizes as well. So very important that you just make little tweaks as a changing your diet. And I recommend a Mediterranean diet, which is really more fruits and vegetables and lean meat. I've seen some of my patients, all they did was just cut down on their red meat and eating maybe once a week and cut down on the french fries, the sodas and the bread. And their weight drop, their blood sugar are lowered and their testosterone double, their libido increases as well as their erection. So don't underestimate the benefit of a diet. Now, number four, performance anxiety. Now I'm going to talk about more about that in the next episode. But performance anxiety is the fear of not being able to perform sexually. And it can create this self fulfilling prophecy that lead to ed because maybe one or two times that you've been with your partner, you weren't performing as well as you used to, that you start thinking about it, you start focusing on it and it becomes almost like a self fulfilling prophecy. And just know that the brain is a larger sexual organization. And if your brain is not relaxed, you're not going to be able to initiate that sexual response from the five senses. And if you keep focusing on that, your brain will get confused. You're not going to be able to send the messages to the hormones and the nerve. And it's okay that you can have occasional difficulty when you have an erection. Your erection can vary in its firmness and it's absolutely normal. You can be 80% hard and go down to 50% hard and then up to 80% hard. And this can even happen during penetration. It is perfectly normal to have that. You don't have to be 100% rock hard all the time during a sexual encounter. Number five is aging doesn't necessarily mean the older you get that you will get ed. We know that as men get older, there's more chance of getting ED. 50% of men will have ED when they're at 50 years old and 60% of men will get ED when they're 60. And 70% of men will get ED when They're at 70 years old. And that the older you are, the more severe the edge. But that just doesn't happen because you get older. It Happens because when you get older, you don't exercise as much because you're working more, you're spending more time with family, or you start having some knee pain of some past injury in the past or back pain. So you're just not exercising as much, you don't have as much time to perhaps eat a good diet and perhaps, you know, the spark in your relationship kind of die down a little bit and you just don't have the time to be as sexually active. So and you start to gain some weight. So weight gain, not exercising and joint pain and not getting enough sleep, maybe drinking a little bit more alcohol than you should, well, all of that actually lead to lower testosterone as well. And then that also a factor that also causes ed. So it's not getting older that causes ed, it's the other factor that you, the other medical condition that you have when you get older that causes ED. So it doesn't necessarily mean if you're a healthy 70 year old, exercise, eat a good diet that moderate his alcohol, doesn't smoke, has good sleep, that man can continue to have a good erection and a good sex life regardless. So if you are having a decline in your erection, first get your blood work done and talk with your doctor about it. And again, back to the basics of diet, exercise, sleep, stop smoking and moderate your alcohol. But the point I want to make is that aging itself does not cause ed. Number six, lifestyle factors such as smoking. Smoking. If you smoke, you might as well say goodbye to your erection. Smoking, it decreases blood flow because it causes inflammation to the endothelium. Even if you stop smoking, it takes years to kind of reverse the effect. Number two is excessive alcohol consumption. How much is too much? Like more than 10 drinks a week is probably too much. Some people even say probably no more than three drink a week. So I believe in more moderation. And you know, 7 to 10, it's probably a good number at the time. Another thing, another lifestyle factor is lack of exercise. So if you're not exercising enough, you're going to start gaining weight, right? And then your blood pressure will go up, your cholesterol will go up. So adopting a healthier habit such as eating a Mediterranean diet, exercising more often. And I advocate doing high intensity interval exercises or HIIT exercises. What's good about it, you can only need to do about 30 minutes at a time and that's just like one or two minutes of high intensity heart rate and then rest for one to two minutes and then back up again. And you can do it with just walking Incline, you don't have to jog or run. You just go on the treadmill and pump it up to 12% angle, walk for about a minute and then make it go down to about maybe 1 to 3 incline, walk for a minute again up to walk for two minutes and then down walk for two minutes. So just doing that for about half an hour is probably good enough as well. And then again, just reducing your alcohol intake like I discussed about earlier. And I have seen patients that do this and they, I, I've seen not only increase their testosterone level, but also improve their erection as well. Number seven, lack of awareness of options that are out there to treat ED other than ED medications such as Viagra and Cialis. I know that when a man faces issues such as ed, it is such a private matter that he's probably not going to talk to people and start Googling. And unfortunately, when you start googling, you start finding out about the ED medication and the online dispensary. But that's almost like, I almost equate that to like if you're having chest pain and you go on Google and try to find a medication for it because, you know, when you have chest.

Pain, what do you do?

You go to er, right? Well, I want you to think about ED as having a penis attack, the equivalent of a heart attack. Because when you have ed, you really, there is something going on in your body causing that. When you take an ED medication that does not treat your ed, it's really a band aid because all it does is just relaxes the muscles in the penis, but it doesn't do anything to increase your blood flow. And I dive extensively in my past podcast episode to talk about that. And so there are other options, such as, number one, doing blood work. Maybe you do your blood work, you find out you have low testosterone and testosterone can be supplemented through injection or through pellet, or you have high cholesterol or high blood pressure or even high blood sugars. And if you have those three, then perhaps eating a proper diet, such as Mediterranean diet and exercising will take care of the blood pressure, the diabetes and the high cholesterol. Other options are a penis pump. A penis pump will help bring more oxygen to the penis and will increase more blood flow to the penis. And I have made some recommendations on some penis pump. I'll put that in the show. Notes Number four. Other option is even doing exercise. When you exercise, you increase more blood flow throughout the body and that will bring more blood flow to the penis as well. Other things is sleep, sleeping between 10pm to 6am will help your body heal mentally and physically, but it also is a time for your body to make more testosterone as well. Two and other options are the option you can think about almost is stem cell therapy, using your own blood to restore blood flow. But those are more for moderate to severe ED cases at this time. But if you just use some of the strategies that I just mentioned just now, if you when you first have symptoms of ed, I will guarantee you will reverse your ED and restore your erection again. The other options are more interventional, such as using stem cells or doing shockwave therapy. Really more for moderate to severe ed. When you've had ED for about five years, you've been taking Viagra or Cialis and it has not worked. And I caution you, when you take ED medication, it's just a band aid. You're not treating the cause of the problem and your ED will get worse over time. And then you become emotionally dependent upon the Viagra or Cialis every time you have an erection because that becomes your crutch. All right? And then your body will get used to having the medication in your system to have an erection. So it's almost like becoming medication dependent for your erection. Now that is so unnatural, right? Our body is made so that way. Your body is made so that way you can have erection naturally. Why would you need a medication to help you have an erection? So same thing as blinking. You don't need a medication to help you blink, but just know that there are other options out there beside ed, medication and implant. Now, number eight is communication. It's a significant challenge for men when they have ed because oftentimes when I tell you when I see my patient, the last person that they talk to is really their partner. When they know they have ed, they keep it to themselves. And you know, you're certainly not going to talk about it with your friend. Probably not. And not definitely not with your partner. And you probably try to Google. That's one of the reason why online dispensary is so popular because it's private, discreet. But really open communication with your partner is essential for addressing any feeling of frustration, embarrassment, shame or guilt as relating to ed. And oftentimes just open communication and your partner working with you through it will actually be therapeutic for your ED as well. And then number nine is financial constraint can be a barrier and, and a challenge in receiving appropriate treatment such as, you know, getting medication or getting other treatment. However, I mentioned diet, which really shouldn't cost you anything because you're just changing the type of food you're eating to more vegetables rather than processed food. Processed food. I mean, anything that comes in a box. All right, Anything that comes in a box is processed food such as pasta, potato chip and cookies or sodas.

Right.

You want to kind of stay away from that and then exercise. You know, maybe you don't have access to a gym, but you can exercise outside. My kids used to say, you know, outside exercise is free. So you can, you can do that. And, you know, stopping smoking, you'll probably save more money if you stop smoking. So financial constraint is somewhat of a partial challenge that I see. I see it that if you stop smoking and probably decrease alcohol and eat better, you probably save a lot of money. Lastly, number 10. So patient. So recovering from ED require time and patience and persistence. Your ED didn't occur overnight. It actually probably has been occurring over years. So you have to practice being patient with yourself and patient with your partner as well as communication with your partner during this process. And know that there are other treatment for your ED other than surgery and ED medication. And I've seen thousands of patients be able to restore their sex life again without medication at this point. So navigating the challenges of ED can be difficult. But it's important to remember that there are treatment options available and support that are available and that addressing both the physical and the psychological factors that contribute to ed, such as making healthy lifestyle changes that I mentioned earlier, open communication with your partner. You can really work towards improving your sexual health and, and your overall well being. I also suggest if you need to go to sex counseling and couple therapy, I'll leave the link to the American association of sex therapists, aasect.org down below. And then you can put in your where you live and perhaps find someone that can help you navigate through the psychological challenges at this time. So having said that, I thank you for being with me this time. I hope you find this helpful. And please, if you like this, subscribe. I love to hear from you. Love to hear what what you think you would like to hear. And just know that you can have the best sex life to the day you die. I'll see you next episode.

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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 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 design to help you improve performance quickly. Go to my website@sexualhealthformenpodcast.com to get the book the Five Common Costly Mistakes Men Make When Facing Ed. I would appreciate if you subscribe, leave a review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen and just know that you can have sexual vitality for life.

I appreciate you.

Until next time.