Impotence Treatments, Remedies and Therapies

Advances in the diagnosis and treatment of impotence have helped restore many men's sexual lives. It is now known that it is a common problem, affecting about 30 million men and women in the U.S. alone.

Medical researchers have done in-depth research on the causes of impotence, and have come up with revolutionary treatments that have made a significant difference in the lives of many people.

Clinical trials on new drugs and treatments which promise to be even more effective also are currently underway.

Impotence Treatments: From Simple to Complex

Many doctors recommend impotence remedies that proceed from the simplest and least invasive to the complex and most invasive.

Physicians may first suggest to a patient to make a number of lifestyle changes. Quitting smoking, for example, or shedding excess weight and adopting a regular exercise regimen may help restore an otherwise healthy sex life.

Physicians may then recommend to patients to cut back on drugs with sexual performance side effects. For example, a number of drugs for hypertension may cause problems with erection. Patients can ask the doctor treating their high blood pressure if they can switch to a different blood pressure medicine or if they can reduce their current dosage.

If the underlying cause of impotence is psychological in nature, physicians may recommend behavior modification and psychotherapy. This recommendation may then be followed by the use of oral or injected drugs, vacuum pumps, or surgically-implanted devices.

In a few cases, doctors may recommend surgery to repair damaged arteries or veins.

Impotence Drug Therapies

Drugs used to treat sexual dysfunction are used in different ways. They can be taken orally or ingested, directly injected into the penis, or inserted into the urethra at the tip of the penis.

Oral Drugs

Sildenafil (Viagra), the first pharmacologically effective drug to treat impotence, was introduced in early 1998. Then came vardenafil (Levitra) and tadalafil (Cialis). Also, new drugs are now being tested for safety and effectiveness.

Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis are phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitors.They help enhance the effects of nitric oxide, a chemical that relaxes the smooth muscles in the penis during sexual stimulation and allows increased blood flow.

Injectable Impotence Drugs

There are drugs that help men achieve stronger erections by injecting these drugs directly into the penis, widening blood vessels and causing the penis to become engorged with blood.

Examples of these injectable drugs are phentolamine, papaverine hydrochloride and alprostadil (Caverject).

(Read more about these oral and injectable impotence drugs).

Treatment With Psychotherapy

Psychological impotence is treated using various techniques to decrease anxiety related to sexual intercourse. A sexual partner also can help with these techniques,such as the gradual development of sexual stimulation and intimacy.

These techniques can also help relieve anxiety when impotence associated with physical causes is being treated.

Vacuum Pumps As Remedies for Impotence

Vacuum pumps are used as impotence aids to induce erection by creating a partial vacuum which draws blood into and expand the penis.

These vacuum devices have 3 parts:

* a plastic cylinder where the penis is placed into;
* a pump that draws air out of the plastic cylinder; and
* an elastic ring or band placed around the penis base to help maintain erection

Vacuum pumps are found to be capable of producing an engorged penis with up to 90 percent success rate. However, erections may not be as hard as natural erections.

Frequent use of a vacuum device may in some cases eventually lead to an improvement in the quality of erections even without using it.

Some vacuum pumps, such as Osbon ErecAid, are backed by medical insurance programs, including the U.S. Medicare program, UK's NHS and some private insurers.

Surgery to Remedy Impotence

Surgery can be performed for a variety of reasons. It can be to implant a device that causes the penis to become erect, to repair arteries to increase blood flow to the penis, or to seal off veins which allow blood to leak from the tissues in the pens.

Surgery to Implant a Device

Implanted devices or "prostheses" can restore erection in men with impotence but can produce potential problems. These problems include infection or mechanical breakdowns. Mechanical problems, however, have been reduced lately as a result of technological advances.

There are basically two types of implant devices.

Malleable implants consisting of paired rods are surgically inserted into the corpora cavernosa in the penis. The user of the device adjusts the position of the penis and the rods manually. Malleable implants, however, do not affect the length or width of the penis.

Inflatable implants, on the other hand, consist of paired cylinders surgically inserted inside the penis.

Surgery to Repair Arteries and Veins

Impotence resulting from obstructions that block blood flow into the penis can be treated by surgery to repair penile arteries.

Surgery removes the blockage of an artery resulting from a pelvis fracture or crotch injury. This procedure, however, is mostly successful in younger men and is almost never successful in older men with widespread arterial blockage.

Surgery to veins that allow blood to leave the penis usually involves an opposite procedure compared to surgery for the arteries.

In this procedure, veins are blocked off to reduce the leakage of blood which reduces the rigidity of the penis during erection. However, this procedure is rarely done because of questions about its long-term effectiveness as an impotence treatment.

Advances in Treatments of Impotence

Advances in drug therapy, injectable medications, suppositories, implant devices, and vacuum pump devices continue to expand alternatives for those looking for treatment for impotence.

These medical and technological advances even help increase the number of men looking for impotence treatments and remedies.