A user recently sent me a PM asking for information about ED. He said that he has ED and he doesn't know how to deal with it. I gave him this answer, it can apply to many of you who might be reading this.
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How old are you? How long have you had these symptoms? What city do you live in? How often do you masturbate? What is your height, weight, diet, and waist size? Do you also have urinary issues such as dripping after the main pee? Are you sleeping well?
I want to warn you that the urologist that I'm seeing now is the 4th that I've tried. You might need to try a few more.
The issue with ED is, as far as I can tell, that it can be caused by many things. It's like the first things that goes wrong when anything goes wrong, almost. It can be caused by low testosterone, wrong levels of prolactin or estrogen, low nitric oxide, excess PDE5, atherosclerosis, depression, anxiety, alcohol, so it might take a while to rule everything out. It's also the case that many, many other medications seem to cause ED as a side effect.
The way that it's likely to start when you see your urologist that he'll order a full blood panel. At a minimum:
Metabolic health:
Glucose
A1c
insulin
cholesterol
triglycerides
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Vitamins and minerals and electrolytes:
[I forget which ones but it's standard]
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hormones:
TSH, T3, and T4 (thyroid)
testosterone, total and bioavailable
SHBG
estradiol
prolactin
LH
FSH
DHEA
Your doctor may add more to that. It may or may not have your answer. But it's a great place to start.