With most people few areas of your personal life are more guarded than your sexual activity, and if you’re struggling with problems performing with your partner, that only makes the situation more difficult for everyone involved. Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a condition millions of men struggle with (30 million in the US, 150 million globally), making them feel sexually inadequate and in many cases hesitant to seek help because they feel embarrassed to admit it to anyone else.
There are a lot of reasons men struggle with this illness, and not all of them are long term issues, but can benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), better known as enlarged prostate play a role in developing it? How can this lead to erectile dysfunction and what can you do about it?
For help with this and other issues leading to erectile problems in the Fort Lauderdale, Pompano Beach, and South Florida areas, Drs. Craig Herman, Steven Kester, and their staff at the Urology Center of Florida are here to help.
If you’re struggling with this condition, it is difficult to either get an erection, maintain one, or both. The type of ED you’re struggling with will depend on the cause of this problem:
Illnesses that affect your endocrine, circulatory, and nervous system affect your risk of ED, including diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), epilepsy, stroke, kidney disease, and atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Other causes include pelvic injuries, pelvic surgery, penile fracture, and radiation therapy. It’s estimated that over half of men between 40-70 struggle with this problem, though due to the issues with embarrassment mentioned earlier, the actual number is unknown.
There are a few different ways an enlarged prostate affects your ability to get an erection. The condition itself affects your ability to urinate (the swelling of the prostate can block your urethra or put pressure on your bladder) but it can also decrease sexual pleasure, and create problems getting or keeping oneself erect.
In addition, it can also make other issues affecting ED worse, and some medications used to treat BPH can also affect it. Having an enlarged prostate doesn’t guarantee ED problems, but in combination with other problems it can raise the risk of it happening.
While there are no treatments to manage both problems, some drugs, like sildenafil, vardenafil, and tadalafil (Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis respectively) can help with erectile dysfunction, and have been shown to reduce issues with enlarged prostate. This is because the drugs work by inhibiting the proteins that affect blood flow and boost the same results in the prostate and bladder, causing cells there to relax and help urine flow better as well.
However, the treatment for these issues will vary depending on your causes for both, so if you’re dealing with one or both problems, make an appointment today with Drs. Herman, Kester, and the staff at the Urology Center of Florida to get the help you need.
