As men’s health issues go, there’s little doubt that sexual health conditions like erectile dysfunction (ED) rank fairly high when it comes to quality of life. ED is quite common, affecting between 30 million and 50 million men in the United States, sometimes temporarily, but all too often, chronically.
If your struggle with ED is trending toward chronic and you’re looking for solutions, you’ve come to the right place. Dr. Moisés Irizarry-Román is a specialist in men’s health and has extensive experience treating sexual health issues at No Mercy Sports Medicine in Miami, Florida.
A common question patients ask is whether hormone therapy might help improve their sexual function. The short answer is: Sometimes. For the more comprehensive answer, read on.
A great place to start this discussion is to review the role that testosterone plays in your sexual health. As your primary reproductive hormone, testosterone is first evident before you even leave the womb. Fetuses start producing testosterone at about the 7-week mark.
This testosterone works quietly behind the scenes until you hit puberty, at which point production of this hormone ramps up as you take on more adult male characteristics.
After puberty, your testosterone levels settle and task themselves with a few different jobs, including:
When it comes to your reproductive and sexual health, there’s little doubt that testosterone has a good deal of influence in these arenas.
Now let’s shift the focus to ED, which can usually be traced back to a number of different issues, including:
This list isn’t complete, but it gives you an idea of the variety of different issues that can lead to problems with sexual function. Of this list, vascular issues are the most common.
You might have noticed that low testosterone wasn't on our list of common causes of ED.
The reality is that low T is rarely a direct cause of ED — it acts more as a contributor. For example, if you have low testosterone levels that are causing your sex drive to plummet, ED often crops up because arousal is more difficult.
The link between hormones and sexual function becomes more direct in cases of hypogonadism, which is a medical condition in which your testes don’t produce any (or very little) testosterone. If you have clinical hypogonadism, which isn’t all that common, it can lead to ED.
When it comes to treating ED, the first goal is to identify the underlying cause and treat that directly. To do this, Dr. Irizarry-Román runs a series of tests and closely evaluates testosterone levels.
If these levels are below 300 nanograms per deciliter (ng/dL), it’s considered a clinical testosterone deficiency. In this case, testosterone therapy is a frontline treatment.
If, however, your testosterone levels are within normal ranges (300 ng/dL-1,000ng/dL), Dr. Irizarry-Román conducts other tests to determine whether something else is behind your ED.
For example, if the blood flow to your penis is insufficient for achieving and maintaining an erection, we treat your ED differently. Options include targeted medications, P Long shots, lifestyle adjustments, and implants.
The best way to figure out whether your ED can benefit from hormone therapy or another treatment is to have Dr. Irizarry-Román perform an extensive evaluation of your sexual health. Contact No Mercy Sports Medicine by calling 305-614-6757 or sending a message online.
