Treating erectile dysfunction

"Sweetheart, I feel romantic tonight," your wife enthusiastically invites you. You suddenly feel a shudder in your spine with concomitant cold feet and cold sweat in your palms and face, not knowing how to cope with the anxiety entwined with the invitation, for you know that you can’t perform well sexually.

After evading the invitation, you frantically consult your family physician in the morning. And instead of receiving moral support and therapeutic help, you are welcomed into the dreaded geriatric league. "This is part of natural old age," your apologetic family doctor whispers. Then you become more anxious, bordering on hysteria and panic attack. Who do you call? The Erection Clinic. This is the story of ordinary citizens like you and me.

Erectile dysfunction is the consistent inability to maintain an erect penis with sufficient rigidity to allow sexual intercourse. This condition affects millions of men worldwide and is age-related. Most cases have an organic rather than a psychogenic cause.

Erection is caused by an increase in pudendal arterial flow, active relaxation of the smooth muscles of the sinusoids of the corpora cavernosa and an increase in venous resistance. Contraction of the bulbocavernosus and ischiovernosus muscles results in increased penile rigidity. History of hyperlipidemias, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, neurologic disease, renal failure, adrenal and thyroid disorders and trauma predisposes to erectile dysfunction.

Men silently suffering from erectile dysfunction are diagnosed using CBC, urinalysis, lipid profile, serumtestosterone, glucose and prolactin, PSA and anti-aging consultation. Treatment is initiated as soon as the baseline studies are in. Treatment may consist of any of the following or combinations as warranted: hormonal replacement, vasoactive therapy like Viagra, vacuum constrictive device, penile enlargement using prosthesis to produce rigidity, and vascular reconstruction which is limited in use.

We, at the Erection Clinic, believe in the multidisciplinary or the holistic approach. We have an anti-aging specialist, urologist, internist, anesthesiologist, cosmetic plastic surgeon, endocrinologist, psychiatrist and nutritionist as consultants.

We combine erection programs with penis enlargement (phalloplasty) since we found out that in Asians, psychogenic cause is directly related to penis size in majority of cases. Cosmetic surgeons are consulted in cases of self-esteem-related psychogenesis in consonance with psychiatric consult. Since erectile dysfunction is age-related, an anti-aging specialist is consulted.

In the United States, anti-aging specialists combine human growth hormone therapy with testosterone replacement in males to treat loss of erection and loss of libido. Women with loss of libido are also given minute amounts of testosterone to enliven libido and orgasm. (The author is a noted cosmetic plastic surgeon who toured the United States and Asia for new techniques and technologies in anti-aging medicine and cosmetic plastic surgery.

He can be reached at the St. Luke’s Medical Center, Rm. 533 MAB, or at his private Anti-Aging and Beauty Surgery Center at 1823 E. Rodriguez Sr. Avenue, Quezon City, tel. no. 721-25-92.)