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Unsure if my ED problems are psychological or physical
Hi,
first off: I'm sorry for any grammar / vocabulary mistakes, English is not my native language.
Anyway, I've been having erection problems lately and I am unsure whether they are psychological or physical in nature. Here's the story:
I am a 25 year old student and since December, I am in a relationship with a girl I really like. I have had sexual experiences before, but only once within a long-term relationship. She is arguably more experienced.
As we were about to have sex for the first time 10 days ago, I lost my erection at the moment of penetration after easily 30-40 minutes of foreplay where I was very hard. I must admit that she felt very tight - there's no other way to put it - and I did feel some slight pain around the glans when I tried to enter because of that (my penis has a slight upward curve and I suspect we tried the wrong position on top of that...). Anyway, this was obviously a very shocking experience for me, and when we did try again that night, the same thing happened again: I got hard and lost the erection right when I got in position to penetrate.
(Interestingly, we did have oral sex a couple of days before that incident took place, and everything went fine - I had a very strong erection and no trouble keeping it up.)
Now at first, I clearly suspected that this was a psychological issue: with me being less experienced than her and it being our "first time" together, the pressure simply was a bit too much. However, I noticed some strange things in the days following: my sex drive was significantly lower (it kind of came back only just a day ago...), my penis felt less sensitive to my touch (especially the glans and frenulum) and I now even struggle to get a really hard erection when I try to masturbate - it only feels like 75% hard, in particular the glans and the lower part of penis around the corpus spongiosum don't seem to fill with an awful lot of blood. The moment I stop stimulating it, I lose the erection quickly. I do, however, wake up with morning erections, which also usually do not last very long.
Now what I wanted to ask is this: do you think these erectile problems are psychological, or rather physical? Here's what I think:
a) They could be psychological because of how it happened: losing the erection at the moment of penetration. Seems like a very obvious indicator for that. Plus, the fact that I'm still getting morning erections and erections overall, albeit weak ones.
b) However, they could also be physical: the (although only slight) pain I felt when I tried to enter (maybe I damaged something?), the loss of sensitivity, the fact that I struggle to get an erection now even when I'm alone.
Do you think these - seemingly - physical problems could, after all, be psychological as well? I have to admit that I can hardly get that incident out of my head (although my girlfriend has been very understanding about it), and it's kind of stuck in my head, even when I try to masturbate. With my girlfriend it's kind of the same thing (we haven't "tried" again since that night): when we kiss and make out, I do get aroused and my penis gets hard - but the moment I notice it, I start to think about the fact that I might lose the erection any time soon, which of course eventually makes me lose it. It's like a vicious cycle.
I know, ultimately I'll need to see the doctor about this so that he can get to the root of the problem (I already have an appointment). But what do you think, from experience: is it possible that this is an exclusively psychological issue? In other words, did this incident really screw up my mind to the point that my sex drive went down, my penis lost some of its sensitivity and I couldn't even get a proper erection when masturbating? Has anybody struggling with psychologically induced ED ever experienced such symptoms?
Thank you already for your help!
first off: I'm sorry for any grammar / vocabulary mistakes, English is not my native language.
Anyway, I've been having erection problems lately and I am unsure whether they are psychological or physical in nature. Here's the story:
I am a 25 year old student and since December, I am in a relationship with a girl I really like. I have had sexual experiences before, but only once within a long-term relationship. She is arguably more experienced.
As we were about to have sex for the first time 10 days ago, I lost my erection at the moment of penetration after easily 30-40 minutes of foreplay where I was very hard. I must admit that she felt very tight - there's no other way to put it - and I did feel some slight pain around the glans when I tried to enter because of that (my penis has a slight upward curve and I suspect we tried the wrong position on top of that...). Anyway, this was obviously a very shocking experience for me, and when we did try again that night, the same thing happened again: I got hard and lost the erection right when I got in position to penetrate.
(Interestingly, we did have oral sex a couple of days before that incident took place, and everything went fine - I had a very strong erection and no trouble keeping it up.)
Now at first, I clearly suspected that this was a psychological issue: with me being less experienced than her and it being our "first time" together, the pressure simply was a bit too much. However, I noticed some strange things in the days following: my sex drive was significantly lower (it kind of came back only just a day ago...), my penis felt less sensitive to my touch (especially the glans and frenulum) and I now even struggle to get a really hard erection when I try to masturbate - it only feels like 75% hard, in particular the glans and the lower part of penis around the corpus spongiosum don't seem to fill with an awful lot of blood. The moment I stop stimulating it, I lose the erection quickly. I do, however, wake up with morning erections, which also usually do not last very long.
Now what I wanted to ask is this: do you think these erectile problems are psychological, or rather physical? Here's what I think:
a) They could be psychological because of how it happened: losing the erection at the moment of penetration. Seems like a very obvious indicator for that. Plus, the fact that I'm still getting morning erections and erections overall, albeit weak ones.
b) However, they could also be physical: the (although only slight) pain I felt when I tried to enter (maybe I damaged something?), the loss of sensitivity, the fact that I struggle to get an erection now even when I'm alone.
Do you think these - seemingly - physical problems could, after all, be psychological as well? I have to admit that I can hardly get that incident out of my head (although my girlfriend has been very understanding about it), and it's kind of stuck in my head, even when I try to masturbate. With my girlfriend it's kind of the same thing (we haven't "tried" again since that night): when we kiss and make out, I do get aroused and my penis gets hard - but the moment I notice it, I start to think about the fact that I might lose the erection any time soon, which of course eventually makes me lose it. It's like a vicious cycle.
I know, ultimately I'll need to see the doctor about this so that he can get to the root of the problem (I already have an appointment). But what do you think, from experience: is it possible that this is an exclusively psychological issue? In other words, did this incident really screw up my mind to the point that my sex drive went down, my penis lost some of its sensitivity and I couldn't even get a proper erection when masturbating? Has anybody struggling with psychologically induced ED ever experienced such symptoms?
Thank you already for your help!
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