Erectile Dysfunction ?

[Jem7vsbl]

I'm a 37 male. Turn 38 in march. I was married for 14 years. I never had a problem during that time with sexual performance. I got a divorce March '13. I started a relationship in April '13. We had sex often, sometimes several times a day. The relationship went bad in June. The last time we were together we had sex but she wanted sex later that night and I couldn't perform. She asked if I had performance problems. I got me thinking that maybe I did. I had a couple more bad relationships but over the next few months I started thinking I might have performance problems. In December I had another sexual relationship and I got a erection but lost it quickly. Then I really started to worry. I started relationship a couple weeks ago. We haven't had sex but might this saturday. I've tried masturbation but I get a erection but it isnt very hard. It might not be hard enough for penetration and it goes away in a couple minutes. This problem has come on in the last 5 months. It has me worried. I started drinking pomegrante juice and started taking L-Arginine suppliments. Im thinking my problem is psycological,   Please help

[Jem7vsbl]

I don't smoke. I generally eat healthy. My blood pressure is slightly elevated 150/90. I do have high cholesterol. I'm going to my family physician today. I seem to have lost sex drive also. I'm thinking psycological. Thanks

[Bhupinder Kaur, MD]

Hello,

Thanks for posting your query.

I can understand your concern for the erection difficulty that you are having.  An erection problem is the inability to get or maintain an erection that is firm enough for a man to have intercourse. If the condition persists, the medical term is erectile dysfunction.

In your case, you have recently started facing loss of erection during intercourse. At your age and with your previous sexual history, it looks like the problem is psychological as performance based anxiety. If your morning erections are good then the cause is psychological.

The psychological causes can be due to unrealistic sexual expectations, which make sex a task rather than a pleasure, negative feelings about non performance, smoking, alcohol and sometimes illicit drugs. Talk to your partner openly about any fears or apprehensions, eat nutritious healthy food,exercise regularly and cut down on smoking or alcohol if you are taking it.

Even counseling with a sex therapist helps. If the symptoms persist then the medical causes need to be ruled out. The causes may be diabetes, high blood pressure, heart or thyroid conditions, poor circulation, low testosterone, depression, spinal cord and neurological causes.

To exactly pinpoint a diagnosis you need to get a complete examination done from a urologist and get your blood pressure, blood sugar levels, thyroid hormones, testosterone levels and a neurological examination of the testicles and penis done.

Hope that this information helps and hope that you get better soon.

Wishing you good health.