Summary

Erectile Dysfunction Diagnosis

  • When you do go to see your doctor, there are a number of tests available which will allow him or her to identify the root cause of your erectile dysfunction, be it physiological, psychological, age related or some combination of the three.

    A knowledge of the standard erectile dysfunction tests your doctor is likely to ask you to undergo during diagnosis will give you a valuable tool to decide whether your problem is one you can resolve yourself or whether it requires specialist intervention.

  • The areas that your doctor or specialist is looking at are
    • Your general state of health.
    • Any psychological factors which might be responsible
    • Any physiological traumas that could specifically affect the biological mechanisms involved in your getting and maintaining an erect penis.
    • Any age related factors.
      - As you get older your erection problem is more likely to stem from a physical problem.
    • Any relationship issues that you might have
      - It has been shown, for example, that men maintain a desire for sex throughout their lives whereas women tend to progressively lose libido with increasing age.
    • Any underlying health issues which might present as your inability to get an erection
  • As you might expect, components from more than one of these areas could very likely play a part in your erectile dysfunction.
  • An examination for erectile dysfunction usually takes the following form:
    • You will be asked to fill in one or more questionaires (details below)
    • after which your health care practitioner will perform a number of standard physical tests (also detailed below)

Erectile Dysfunction Tests (Questionaire based)

  • There are two standard questionaires that your doctor is likely to ask you to complete
  • The SIEDY (Structured Interview on Erectile DYsfunction)

    This is a standard questionaire which, from your responses, allows your health care professional to assess the most likely root cause of your problem, be it physical, psychological, age related or some combination of the 3.

    Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire.

    This is a short questionnaire which allows your doctor to check for specific psychological issues you could be facing and might yourself be unaware of.

  • Psychological problems the Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire can pinpoint are:
    • Symptoms of depression
    • any anxieties or phobias you may have,
    • psychosomatic symptoms (physical complaints that have a psychological basis)
    • obsessive-compulsive traits

Erectile Dysfunction Tests (Physiological)

  • Your doctor or specialist will normally give you a complete physical examination during which he will typically
    • Measure your blood pressure
    • Measure your height and weight
    • Check your prostate for any abnormalities
    • Take blood samples to allow determinination of
      - blood glucose levels
      - HDL cholesterol and triglyceride
      - testosterone
      - prolactin, FSH, LH, TSH and PSA
  • Expect your doctor to ask you if you are aware of having night time erections and / or nocturnal emissions (penile tumescence) or if you wake up with an erection (morning wood).

    To ascertain whether or not you are having nocturnal erections your doctor might ask you to self perfom a test using a small piece of equipment called a Rigiscan.
    This consists of a small recorder which straps to your leg and a sensing device consisting of 2 loops (one which goes round the base of your penis and one round the tip.
    As it's name implies, this monitors any erection you might have during the night, and records the hardness of your penis at the base and at the tip and also any tumescence your erection may produce.

    You may be surprised to learn that you can have as many as 6 erections during a nights sleep and that they can last up to an hour.

    Not all men have nocturnal erections, but for those that do, Rigiscan assessment provides a pretty clear indication of whether your erectile dysfunction problem has a physiological or a psychological basis, the rational being, that if you are getting night time erections then it is close to certain that your problem is largely psychological.

    • You can carry out a simple test at home using a roll of stamps or similar to determine if you are getting night time erections.
      Simply wrap whatever you have chosen around the base of your flaccid penis sufficiently tightly that it is a snug fit.
      Any erection you have during the night should cause the stamps or whatever to tear.
  • Your doctor may also (if he suspects a problem in the penis such as veinal leakage, where blood floods into the cavernosa of the penis but is not trapped sufficiently to maintan a hard erection) perform a test where he injects PGE1 (A hormone naturally produced during normal erection) into the cavernosa of your penis and then carries out an ultrasound examination which will show up any blood flow abnormalities.

... As Always With Erectile Dysfunction ...

  • Before choosing any particular remedy for the treatment of erectile dysfunction you should first assess all the options available to you.
  • Having read the information we provide here, you should discuss all options with your doctor or a qualified medical practitioner.
  • This is vitally important if you have a pre-existing medical condition that may be affected by taking any of the erectile dysfunction remedies described in these pages.

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