Why Diabetes Can Result In Erectile Dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction is a irritating situation the place your penis cant get or keep an erection agency sufficient for intercourse. There is not any particular therapy to reverse injury to blood vessels brought on by diabetes, there are a number of choices that can assist you have erections.
One of the lesser-known unwanted side effects of diabetes is an elevated danger of erectile dysfunction. Experts assume that circulatory issues from diabetes have an effect on blood stream to the penis and make it troublesome to get an erection. People with diabetes are thrice extra more likely to have bother sustaining an erection than individuals who havent got diabetes.
Learn extra about handle erectile dysfunction brought on by diabetes.
Erectile dysfunction is a irritating situation the place your penis cant get or keep an erection agency sufficient for intercourse. Its laborious to confess that it is an issue, nevertheless its extra widespread than you may assume. Nearly 30 million folks within the United States have erectile dysfunction. Certain drugs and a few well being circumstances, together with diabetes, considerably improve the chance of erectile dysfunction.
Erections are brought on by a rise in blood stream to the penis. As the blood fills the erectile tissue, the tissue swells and will get bigger and firmer. The swelling compresses the veins that allow blood stream out of the penis, so your penis stays erect.
How Can Diabetes Cause Erectile Dysfunction
There are many reasons why diabetes can lead to ED, including vascular, psychological, and neurological issues that can arise. Current medical knowledge has identified several likely causes of ED in patients with diabetes, including:
- Damage to the small blood vessels in the penis. Diabetes means theres more glucose in the bloodstream, and this can damage small blood vessels. Damage to small blood vessels in the penis can make it more difficult to have and maintain an erection.
- Low testosterone levels. Its estimated that 25% of men with diabetes have low testosterone. Testosterone plays a large role in mens sexual function, and having a low level can lead to ED.
- Depression. Many men with diabetes may become depressed or have anxiety related to having to manage such a difficult disease. Depression can lead to various problems with having an erection, including a loss of morning erections, which are natural in healthy men. Anxiety can cause men to lose an erection or have difficulty getting an erection.
- Side effects of medication. Diabetic men who are being treated with multiple medications can experience ED as a result of the side effects of their medications.
Dealing With Sexual Problems
Sexual problems are the same as any other medical problem. You need to talk to your doctor about the strategies that will best suit you and your lifestyle.
Accept that there is a problem. Thinking it might go away will only delay treatment. The sooner you seek help the sooner the problem can be treated. If you have a partner, talk through the problems you are both experiencing. Sexual problems have the potential to cause a strain in the relationship. If you feel this is happening, you may like to contactRelationships Australia.
Learn about the condition. Finding out as much as you can and the treatments available will bring positive results and improve your sense of well being.
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Clear Your Pipes To Reverse Ed
Blood flow is the core physical component of how your penis gets and stays hard. Anything that impacts blood flow will also impact your erections. Penile plaque impacts blood flow.
When the collagen in your blood vessels breaks down, your body patches it up with calcium. That calcium accumulates and leaves deposits that harden and narrow the vessels and reduce blood flow.
Its a lot like how the pipes in your house accumulate that nasty residue on their interior walls, and need a snake or Drano treatment every few years.
If the blood vessels in and around your penis accumulate too much plaque, that reduces how much blood gets to your peniswhich reduces the strength of your erections.
Use the Linus Pauling Protocol to reduce that plaque.
The protocol was developed by Dr. Linus Pauling, a scientist who investigated the role of vitamins in cardiovascular health. He was kind of a big deal before his death in 1994.
Hes just one of four people to have won more than one Nobel prize.
Paulings protocol addresses arterial plaque in general throughout the body, but throughout the body includes your penis.
To follow the protocol, you take Vitamin C, L-Lysine, and L-Proline.
These three supplements combine to help clean out the plaque in your blood vessels. That helps with your ED, with the added extra bonus of reducing your chances for things like high blood pressure, heart disease, and strokes.
How does it work? Im glad you asked.
Does Diabetes Cause Erectile Dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction the ability to get or maintain an erection firm enough to have sex can be caused by a number of conditions, including diabetes. According to an American Diabetes Association study, about 35-75% of men with diabetes will eventually experience ED, and men with diabetes develop diabetes 10-15 years earlier than men without diabetes.
The likelihood of developing ED increases with age for men with diabetes. Here are some ED statistics based on age:
- 50-60% above the age of 50
- 95% above the age of 70
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Are There Treatments For Men With Diabetes And Erectile Dysfunction
Men who have diabetes and are having trouble achieving or maintaining an erection can take oral medicine The NHS can provide the following medications on prescription for men with diabetes:
Brand names include:
- Cialis
- Levitra
However, these medicines can all affect the heart rate, and detailed consultation with your doctor is necessary to determine the best course of action.
Additional treatments include intracavernous injection therapy, vacuum constriction devices, intraurethral therapy and sex therapy.
Psychotherapy can have an enormous influence on erectile dysfunction. Further treatment such as surgery and vacuum devices may also have a role to play in some specific cases.
Other Options For Treating Erectile Dysfunction
Many cases of ED can be reversed by making changes to your lifestyle, switching medications or simply treating underlying health conditions.
However, ED can be a persistent beast. Sometimes, even with major changes to your lifestyle and improvements to your overall health, youll still find it difficult to get or maintain an erection during foreplay and sex.
If you have persistent ED, or if the options listed above arent totally effective, you may want to consider using medication to treat your erectile dysfunction.
Currently, several FDA-approved medications are available to treat erectile dysfunction. These include:
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Sildenafil. The active ingredient in Viagra, sildenafil works quickly and usually lasts for three to five hours.
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Tadalafil. The active ingredient in Cialis, tadalafil is a longer-lasting ED medication that can provide relief for up to 36 hours at a time.
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Vardenafil. The active ingredient in Levitra®, vardenafil treats ED for slightly longer per dose than Viagra.
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Avanafil. The active ingredient in Stendra®, avanafil works very quickly, has a lower risk of causing side effects and treats ED for up to six hours at a time.
Weve talked more about how these medications work, their effectiveness and more in our guide to the most common ED treatments.
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Can Erectile Dysfunction Be Reversed
In most cases, yes, erectile dysfunction can be reversed. While short-term treatments that help men achieve erections are readily available, the key to long-term ED reversal lies in addressing the conditions underlying cause. Psychotherapy to help cope with associated anxiety can also help. It is important to consult with your doctor to check for any underlying health issues and determine the best course of treatment – never self-diagnose or medicate!
Erectile Dysfunction: The Basics
Healthy erections are all about blood flow. When youre aroused, your nervous system causes the soft tissue of your penis to relax, allowing blood to flow in. As blood flows in, the tissue of your penis traps the blood in place, keeping your penis hard as you have sex.
As a man, its common and perfectly normal to occasionally have difficulty getting or keeping an erection. However, when difficulty getting or maintaining an erection starts to interfere with your sex life, its generally viewed as erectile dysfunction.
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Can sometimes get an erection, but not every time you want to have sex
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Can get an erection, but find it difficult to maintain it for fulfilling or satisfactory sex
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Cant get an erection at any time
Although ED is more common in older men, its far from uncommon to develop ED in your 20s or thirties. The good news is that regardless of how old you are or how severe your ED is, options are almost always available to treat it.
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Smoking or nicotine use
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Replace Your Bike Seat
Some studies have linked bicycling to ED, though more research is needed to confirm the connection. Bicycle seats put pressure on nerves and blood vessels in the pelvic region. If youre a frequent or long-distance cyclist, consider buying a seat specially designed to reduce pressure on your perineum. Learn more about the effects of cycling on erectile function.
What Treatments Are Available For Men With Diabetes And Erectile Dysfunction
Men with diabetes having trouble with achieving and/or maintaining an erection can take oral medications like avanafil , sildenafil , tadalafil , or vardenafil .
However, because people with diabetes also tend to have problems with their heart, these medications may not be appropriate and could cause dangerous interactions with some heart medicines. Talk to your doctor to determine what treatment is best.
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Herbs Supplements And Alternative Remedies To Reverse Erectile Dysfunction From Diabetes
Herbal remedies and supplements have been found by some to be successful in reversing ED. Consider these with two important caveats: While there have been some studies into their effectiveness for ED from diabetes, the numbers are small and more research is needed to determine their safety and efficacy also, herbs and supplements can have very dangerous side effects that impact the brain and the body. This list contains items that have been successful for some for treating ED with diabetes. Its here as a starting point for your own research, which should include a talk with your doctor.
- Folic acid
- Amino acid
- DHEA
- Maca
Alternative treatments such as acupuncture, yoga, tai chi, massage, and other mind-body approaches may also help both ED and diabetes. Because of the nature of diabetes, its important to check with your doctor before starting any new activity or medication of any type.
How Do The Reversible Changes Become Irreversible
Data suggest that this could be because of several factors: Primarily, the ongoing impact of hypoxia and nerve dysfunction secondarily, owing to the accumulation of advanced glycation endproducts . AGEs are adducts formed on proteins and lipids following non-enzymatic glycation and oxidisation after exposure to aldose sugars and their metabolites. Similar adducts may be formed by lipid-oxidation products. AGEs are formed naturally in human body, and they are also ingested in food as a result of cooking processes. They accumulate with age on long-lived proteins such as collagen. Diabetes is considered an accelerated form of aging because of this elevated AGE accumulation. In addition, it is becoming increasingly apparent that relatively rapid intracellular AGE formation, primarily as a result of increased methylglyoxal levels resulting from triose metabolism, has marked effects in the pathophysiology of diabetic complications, including endothelial dysfunction., , , ,
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The Sexual Side Effects Of Diabetes
Sexual dysfunction includes any problems that happen within the sexual response cycle, says Avadhanula. Everything from attaining an erection to reduced libido can be an issue for people living with diabetes.
Avadhanula says that while most of the studies focus on sexual dysfunction in men with diabetes, the disease affects women as well. With both genders, the longer you have diabetes, the more likely you are to experience sexual dysfunction in some way, she says.
If you have diabetes, plus any of these symptoms, there may be a connection:
- Lessened libido: Do you feign headaches more often than not to get out of sex?
- Arousal inability: Does it no longer get up the way it used to? Or, have you stocked up on lubricant because you go through it so quickly?
- Are you going through the motions without the promise of an orgasm?
- Intercourse-related pain: Do you avoid sex because it just plain hurts?
- Infections: Have you routinely experienced vaginitis or urinary tract infections?
Get Better Sleep To Reverse Ed
Heres something your mom and grandma told you, that it took science until recently to figure out. If you dont sleep enough, its bad for you.
Even though our culture glorifies men who give up sleep to work harder and crush it, or simply to show how tough and dedicated they are
Were finding more evidence each day to suggest men who get too little shut eye lose the focus and productivity they need to do well at the jobs theyre trying to crush.
And its even worse for your sexual health. If youre not getting a solid 7-8 hours a night, youre doing all kinds of damage to your erectile and hormonal health :
Insufficient sleep lowers your testosterone production. Less testosterone = lower libido. Lower libido = less desire and less ability to get hard.
Insufficient sleep harms your cardiovascular health in a variety of ways. As I mentioned in the first entry on this list, poor cardiovascular health means poor erectile health because you rely on blood flow to get hard.
Insufficient sleep can lead to depression, which can cause physical, emotional, and relationship problems with your sexual health.
Insufficient sleep reduces your nitric oxide production. Nitric oxide is one of the most important chemical components of your bodys process for becoming aroused.
Insufficient sleep increases your stress, and reduces your ability to handle what stress you experience. Stress is the most common emotional and lifestyle factor that can create ED and other sexual health issues.
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Research Design And Methods
This multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group trial was conducted at 18 sites in Spain from December 1999 through August 2000. A total of 216 men aged 18 years with a clinical diagnosis of type 1 or type 2 diabetes , a minimum 3-month history of mild-to-severe ED, and a stable monogamous relationship with a female partner were eligible. Men with a history of hypertension and hypercholesterolemia were included.
A clinical diagnosis of diabetes was predicated on either current therapy with insulin, metformin, or sulfonylureas or a history within the previous year of two occasions of diagnostic-level hyperglycemia, including 1) fasting plasma, serum, or blood glucose > 7 mmol/l 2) randomly obtained plasma, serum, or blood glucose 11.1 mmol/l associated with symptoms of polyuria, polydipsia, or unexplained weight loss or 3) plasma, serum, or blood glucose 11.1 mmol/l 2 h after administration of 75 g oral glucose. Any patient with an onset of diabetes before the age of 30 years who had received continuous insulin treatment since diagnosis was considered to have type 1 diabetes.
The vast majority of patients had moderate-to-severe ED, an ED history of > 1 year , and a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes at study onset . Patients were eligible for study inclusion irrespective of previous responses to ED treatments, including sildenafil.
Why Do Men With Diabetes Have Erectile Dysfunction
The causes of erectile dysfunction in men with diabetes are complex and involve impairments in nerve, blood vessel, and muscle function.
To get an erection, men need healthy blood vessels, nerves, male hormones, and a desire to be sexually stimulated. Diabetes can damage the blood vessels and nerves that control erection. Therefore, even if you have normal amounts of male hormones and you have the desire to have sex, you still may not be able to achieve a firm erection.
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Natural Ways To Overcome Erectile Dysfunction
Can you run as fast as you did when you were 20 years old? Hit a baseball as far as you once could? Bash a tennis ball with the same speed and spin?
Probably not.
But even as we age, there are still plenty of ways to stay in the game and enjoy it. That’s as true of sex as it is of sports.
Erectile dysfunction can occur for many reasons. Sometimes it is as simple as the side effect of a particular medication. But for roughly 75% of men, the cause is more complex. ED may result from vascular disease, neurological disease, diabetes, or prostate-related treatments or surgeries.
Whether you currently suffer from ED or are hoping to sidestep this condition, try these tips to overcome ED for better health and a better sex life.
For more on diagnosing, treating, and learning how to overcome ED, read What to do about Erectile Dysfunction, a Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School.