What causes erectile dysfunction?
Doctors divide the reasons causing impotence into three groups: organic (connected with a physical obstacle to natural erection), psychogenic (at which no physiological disorders at the person are observed, and the problems with erection are explained by stress, chronic fatigue or psychological trauma) and also mixed (when both of these factors contribute to development of the disease). At the men having depression, the probability of development of erectile dysfunction fluctuates within 25–90%. It's about men of young or middle age more often. The main role in treatment of such patients is assigned to psychotherapists. Organic causes are the most common causes of impotence — quite often they are connected with age changes of blood vessels walls.
The matter is that the erection principle can be partly compared to filling of a bathtub with hot water: when you close the tap hole with a plug and open the crane, the bath is gradually filled and to empty it, it's necessary to block water supply and take out the plug. At vessel disease (for example, cholesterol plaques) the filling of cavernous bodies of the penis slows down, sometimes so that the erection doesn't come at all. Also in certain cases the problem with sex is explained by an “aleak plug” — a vein pathology at which blood leaves the penis too quickly, before completion of sexual contact. If hormonal disorder is the reason of erectile dysfunction, it influences the whole mechanism of excitement: a man can completely lose interest in sex.
Erectile dysfunction can be not only a problem in intimate sphere, but also a disturbing symptom urging to check health of vessels as soon as possible. The matter is that coronary heart disease and diabetes of type 2 can proceed at initial stages almost asymptomatically, gradually leading to deadly dysfunctions of the organism. Therefore it's so important not to postpone the visit to “the male doctor”: it can save you from heart attack, stroke and hyperglycemic coma.
Symptoms of the disease
Whether it's necessary to ring the alarm bell in case of single “fiasco”? No. Doctors consider as pathological a situation at which problems with erection come at least in a quarter of cases of sexual contacts. However there is a number of signs which have to become a reason for expert consultation: lack of morning erection; impossibility to cause erection at masturbation; slow emergence of erection at excitement or its total absence; fast ejaculation. At erectile dysfunction of the organic nature these symptoms accrue gradually, often being followed by losing interest in sex. If psychological problems are the cornerstone of the disease, there are no any signs of diorders out of sexual relations (morning erection stays the same, and difficulties remain at sexual contacts).
