loss of erections, jelquing caused?? i need help

hi, i am an 18 year old male who is moderatly healthy, i had done alot of jelquing in the past from about the age of 12 till 17, and have been noticing that i can no longer achieve a full erection, and that it takes alot of physical stimulation to achive an erection, and when i do achive these erections they are somewhat weak, and go away within a couple minutes of no stimulation, i also have noticed that i no longer can achieve an erection just from visual stimulation, and have not had a nocturnal emmision for about a year, i also no longer wake up with erections, i did notice a slight change in my function while i was taking enzyte but this caused me to have panic attacks so i stopped taking it. is therte anything i can do to achieve a normal sex life?

[Janice M Epp, PhD]

Oh dear. You need to see a urologist immediately. From your post, it sounds like you may have some damage. If you aren’t getting morning erections, that’s a pretty good sign of a physiological condition that needs looking at. Don’t panic; it’s not necessarily anything permanent.

Jelquing is a method intended to enlarge the penis by exercising the smooth muscle and other tissues in the penis, with the goal of permanently increasing the maximum erect size of the penis. This technique has never been endorsed by any medical association, and there’s no proof it works. In fact, the following risks from this exercise are: burst blood vessels, sometimes causing bleeding from the urethra (which can lead to infection and other complications if not taken care of), and temporary or even permanent impairment of erection.

Sounds like you’ve bought into the myth that you have to have a larger-than-life penis in order to have great sex. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

We do a terrible disservice to men by raising them to think that their penis has to be 10 inches long, hard as a rock and last all night. It’s no wonder that many men feel insecure about their penis. Locker room etiquette dictates no staring, so most men have only glimpsed other penis sizes and shapes in commercial sex videos, which generally feature men with large penises. If you think everyone else looks like a male porn star, of course you’re going to feel inadequate!

Another contributing factor is that while most men see their penises several times a day while urinating, they’re usually staring down at their penis, creating a visual distortion that makes it appear smaller than it actually is.

Just as some women associate being “sexy” with having big breasts, many men spend their lives wishing they had the allegedly perfect porn star penis, and this can affect their sexual enjoyment. Certainly, penises are important to sex, but great sex involves your whole body; in fact, having great, mutually satisfying sex is usually quite the opposite of what you see in those performance-oriented sex videos. Remember: Performance can be the enemy of pleasure and fun.

Like noses, penises all have the same basic shape, with some variation. Did you know that you can’t tell the size of a man’s erect penis based on what it looks like when flaccid (un-erect)? Most penises erect to between 4 and 6 inches, and there’s not much variation in erection size (with exceptions, of course). However, when flaccid, there is much more variation. Some men’s penises are 1 inch when flaccid (we’ll call these growers), and others are 5 inches (we’ll call these show-ers). BUT: during erection, the 1-inch penis may grow to the same 6-inch erect size as the 5-incher. That’s right; despite their differences when flaccid, they’ll both erect to approximately the same size. Why don’t most of us realize this? Because most of us just don’t get the opportunity to see men when they’re flaccid and then erect. And did I mention shrinkage? When men are cold or nervous, the penis and testicles pull up into the body for protection (“I’m hiding!”). If you see a penis right after it’s been in a cold swimming pool, I guarantee it will not resemble its erect self in any way!

Men are always asking me if there’s something they can do or some pill to take to make their penis bigger. The short answer is no. So why not relax, accept your penis as it is, value and take care of it. If you do, it will serve you well your whole life. Best of luck to you—and do see a urologist ASAP. Dr. J