Many men suffer from ED, a common condition that is commonly treated with medications like Viagra and Cialis. Although some ED medications can offer temporary ED relief, they may still not deal with the underlying causes of the condition. In fact, taking ED medications for an extended time may cause blood flow restrictions worse and require the use of higher doses.
Tune in to the episode as I dive into the mechanisms behind ED medications and why relying solely on them may not be the best solution for addressing the root causes of ED.
- Episode Video
- Study Related to ED
- How Do You Get An Erection?
- What Causes ED?
- Why does ED medications make ED worse?
- What Happens If You Keep Taking ED Medications?
- Common Side Effects of ED Medications
- Patient Testimonials
Episode Video
Secret number one, ED medications make your ED worse. You might be thinking, I thought ED medications are suppose to fix my ED? Not necessarily and I'll tell you why.
Everyone wants you to be sick. Money is made when you are sick. Pharmaceutical companies, Viagra is actually in the numbers in 2008 with an 8 billion, with a B not a million, billion dollar profit. Hospital want you to be sick because when you keep taking ED medications, your heart gets worse.
The problem while you have ED is really due to poor blood flow. So as you take ED medications, your heart condition can get worse. You'll be hospitalize and you'll have surgery. The hospital can make money from that.
Prosthetic company that makes the penile implant wants you to get penile implant. I can't tell you how many patients I have helped that their doctor has told them that the only solution is for them to get a penile implant.
Study Related to ED
So this is a very famous study that was done in 1994. It shows that men between the ages of 40 to 70, that there are 52% of them will have ED or have ED. This was done in 1994, we're talking about 30 years ago. The prevalence at that time was 30 million men living with ED.
What is also incredible is that 600,000 new cases a year of ED, and that the older you get, in your 60s or 70s, the more cases of severe ED, the more prevalence of severe ED versus moderate or mild. As you can see from the graph below, mild ED is the same from 40 to 70. But as you get in the 50, the 60, the 70, moderate and severe cases rea more prevalent. So a 50% at when you're 50, and 60% of ED when you're at 60, and 70% of ED when you're at 70.
How Do You Get An Erection?
So let's go over what your normal sexual function is? How do you get an erection?
Erection only occurs when your mind and your penis are in a state of relaxation.
Refer to the picture below because I'm going to insinuate today that there are six systems on how you can get an erection.
The brain is the largest sexual organ, it starts in the brain. How you get erection starts in your brain. Why is that? Because you have to become aroused, you have to be in the mood, you have to feel relax.
How to be arouse? By the five senses, what you see with your eyes, what you smell with your nose, what you taste with your mouth, what you hear with your ears, and your touch. That sends a stimulus to your brain and that mixes in with your emotions.
The hormone gets released and that stimulates the nerve in the back of your neck. Those nerves then send messages to your heart.
Your heart starts pumping more blood and it goes through your blood vessels. Your blood vessels have to be able to vasodilate or relax to open up. That way it can accommodate the more blood coming out of your heart. Then that brings in more blood flow to your penis.
Finally your penis muscle is involve. The muscle has to relax to accommodate the gush of blood that is coming out of your heart going into the blood vessel. When the penis muscles relax, then you get the blood filling in the penis.
When the penis starts to be engorge, it blocks off the veins and the vein collapses. So that's how you hold an erection.
Blood Flow and ED
Increasing blood flow is what creates an erection. When a man has ED, it's either poor blood flow is coming in or the veins are not collapsing to maintain erection. The most common ED is really the venous leak.
What Causes ED?
The causes of ED are 90% physical and 10% psychological.
Physical means from medical causes. It means that there is poor blood flow to the penis. Sedentary lifestyle, not exercising at all, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, poor sleep, low testosterone, and stress are some of the physical causes of ED.
You have poor blood flow when you have low nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a gas that's in your body that is a product of the lining of the blood vessel called the endothelium.
Nitric oxide opens up blood vessels and you need it in order to increase blood flow. You need nitric oxide so your penis muscle can relax.
Taking antibiotics, anti-inflammatory, anti ulcer medication, and using fluoride toothpaste or fluoride mouthwash lowers the nitric oxide content in your blood.
Not eating enough green vegetables, not eating a proper diet, and obesity can also decrease your nitric oxide level. If you're eating processed food, eating high fat food, or you're eating a lot of carbs, this can contribute to lowering of nitric oxide as well.
Now 10% is due to psychological reasons, mainly from anxiety, stress, depression, fatigue, and performance anxiety.
The Endothelium
Endothelium is essentially the lining of the blood vessel. That's what you guys should be worried about. That is, if the endothelial is not intact, you're not going to be able to have good blood flow to the heart, to the brain, or to the penis. The endothelium is where your blood flows into.
Poor Blood Flow
Poor blood flow means that you have, like a pipe, it's not opening as wide as it used to be because you have high cholesterol or diabetes. It tends to cause plaques. It creates a plaque and the plaque just restricts blood flow. So that's why it decreases blood flow.
The reason why it is affecting the penis more is because the penis artery is the smallest in the body. The penis artery about one to two millimeters. Millimeters like the size of an ant. Versus the heart about four millimeters.
The picture above shows that as you get older also, nitric oxide decreases. Like when you're 40, men tend to have less nitric oxide than women. When you're 40 years old, you have 50% nitric oxide production. And the older you get, the worse it gets.
Why does ED medications make ED worse?
It's because Viagra or Cialis, what it does is that it increases cyclic GMP. Viagra does not increase nitric oxide, it increases cyclic GMP. It helps with relaxing the smooth muscle of the penis. That's how it helps with erection.
However, it does nothing to increase nitric oxide, it does nothing to increase blood flow, it does nothing to help you what your endothelium. The endothelium is impaired because of high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, stress, not getting enough sleep, smoking, and recreational drugs.
Another is that, like I said earlier, Viagra just works on the muscle. Remember when I said how does an erection happen? An erection happens in the brain and it goes to the emotion, to the hormones, the nerve, the blood vessel, and finally the penis muscle.
Viagra does not help you with the brain, it doesn't help you with your libido. Viagra doesn't help you with your emotion. It doesn't help you release more hormones, if you have low testosterone. Viagra doesn't affect the nerve at all, and certainly does not help you with opening the blood vessel. Moreso to get more blood flow. So
Viagra does not increase blood flow. All it does is that it increases the chemical called cyclic GMP, which then relaxes the penis muscle. But that's one of the reasons why it also has all these other side effects of nasal congestion, blurry vision, and headaches. Because it can also relax those blood vessels as well.
What Happens If You Keep Taking ED Medications?
The blood flow restriction will worsen over time. Because you're not addressing the problem.
That's the reason why ED medications, only most of the time, it worked. But 70% of the time, it actually works more in cases of psychological ED. I'm not saying it doesn't work in the physical causes of ED.
But the reason why sometimes when you notice you have to go up in the dose of ED medication is that your blood flow restriction problem gets worse. You will be needing more of the medications to open up the blood vessel.
But it does nothing to increase blood flow or to reverse blood flow restrictions. It's a band aid for ED because you're really ignoring the reason why you have poor blood flow in the first place.
Common Side Effects of ED Medications
Headache, flushing, like I mentioned. But I also want to add, there was a new study that came out, it was like a maybe a couple of years ago, that looked at 20,000 men, they actually were experiencing change or loss of vision, as well as hearing loss, with chronic use of ED medication.
Don't forget that it can also cause lightheadedness and low blood pressure if you're already taking a heart medication. There's no spontaneity and the absorption of Viagra depends upon what you eat prior to that.
Patient Testimonials
Additional Resources
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