ED For a year, tissue elasticity and other questions

Symptoms Sexual
#1

Hello all,

I am just coming to this forum and I have been experiencing like all of you problems with ED. While I am a former propecia user, I only used it for about 60 days and I dumped it after that because I just didn’t like the way I feel. I turned to Rogaine next and that seems to be maintaining my hair for now. I’m 24 years old and I have a wonderful girlfriend of 3 years who is now my fiance. She is sticking by me to get this problem fixed. She’s amazing and from day 1 she was super understanding about the problem. She hasn’t allowed it to hurt our relationship at all and has been positive the whole time. Since February-March of 2008 I’ve had problems maintaining an erection. I cannot get rigid enough to penetrate and the reason is because I can’t keep the erection. By the time I manually get myself hard enough to try to penetrate it’s like the blood flows out and I lose it.

Obviously I have that big male ego so I avoided the doctor for awhile and tried alot on my own. I must say for about a week back in October I all of the sudden had the ability to achieve a good erection for intercourse but after that week it was gone again and back to the same problems. This seemed encouraging to me because it made me think “Hey, maybe this can fixed at least.”

Finally, I contacted Dr. Irwin Goldstein who was very very knowledgable, kind and bright, and asked for a good recommendation for an ED specialist in my area. He gave me a name and I went to see him. He ordered testosterone/prolactin and a penile doppler blood test. I go back in 2 weeks to see him, but the doctor who gave me the penile bloodflow test said that all the blood vessels look like they’re functioning normally, which is the result we were hoping for. He saw no damage there. However when he gave me the injection, I did lose the erection quickly which got me worrying. He assured me I shouldn’t worry and said he’d seen the urologist fix ED in young people like me that had the exact same problem and recommended a low dose of Cialis or Viagra. He said he just treated someone with my exact problem with a low dose of Viagra and it helped them immensely. So I’ll let you know how it goes when I experiment with the drugs. Now that you know my story, I hope you can help me with some general questions I have.

1.) While I’ve had long periods of erections before a couple hours (natural stimulation of course), do you think I could have done any damage to my penile tissue? I never had any painful erection. My morning erections are there but soft and go away quickly also.

2.) What do you consider a “normal” flaccid penis? I see a lot of people on this forum say they lost a lot of elasticity and that could be the cause of erection problems. How firm are the flaccid penis’ that are causing a red flag to go up for a lot of you? I think mine might be firmer than it was before which worries me, but then again I never paid attention to that kind of stuff before I started having this problem so I don’t know what it was before. I also don’t see any abnormal curvature.

Like I said I go see the doctor in 2 weeks so I’ll see what he says but hopefully some of you have any kind of input on my questions.

Thanks

#2

What exactly constitutes a low dose of Viagra in these cases, by the way? Like how many milligrams?

#3

Not sure as of yet but I see my doctor again this Friday so I’ll let you know what he says

#4

Cool, thanks. Best of luck with the appt. How difficult was it to get the blood flow test appointment? Is it a long wait for a specialist or just a quick referral type thing?

#5

I’d say 25mg.

If you’re thinking priapism, if you’ve had a boner lasting hours and didn’t go away hours after release, you may have had one. I don’t think this guarantees tissue damage, and your bloodflow checks out. Only a skilled Uro can know for sure, but if you’re not like some of us who have shrinkage and thinning, it’s probably okay. Besides this condition usually comes from using something like Viagra, not finasteride.

Again, many of us who complain about our flaccid state are complaining about shrinkage, loss of size and fleshy structure. Someone else will have to speak to “elasticity” issues. You seem to be asking if some of us have firmer shafts when not aroused. I don’t think in most cases this is common here. Bring your concerns to the doctor’s attention anyway.

#6

Hello guys,

Thanks for your input and my doctor is very convinced that I don’t have any tissue damage. When I have an erection (even though its weak) my penis bends all the way to the left and hits my thigh but not much to the right at all.

Doctor said he saw no plaque in the doppler so he thinks its just because of lack of rigidity.

Anyways to answer your questions:

1.) To get the doppler ultrasound was very easy. Dr. Goldstein recommended a urologist in my area for me. I went to see him and the first thing he did was order the testosterone/prolactin and penile doppler. I had to wait about 6 weeks to see this specialist because he’s one of the top ED urologists in the region but once I got to see him the wait for the tests was very quick. I had an ultrasound scheduled 2 days after I saw the doc.

2.) It was actually the radiology doctor who said he thought I should start on a “low dose” of meds but my urologist said he disagrees 100%. He wrote me a prescription for 20 mg of Cialis because he said it’s very important that I have success early and follow all the instructions of the drug, and we can adjust dosage from there.

I’ll give you guys an update on how things are going when I use the drug.