Erectile dysfunction treatments
The cause of your erectile dysfunction will guide your doctor’s treatment choices.
If it’s caused by a medicine that you need for a different condition, then there might be alternative prescriptions that you can try. Otherwise, you can try other treatment techniques to manage the ED.
Counseling and therapy are great treatments for many of the psychological causes of ED. Talking to someone about your worries and stress can be a great relief and is sometimes enough to get your sex life back on track. You can go to sessions by yourself or with your partner.
Talking to a therapist can even be helpful if your ED has a physical cause. There are many emotional frustrations associated with this condition. These reactions can increase both the ED and secondary complications. Therapy can help you process these new realities and develop coping strategies to reduce the issues.
For most medical conditions, you’ll be able to regain normal sexual function once you get the underlying disease under control.
While you wait for these more long-term solutions to take effect, there are some ways you can generate an erection when you want to use it. You’ll need to repeat these methods every time you want to engage in sexual activities.
Treatments include:
- Medications called oral phosphodiester inhibitors — this is the most common treatment option and can be used along with most other treatments
- Self-injected medications — applied inside of your urethra, for example
- Physical devices — including vacuum pumps to become erect and tight rings to prevent blood from leaving your erection
The final option for treatment — typically used only when all other options have failed — is a surgical implant in your penis. These can be either solid, semi-rigid silicone prosthetics or devices that inflate with a saline solution. Around 95% of the couples that need this treatment report satisfaction with the prosthetic.
Also, note that there are numerous natural remedies on the market that claim to treat your ED. Most of these have not been studied well — if at all — and none are FDA approved. Ginseng has had some early success in scientific studies — but we need more research to prove and understand this effect.