Using penis enlargement devices to treat Peyronie's disease?

It's not as silly as you might think! I read an abstract by the National Institutes of Health about several clinical studies of Penile Traction Therapy and Vacuum Erectile Devices, which concluded that they do work, to some degree. There was measurable increase in penis length for men who wore PTT devices 8 hours every day for 6 months, although in most cases the gains were quite modest, like 1 to 3 cm, although men who suffered from small penis syndrome realized more dramatic gains.  The improvement for Peyronie's disease sufferers looked really promising, with curvature improvements that ranged from 15 to 27% (the corrective surgeries available, as well as the new Xiaflex injection, offer only a little more improvement at 33%).

Supposedly, it is believed that the best results are achieved in the acute phase of Peyronie's, before the scar tissue is calcified, although some study participants had the disease for 11 months.  VEDs were less effective in both areas, although they do make it feel good to have the ole' willie filled up and (in my case) almost hard. Most of the studies used stretched penis length (SPL) as the measurement of success, although one Peyronie's study used photographs taken after medically inducing an erection, to measure curvature success.

Having read that, I ordered the "Deluxe" PTT device from X4labs.com for $89.95 with free shipping.  They have a special Peyronie's model for like $149.95, but I couldn't see much difference in that product to merit the much higher price, other than a free bottle of Vitamin E, which you can get from the drugstore for much less.  I've been wearing the thing for about a week or so, and it takes some getting used to, but isn't really painful or anything like that.  It has a tension adjustment that you can use to tighten or loosen up things once you put it on, but early on you have the urge to make it tighter in order to feel the stretch.  By the end of the day, however, you REALLY begin to feel it painfully, so I've been starting out with an easier setting, lately.  We'll see how he does.  The Little Woman said she actually can see a difference in my flaccid length, which wouldn't be important to me except for the fact that if I eventually need penile implants, they make them so that your erect length is about the same as your SPL, so HEY!  The longer the better!  BTW, TLW and I made love on New Year's Eve, and it may be my imagination, but it seemed the curvature had already improved a little bit.  Fingers crossed...!

UPDATE- 04/02/2015:  After 3 months of using the PTT device, my wife and I have noticed a definite improvement in the curvature of my Little Man. Where previously it curved all the way back over to my abdomen, it now curves but points straight up, so something definitely seems to be happening. Sex is still rather awkward, but somewhat improved.  Keeping my fingers crossed that there's more improvement to come!

UPDATE: 12/07/2015:  After about 7 months of PTT, the bend in the lower part of my shaft has straightened out considerably, while the small bend up near the head is, unfortunately, not much affected.  I was using VED's at the same time, so it's hard to tell whether they or the PTT worked better, although my gut instinct is that the PTT was most effective.  As a result, the doc has taken a wait and see attitude toward getting penile implants.  When I asked him about the ED1000 ultrasonic shockwave treatment which is not yet available in the US, he said it looks promising both for ED and Peyronie's, but all the studies aren't in, yet.

Penis Pumps- Hmmmm....

My urologist had mentioned that I might want to try to use one of those things, but I was a little leery.  It seemed a little creepy and artificial (as opposed to injecting yourself with penis-expanding drugs?), but my Edex injections are getting so danged expensive (they went up $15 on a four-dose supply, to $230) that I reconsidered the ole' pumps, especially since they are reusable and might be covered by my insurance.  I checked on the Pos-T-Vac, widely advertised on TV, which is a medical grade device.  A basic system costs about $150, although I saw a different brand medical-grade device advertised on the CVS website for $119.  Not sure I wanted to make that investment, I ordered the Pumpworx Beginners kit, which is $18 plus shipping from CVS, and is classified as a "novelty device".

I've experimented with it 3 times, with less than stellar results, although I can see where the medical-grade pumps probably work better.  The first time, I couldn't get the danged thing to seal very well at the bottom, so when I started to build up any suction it started to "whee" like when you slowly let the air out of a balloon.  The second and third times I used it in the shower after applying hair conditioner to Little Man's shaft, and either the wetness or the conditioner sealed it well.  I could only get a certain amount of suction, however, before the squeeze bulb would stay squeezed and could not be re-inflated to be pumped again (a safety feature?  I dunno).  I did get some impressive size going, but even after releasing the vacuum it was then difficult to get the dang thing off me!  (It sounded like a champagne cork popping when it finally came out.)  Before I could get the cock ring on to keep it engorged, the erection had already started going away.  I know the Pos T Vac has a way to roll the cock ring onto the bottom of the pump cylinder so you can just roll it off the pump onto your shaft, so that might be another advantage to the medical-grade pumps.  So far, though, I have yet to be able to achieve a sufficient erection for penetration, although it worked well as a masturbatory aid (I know, I know, EWWW!  Hey, everybody poops and just about everyone masturbates, so get over it!)  The results have been intriguing, though, so I may try to get the Doc to prescribe one of the "good" ones.

UPDATE, 08/04/2014:  I went ahead and ordered a Pos-T-Vac from Walgreen's....  It definitely works better than the novelty pump, but I still haven't quite gotten the little fella all the way hard, yet, what with different size penis rings and pressure levels to try.  I did try using the new pump with a 100mg Stendra tablet, and that looks promising. We'll see....

UPDATE, 10/30/2014:  I had trouble getting the Pos T Vac to seal because I'm kinda hairy down there (the Little Woman jokes I should braid it) so I used clippers and some scissors and cut it very short but not shaved.  The thing did work better, but I still can't can't seem to generate enough suction to get it hard enough for penetration (although it makes hand and blow jobs more interesting).  It's funny how the cheap novelty pump seems to pull the little guy out to full length, whereas the Pos T Vac plumps him up more.  I had him big around enough that when I pulled off the pump to check him I couldn't get him back in the cylinder afterwards, but he still DIDN'T get hard.  Sheesh....

UPDATE, 01/20/2015:  I've given up on the Pos-T-Vac because I just can't keep shaving down there, and the results were only a little better than the cheapo pump.  NOTE:  If you buy a Pos-T-Vac, get one with either the squeeze handle or the electric pump.  The push-down pump requires you to push so hard that it actually made my abdoment hurt, after a while.  I've been using the cheapo in the shower almost every day in the hopes that it might help my Peyronie's disease (see later post, "Using Penis-Enlargement Devices to Treat Peyronie's?"), and it kind of feels good to have the little man enlarged even if he ain't hard.  Sigh....

With Edex, I am a victim of my own success....

After our last wild (for us) night that I detailed in my previous post, which occurred on a Friday, I tried to tactfully suggest we go again on Sunday night, because the only thing about great sex is that it just makes you crave more of it!  But the wife's response was "Oh no, I would have to work up to that!" meaning she needed a rest before enduring THAT again....  I didn't know whether to be proud that I wore her out, or depressed that she found it so tiring to be intimate with me.  The thing about Edex is that it is so expensive (with my crappy health insurance, it costs $205 for 4 doses) along with he fact that when you have ED it just... feels... so... damn'...GOOD to be rock hard again that you want to take advantage of its effects while they last, both of which led to the amazing two-fer of that Friday.  

The aftermath of that night led to another short dry spell of two weeks, although on that second Friday when we usually get busy, we were lying in bed when The Little Woman began playing with my equipment and brought it to Chubby Status, which is about the best I can achieve without the help of chemistry.  She started diddling her fingers along the underside of my shaft, and bore in on that sensitive part about two inches down from the head, and she did it so intensely that I soon exploded all over myself.  She chuckled, apparently taking a kind of weird (to me) satisfaction in the copious result of her handiwork.  I was much appreciative and we were both tired, so we went to sleep without doing the do.  Then again on the next Monday she tried the same thing again, but then began some oral techniques which put me into orbit, although again she switched to manual mode at the last so she could observe the results.  I was again amazed and delighted, but I was beginning to get the impression that by doing these things she was attempting to keep The Monster at bay, and to be honest, she was succeeding, really!

Then it came to be Friday again, and after a sumptuous meal and quite a bit of wine, She said rather unceremoniously "Let's go to bed, and bring your stuff."  Wow!  With trembling hands I hurriedly readied the dose and injected it.  As I've said before, Edex takes a while to work, but it seemed that as we fooled around I was throbbing with anticipation in no time, but ever the dutiful lover, I kept on with the preliminaries until suddenly she pushed me onto my back and mounted me.  She rode me furiously for less than a minute before she did her little "Unngh!" thing, which is usually my cue to let go, but it had been so long and I was so IN THE ZONE, that stable plateau period where it feels so good you don't want it to end, that I couldn't seem to get out of it.  Now, my sexual performance has varied widely since even back before ED was a problem for me, but I've noticed and read about how it sometimes becomes more difficult to climax as you get older.  That, however, did not seem to be the problem this time:  it was just so...damn'... GOOD that I didn't want to stop, and eventually She began to get tired.  I offered to assume top position, but she acted as if she didn't hear me, actually getting kind of angry, chanting "Come on!" as she thrust back and forth.  She finally seemed to make a supreme "I'll show YOU!" effort, and thrusted so hard and so rapidly it drove me off the plateau and into the abyss.  Orgasms in real life seldom approach earth-shaking for me, but by golly this one had me shaking for what seemed like an outrageous amount of time.  I was spent!

Always the passive-aggressive one, she said "I'm sorry I didn't excite you enough to come right away..."  to which I replied "ARE YOU KIDDING ME???" along with some superlatives about her beauty and her performance, all of which were true, mind you.  That honest adoration on my part seemed to take the edge off her, somewhat, and when she lifted off me and I was drenched by a deluge of our combined juices, she again let out that weird little chuckle of satisfaction and it seemed that all was right with the World.  We cleaned up (it took me a LOT longer than it did her) and then came back to bed, but when I got there she was already fast asleep.  Looking at her lying there brought my Little Big Man almost all the way back to attention, but after playing around with it a bit I found that I was too tired to make the effort to work it through to completion. I was hit by a thunderbolt of amazement that I, too, would have to "work up to doing that again"!  Sheesh!

My Edex Experience Continues to Be Unpredictable....

Well there was a long dry spell owing to a big fight my wife and I had, along with other factors, part of which includes the lack of spontaneity involved with the use of Edex.  It's so expensive on my crappy health insurance that I generally wait until She commits to us doing the do before going ahead with the injection. Just the other night, though, it had been almost a month since we'd last had actual intercourse (although, trouper that she is, she gave me a wonderful blow/hand job just last week after we made up), so I knew from her attitude and demeanor she'd be ready about any time now....  She seems to be about the only woman who likes morning sex.  I think it's because we can immediately get cleaned up afterward and begin our day.  No matter how good/bad/mediocre the sex has been, she almost always gets up in a good mood, humming away while she fixes breakfast.  Ah, what a lovely girl she is... but I digress:

I ambushed her.  I got up first, zapped Little Willy with the Edex and returned to bed.  It took a good 15 to 20 minutes to take effect, but hallelujah when it did!  I waited awhile for her to wake up, playing with the wood every so often to keep it firm.  Eventually, however, I found myself becoming too aroused, as the pre-cum began to flow quite a bit.  I finally stirred around in the bed enough to get her half-awake, then rolled my back to her.  As I'd hoped, she took up the spoon position behind me and, as she does quite often, she kind of sleepily felt me up, playing with my butt, rubbing my belly, etc until her hand inadvertently dropped to my nether region, and whoa! she startled fully awake at finding the diamond-cutter waiting for her.  She seems to be continually fascinated by the wood that Edex produces, and she rolled me onto my back and went down on me for a bit, then rested her head on my belly while she played with her toy.  She seemed to be feeling it up and down out of curiosity rather than trying to give me pleasure, several times squeezing it rather hard between thumb and fore finger as if testing its firmness, etc.  It didn't bother me as I was in freakin' HEAVEN.  I couldn't help but moan.  She eventually mounted me and tried to move as slowly as possible, but the dry spell and and all the unusual foreplay had me at a fever pitch and I was GONE in no-time... damn.

Now the clinical aspect of the Edex:  After exploding with the rolling climax produced by expelling all the backed-up love juice, Willy softened up quite a bit, and seeing this, the Lilttle Woman, her mission accomplished, rolled over and went back to sleep.  We spooned, but uncharacteristically for a man, I was unable to sleep afterward with her beautiful body pressed up against me. Willy soon (5 to 10 minutes) became rock hard and ready to party again, but dammit, I didn't dare try a second ambush.  Thanks for the torture, Edex!

EDEX STILL RULES, BUT...

...the 10 mcg dose hasn't worked for me like it did the first time.  The last time before this, I tried injecting 5 mcg and then another 5 after a minute or two, and that improved things, but The Little Woman still had to use some lube so that Little Willie could fit through the door without bending. :-(    But that all changed on June 20, 2013:

My wife, Wild Woman that she is in bed, doesn't like to talk about the details of sex, and I only know when she's in the mood when she pinches my butt a couple times during in the evening and then softly caresses my buns once we're in bed, like she's guiltily copping a feel or something.  So I was utterly surprised when she started this after we'd been in bed awhile, and when I asked if she was ready she said "Yes!" enthusiastically rather than "if you want to, dear" or something like that.  So I sounded general quarters and hit the deck a runnin' into the bathroom where I injected 10 mcg all at once.  We fooled around a little while, but the results were less than satisfactory.  She tried to mount up but to no avail.  "Dang it! It's not going to work!" she said with obvious frustration.

"Wait!" I said, and hurried back and went for broke and injected another full 10 mcg dose.  It might mean a trip to the Emergency Room, I thought, but it was gonna be worth it. About 5 minutes later, SPROING! and it was on!  It wasn't a personal record, but we certainly went on for much longer than usual.  As I said, my wife doesn't want to talk about it so I never really knew if the little outcry she makes sometimes is when she is coming or not.  After about 20 minutes and a couple different positions, I was on top and thrusting away, giving my all before I got too tired, and suddenly she did her little "unnnngh!" and a few seconds later I came harder than I have in months!  I won't tell you the stupid noises I made....

Then came the waiting to see if I'd need medical attention or not....  From my Papaverine test years ago, I know that curing that artificially induced priapism thing is as simple as inserting a needle and draining Little Willie, so I wasn't TOO worried, but lo and behold, my thing went down to normal in about an hour and a half, so all in all it was a freaking FANTASTIC night!

Edex Still Rules- Though There're Glitches....

Well, the last time, if you read the previous post, I injected 10 mcg of Edex and it worked GREAT, but I was worried I might have to go to the hospital, it lasted so long....   So this time I injected 5 mcg, and the results were disappointing.  Little Willie got big, but not hard enough for penetration, although some contributing factors may have been alcohol (sorry to admit I was pretty intoxicated) and a some prior bad feelings between the Little Woman and me, in that we'd had an argument and still hadn't really made up. The semi-hardness lasted about 3 hours, though....   hard enough to get satisfactory oral sex, but she wasn't interested in that-- again, due to the semi-hard feelings (pun intended).  I'm thinking that the 10 mcg would be the correct dose, after all, though I don't know when I'll get to try it out since she and I are still on the outs....  Things were a little warmer the next morning, but Edex says not to use it more than once in 24 hours,  so I took my last Viagra 100mg in hopes of enticing her into some morning makeup loving, but the blue diamond had absolutely no effect-- I didn't even get the stuffy-nose side effect.  I guess it's injectables from now on or nothing.

Back to the Future: Edex Rules!

Since the PDE5 inhibitors aren't working for me anymore (see previous post), the doc prescribed a trial dosage of Edex, a brand of E Prostaglandin (Alprostadil) which you inject directly into the penis.  It's not as bad as it sounds, really!  Edex comes in little kits, with the drug prepackaged in solution in 10 microgram (or 20 mcg) cartridges.  You attach one of the included 29-gauge needles to the injector device which is like the outside of a syringe, insert the cartridge and then jab in the needle and push the device plunger down to inject the stuff.  This is a lot more convenient than it was with papaverine in the old days, where I would have to make up my own dosages/syringes, but it's also much more expensive.  The doc said to use 5 micrograms to start out, which you dose by squirting out the extra 5 mcg from the 10 mcg cartridge then inject all the rest.  If that didn't work, I was supposed to use a 10 mcg dose the next time. Well, you know I didn't want any failures the first time, so I thought I would inject 5 mcg and if nothing happened, I would inject the rest of the 10 mcg cartridge to buck up things and not waste anything.  The Little Woman and I had been drinking a little, too, so that may have clouded my judgement a little bit....

The problem was that even with my glasses I couldn't read the markings on the cartridge when I was holding it "down there", so I wound up just guessing by pushing the plunger part of the way down and then withdrew the needle.  It turned out I'd actually injected about 7 mcg worth, and even though they tell you it takes between 5 and 20 minutes to work, I got impatient when I didn't feel anything right away, so I stuck it in again and injected the rest of the cartridge.  Well!  Things started to happen then, lemme tell ya!  As soon as we started fooling around, Little Willie grew as big and hard as he's ever been, and actually started to ache a little bit (which is a common side effect, and it wasn't enough to make me stop going for the gusto).  She likes it on top so she can manipulate things to maximize her pleasure (and who am I to complain?), and very early on she became Cowgirl UP!  She even threw up her hand like she was riding a bronco, there for a bit.  She pounded me back and forth inside her so hard I was afraid I might get hurt....  She came first, but gamely rode me until I exploded.  She lay on top of me for a few minutes, then noticed I was still somewhat hard, and son of a gun, she mounted up and rode me to town again!  ....The third time, I told her she didn't have to do that, that the dose of Edex I'd taken would probably not let it go down for awhile, but she went at it again anyway (you can see why I love this woman), and danged if she didn't force out another climax from me, albeit much smaller than the first two.  I was spent, literally, and she was tired.  We both drifted off to sleep, but after an hour I woke up and was still hard.... I began to get alarmed, fearing that a trip to the hospital was going to be necessary.

In the old days my now ex-wife would never want to go around a second time, EVER, so I often found that the climax produced by a bout of self-love would trigger enough relaxation that the erection would subside faster.  This time, however, nothing doing.  When I reached the 3 hour mark things had softened only a little bit, but I was tired and set my alarm for 1.5 hours later, resolving to go to the emergency room if by then nothing had changed.  Just before the alarm went off I woke up again, and to my relief Wille was Little again.  Whew!  The next time I'm sticking to the 5 mcg dose, I swear!

PS:  I thought the, um, artificiality of things might be off-putting to my wife, but the next morning the Little Woman was affectionately calling me Iron Man, an apt analogy, really. She really didn't seem to care why it worked, was just happy it did.  Let me tell you, though, things are not totally artificial-- if there is no arousal on my part, the inside hardness will be there but the head remains small and the outside skin is a little loose.  Get me excited, though (as she almost always does with ease), and everything expands correspondingly, and then some, so it ain't all just the drugs, man.  EDEX RULES!!!

Viagra Resistance/Viagra Tolerance: It's a Real Thing!

As I said in an earlier post, the wonder drug Cialis quit working for me a couple of years ago, so I went back on Viagra (the 100 mg tablet, this time), and it worked GREAT, although it didn't give you that 36 hours of readiness that Cialis did.  Well, now the effectiveness of my beloved blue diamonds has begun to decrease, so that I can no longer achieve a strong enough erection for sex even though Little Willie does get somewhat expanded.  The urologist suggested a penis ring, but that only helped a little bit.  If you google "Viagra resistance" you'll find an herbal remedy sales website that cites an issue of the International Journal of  Impotence Research which details a study that suggests the efficacy of Viagra and other PDE5 inhibitors decreases over time, requiring stronger doses.  I'm here to tell ya, though, that after awhile even higher doses don't work. I wasn't able to find the actual IPIR article....But I went so far as to take two 100mg Viagras at once, with not much real effect. So, my only other options are 1) a penis pump/penis ring combo, which sounds like a lot of work for dubious reward if you ask me (if you have one of those things and are happy with it, just let me know), and 2) a vasodialator you inject into the penis, like papaverine, phentolamine, or E Prostoglandin (Alprostadil), dunno if I spelled any of those names correctly.  So, I elected for 2) and the doc prescribed Edex, a form of Alprostadil, since papaverine is almost unavailable anymore.  We'll see how that works.

Again with more than the recommended dose? Excuuuuuse Me!

I can't remember the name of the comedian, but he discussed the vararies of Viagra use:  He said that for him, foreplay consisted of him asking his wife "Am I taking this pill or NOT?"  Unlike that fella, my wife prefers spontaneity as much as possible, which is kinda tough when you're spending $20+ for a dose of something that only lasts 4 hours (Viagra, still).  What winds up happening is one morning each weekend, I get out of bed about an hour before I think the little lady is gonna wake up, and I take the little blue happy pill, then try to ambush her when I think she's in the proper frame of mind as soon as possible after she awakens.  Sometimes that works just fine, and sometimes I wind up taking a reeeeally long shower to get at least SOME use out of the the danged pill after for whatever reason she has decided she's not in the mood. 

Sometimes I don't even, uh, pursue things all the way to completion when that happens-- I fantasize and fondle just enough to make the little big guy stand at attention, and I just enjoy that ready-for-action feeling for a while....  When you have ED and you finally get a chance to have a full-blown (no pun intended) erection, its a feeling akin to The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper screaming "IIIIII HAVE THE SWOOOOORD OF AZEROTH!!!"  This non-completion practice works out well on rare occasions when my lady changes her mind-- she catches a glimpse of her Big Clean Man getting out of the shower, takes in a whiff of his freshness, or remembers watching Jude Law in The Holiday the night before and becomes aroused enough to drag me back into the bedroom or have me right there for breakfast instead of those eggs she was cookin'.  On those days, I am indeed a very lucky man....

On this most recent occasion when I was all firmed up with nowhere to go, however, self-arousal got the better of me in the shower and finished me off, which was good because my lovely Queen decided to finish her eggs instead of me that morning.  But that evening, she gave me a deep, rousing kiss when she walked by me, and as I was at the sink brushing my teeth after dinner, she came up behind me and reached between my legs and tickled the family jewels.  After I finished coughing up the toothpaste I'd swallowed, I washed down a Lil' Blue with my rinse water and hoped it wouldn't take too long to take effect. Success!  In about twenty minutes we were good to go.

Now I guess it's irresponsible to tell you anything encouraging about ignoring the package warning and taking two Viagras in the same day (albet at different times), but as you know from a previous post (which you've already read, right? Ha!) it had a wonderful effect on me once before, and this time was no different: I felt freakin' HUGE and hard as STEEL!  Unlike the loss of control that some guys get when they're so expanded they're about to pop, it felt so damn' GOOD as my little gymnast performed her pommel horse routine on me that I didn't want it to ever stop. She rocked my world, as she always does, but though I moaned and moaned with every stroke, it was forever before I finally went over the edge-- part of which is a function of aging, I suppose, but I think the extreme hardness (maybe combined with an increased feeling of confidence?) kept me in the plateau phase for an inordinate amount of time.  

I'll be honest and tell you I never really know when she comes, other than quite often she will whimper just a little bit and pause for a second... but then resumes whatever she was doing before, hardly a break in stride.  She did that this time, but then collapsed and laid forward on top of me, exhausted.  I had to finish by thrusting up from under her... and when I finally did come, the narrowing of the canal by the exteme engorgement of my cavernosas made the ejaculation feel as if I was exploding out through the nozzle of a power sprayer. It was the most powerful climax I've had in, like, EVER.   

If you're prone to Viagra-induced priapism, then obviously you should not do this, but I think if I were as rich as Hugh Hefner and could afford that candy dish of blue pills next to the bed, I'd be (literally) sorely tempted to go for Round 3, or even more... until a trip to the hospital was necessitated, at least.  Luckily, my pauperism will likely keep me from ever experiencing such heinous abuse!

Overdosing ED drugs and other no-no's.

I'm pretty tolerant of most drugs (maybe too much, where Cialis was concerned), so I've never had the priapism that the ED drugs sometimes produce.  Because of various circumstances (hey, you'll do almost anything to have sex sometimes, right?)  I have violated most of the rules prescribed by the drug companies in their package literature.  When the Cialis started to fail me, I once took 2 of them: it did not improve the erection but did increase the side effects.  I once tried taking Cialis with grapefruit juice, which in some people causes more of whatever drug you're taking to be digested in the small intestine, which magnifies its effects.  I am not one of those people, apparently, as it had no effect on Cialis' properties for me. There was once even a "Cialis Grapefruit" web page that had been created by someone, but when I tried to go there I received a response that the site had been taken down because it was "inappropriate", so I don't know if the effect achieved would have been good or bad.

Two Levitra tablets also produced no increase in performance, but it did make my nose TWICE as stuffy.  I've never taken two Viagra at once, but I did take two in one day, about 10 hours apart.  After taking the second tablet, the wife reneged on her commitment to doing the do, but did offer a hand-job as a compromise....  I didn't notice any difference in the erection until the climax: the two cavernosa blood vessels in the penis were so engorged that they somewhat constricted the uh, plumbing just like putting your thumb over the garden hose.  Upon ejaculation, my spooge attained a new personal height and distance record.  My Lady giggled, apparently pleased that she must have REALLY excited her man this time, so there was some benefit to that second pill in a day after all, although I'm not gonna make a habit of it, just in case one of those warnings might come true.  

UPDATE, 04/02/2015:  A footnote on one thing NOT to do....  When my doc some months ago prescribed Stendra for me, he said to start out with only 50 mg because of a possible drug interaction with my blood pressure medication, Diltiazem.  So while on vacation in Florida, I took the 50 mg and it did absolutely nothing for me....  Frustrated, I resorted to an Edex  injection...  Stupid, right?  I guess I just assumed that since the Stendra 50 had no noticeable effect, it wouldn't have any effect when I took the Edex injection.WRONG!  The good part: The Little Woman and I made mad, passionate, vacation monkey love, TWICE!  It was fandamntastic.... until the bad part a couple of hours later, when I figured out that my meat wand was still rock hard and showed no signs of softening. While TLW slept the night away (I'd worn her out, she said, probably just to massage my ego, but it still felt good to hear), I sneaked into the bathroom and cranked off another round in hope that the refractory period would help make the little guy become less angry, but to no avail.  Even though we have all heard "If you have an erection lasting 4 hours or longer, seek medical help",  I had read in the physician's information that comes with the medication that damage doesn't really occur until about 6 hours, so maybe they tell you to go to the hospital at 4 so you'll actually be able to get treatment by the 6-hour mark.  At 4 hours, he'd subsided a little bit, so I just hoped and prayed everything would be back to normal, soon.  By 6 hours, the swelling was just about gone, so I thought I was okay.  When I looked back on that, I wondered if maybe that was the cause of my Peyronie's a year or so later.  The urologist, however, said that probably wasn't the cause.  Still, ya never know....  BE WARNED!

Cialis vs. Viagra vs. Levitra vs. Staxyn vs. Other Stuff

(Revised 11/24/2022) I was going to list the various treatments as I experienced them, but most folks probably just want comparison info about them.  Here is what little I know from my own experience:

Cialis

Pro:  Effects last up to 36 hours (although with me it seemed a little shorter than that).  The doc told me Cialis is only officially rated for one session of intercourse during that period, but I experienced repeated erections.  My late wife and I once made love five (5) times in 24 hours when we were first together. Cialis made spontaneity much easier-- I could take it Saturday morning and be good to go through Sunday noon.  I've also tried the daily dose Cialis, which is a small dose tablet you take every day, but it didn't work for me.  If only it had, it would almost be like never having ED, I think.  Sigh....

Con:  It completely quit working for me after about 5 years, dunno why.  Even when it was working its best, the erection Cialis produced was more "springy" than hard, and if there was a break (like when My Lady has to go and pee before we start, which is pretty often) during which the erection would subside, it often took awhile to get it started again.  And Cialis usually worked well only when I took it on an empty stomach.  Any food in there at all would delay things or keep them from happening all together.  On the other hand, alcoholic beverages did not seem to affect my performance with Cialis as it does with the other drugs.  The bottom line for me is, if it works for you, Cialis is the way to go.  When I was taking it, it was the same price as Viagra and Levitra (although Stendra has an introductory deal that is pretty good), but it worked for so much longer....

Viagra

Pro:  The MacDaddy of oral ED drugs, the big V almost never fails to produce a rock-hard erection, sometimes almost too hard-- when I tried doggy-style with my "tiny giny" second wife, it hurt her inside and she constricted my  member so much that it hurt when I ejaculated and I then bled a little from the end of my penis. Some men, too, have told me that the expansion makes them feel so inflated and sensitive that they have difficulty controlling when they climax, often leading to a great but short-lived experience. Viagra is more fast-acting than some of the others, sometimes in as little as 20 minutes, although for me peak potency usually occurred at about an hour and fifteen minutes after taking the pill.  Viagra seems unaffected by food intake, although the package insert warns that taking it immediately after a high-fat meal can delay its effects.

Con:  Side effects-- Viagra makes my nose feel so stuffy I have to breathe through my mouth, and often my upper lip tingles. There is also a lack of spontaneity because, although its effects supposedly last 4 hours, I had trouble getting started after about two and a half hours.  On the other hand, if I got to have sex as soon as it took effect, I could usually perform a second or third time during that 4 hours, and on some occasions when we made love at the end of the night I was still good to go the next morning.  I dunno if the stuff lingers in your system while you sleep or what, but it  was quite a pleasant surprise that next day, more than 7 or 8 hours later.  The final Con for me is that alcohol intoxication usually kills its effects entirely, so no drunken debauchery on Viagra for me,  waaaah!  (UPDATE:  Big V no longer works for me-- see later post on Viagra Resistance.)

Levitra
Pro:  It works fairly quickly, and the effects supposedly last 6 hours, though I can't verify that-- but on occasion Levitra has given me the same happy morning-after surprise that Viagra provides.  Alcohol does not seem to affect Levitra as much as it does Viagra.  One day last week, I took the pill in preparation for the big finale, only to get involved in an argument with My Love over something really stupid, after which we went to bed angry.  I figured the pill was wasted and went to sleep.  Some hours later I must have had a Levitra-boosted night-time erection, as I was awakened by her rolling me onto my back.  She mounted me almost before I knew what was happening and rode me furiously until I exploded, after which she rose up off me, plopped onto her side of the bed without saying anything, and promptly went back to sleep.  We never talked about the episode, and I sure as hell don't remember what the argument was about!

Con:  Just like Cialis, for Levitra to work properly I had to take it on an empty stomach.  There was some nasal stuffiness, too, although not as bad as with Viagra, but that's more of a nuisance than anything serious. But, eventually it, too, quit working for me.

Staxyn
Pro:  This a new one to me.  It has the same ED medicine as Levitra, but it is in the form of a peppermint-flavored tablet that you dissolve on your tongue.  The package insert says it can be taken with or without food, so that may be an advantage over the food problems I had with Cialis and Levitra.  The package insert also says that the delivery system gets more of the medicine into your system than the same dosage Levitra pill.

Con:  It takes a long time to take effect, like 1 to 1.5 hours, although when it finally does come in, it does so spectacularly.  The wife and I tried a sample of it, and she reached over and stroked me every so often to see if it was working yet, which had me really worked up emotionally by the time things started to happen. She finally got tired of waiting and at the first sign of firmness (about 50 minutes) we tried to initiate the lift-off before the launch sequence had been completed, so we kind of went off half-cocked, as it were....   I awoke several hours later, though, with some serious wood, and I'm talking teak or mahogany, not bamboo.  By that time, though, My Lady was fast asleep.  If anyone has a sure-fire tactful technique of waking the little woman up to the Angry Little Man without offending her, please let me know!  As it was, I just had to go out into the workshop and hammer in some nails....  My problem with this one is that I needed to take two of them to get the full effect, and since they only have the one size dose, it would get quite expensive for me to use it very often.

Stendra
I managed to get my family doctor to prescribe Stendra for me. It is marketed as faster-acting, like in 15 minutes.  Because I'm also taking Diltiazem for heart rate/blood pressure, I'm supposed to be limited to 50mg of Stendra because the Diltiazem slows the metabolizing of Stendra so that some side effects may last for 8 or 9 hours. (And this may make it slower-acting as well.)  Unfortunately, 50 mg had no effect for me, and neither did 100 mg.  At the maximum dose for other people, 200 mg, however, things worked quite nicely, although it took 30 minutes or more to take effect.  Its effects are similar to Viagra, and I did get a REALLY stuffy nose when I took it, so I'm not sure there's any advantage to Stendra, other'n the fact it's the only PDE5 inhibitor that still works for me.  The manufacturer's website, Stendra.com offers a great coupon on your first 6 prescriptions, so it is worth a try. (Update:  It quit working after a while, too.)

Rugiet

I just did a new blog entry for this one on 11/20/2022-- look for it.


Papaverine, Edex, Caverject, Phentolamine: Bi-mix, Super Bi-mix, Tri-mix
These are all drugs you inject into the cavernosa of the penis, except that supposedly there's one form of Edex (Muse) that is a penile suppository (and I don't know anything about that particular product, sorry.) Papaverine was my first ED med and worked great, but the big drug companies don't make it anymore because it is no longer used for its primary purpose as a heart medicine.  My doctor said it would be available from a compounding pharmacy, but after the terrible meningitis outbreak caused by conditions at a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy as well as reports that my local one had been cited for unsafe conditions, I opted to go with Edex.  Edex is DA BOMB-- see my later posts about it.  Caverject is the same drug (Prostaglandin E1) as Edex, but the prepackaged syringe is kind of complicated to operate-- you put the needle on, then you have to adjust the plunger in a couple different ways to adjust the dose-- it's a whole thing. Bi-Mix is a combination of Papaverine and Phentolamine and Tri-Mix is a combination of all 3 drugs and it works quite well, although again, it has to come from a compounding pharmacy. I'm currently using Super Bi-mix, which is a stronger concentration of the first two drugs.  I've tried Tri-mix, but the Prostoglandin makes my willy ache, so I stuck with the Super Bi-mix.  I'm guessing this is likely the "proprietary formula" that Total Performance Medical sells to its patients.  Total Performance Medical charges you something like $300 up front to be seen, and like I said, the drugs they prescribe are "proprietary", so you can only get them from TPM, and I never went for treatment so I dunno what the drug price is.  The only cons for Edex are the expense (currently $160 for two doses, with my insurance) and initially having to experiment with the dosage so it works well but doesn't produce the infamous 4-hour erection.  I had one of those, and didn't go to the hospital, which may be why I now have Peyronie's disease, although it didn't happen right after that occasion, and Peyronie's is actually fairly common with men my age.  Then, too, Edex produces kind of a dull ache in my penis, but nothing too uncomfortable.  Alas, I so wish for my old Papaverine:  it made my little monster fat and hard as a rock for a consistent 1.5 hours. My new urologist convinced me to try Bi-mix, a combination of papaverine and phentolamine from a compounding pharmacy in Houston. It works better than Edex, doesn't produce the dull ache that Edex does, and it's a LOT cheaper-- $70 for enough for maybe 10 doses vs. $160 for only TWO doses of Edex.  It's a much more natural-feeling erection, too.)

Penis Pumps, Cock Rings, and Other Scary Devices
I understand that they can be quite effective, especially when combined with a cock ring, which I did recently try.  I'd had a couple of less than stellar erections, and at my regular visit to the urologist I mentioned this, since I was afraid that Viagra maybe wasn't going to work for me anymore (and eventually it didn't).  He gave me samples of Levitra and Staxyn, listed above, and suggested a penis ring.  Since the arteries into the penis are in the center of the organ and the veins out are toward the outside, a properly fitting ring can allow blood in while restricting its flow outward, keeping you harder longer (although it should be used for no more than 30 minutes, they say). The Levitra breathed new life into the little fella, though, and our next lovemaking session left us happily exhausted, making the cock ring unnecessary.  Afterward she asked me what the cock ring was for, and when I told her it would make me harder and  last longer she said "No, no, no...." for whatever reason.  So I've been using the ring (hope this doesn't offend you) as a masturbatory aid so I can save the drugs for the real thing, and so far it's worked pretty well but not well enough to be a substitute for the drugs. It does kind of restrict the urethra a little bit, producing a high-velocity ejaculation similar to the  effect of a Viagra overdose (see the "Viagra overdose and other no-nos" post).  The other options I was given 'way back when were last-resort alternatives when nothing else would work:  Penile implants, either a saline bladder inserted inside the cavernosa blood vessels that is then inflated with a little pump, or flexible, bendable plastic pieces the size of the cavernosa that either you slide into them (after an opening for them is made surgically), or which are completely implanted so you have to bend them upward to make an erection or downward to keep the little fella out of the way.  I saw where one ED doctor who specializes in implants for transsexuals recommended the static bendable ones for his younger patients who are likely to be more sexually active, because they don't wear out as fast as the inflatable implants, which supposedly last up to 15 years, but it may be that they last that long because older folks don't use 'em as much..

(UPDATE, 03/13/2014:  I may have to find out which implants are better-- see later posts about Peyronie's Disease. Sigh....)

ED 1000
A painless ultrasonic shock wave treatment that supposedly cures ED permanently in up to 95% of patients, it is available in medical clinics in Canada and the rest of the World, but is still in the investigational stage in the US but it becoming widely available anyway as of 2022.. It's been quite popular in the United Kingdom, because since they have socialized medicine, it saves the government money in the long run if they can more or less cure the patient's ED instead of continually buying drugs for him. I recently saw a small-scale study from Japan that kind of scaled back that 95% success rate to about 65%, but it WAS a really small sample of test subjects.  The last I heard about price was $4000 for the full set of treatments in Canada, and you would have to stay there for a while if you don't live nearby-- You get 2 treatments a week for 3 weeks, then a 3 week break, then 2 treatments a week for 3 more weeks.  Try Medispec.com for info-- they manufacture the device.

UPDATE 05/27/2022:  Although still not formally approved by the FDA, Low-intensity Shockwave Therapy (LISWT) is now widely available from various clinics, but is still generally not covered by most health insurance providers.  My urology clinic now offers it under the brand name U-Wave: when I signed up it was $1500 but is now $2000.  If I was in the first stages of ED it would certainly be worth the money, since it is most succesful with mild to moderately severe ED.  I have severe ED such that I am using Super Bi-mix, but I tried it anyway.  It made my injection-induced erections somewhat fatter, and I seemed to have gotten some of my length back after its previous Peyronie's-induced shortness, so to me even with that limited success it was worth the expense.  Sooner the better, I say!