How long does sexual dysfunction treatment take?

There is no unified time standard for the treatment of sexual dysfunction. Most mild psychological problems and problems caused by bad living habits can be significantly improved in 1-3 months.； Moderate problems combined with chronic underlying diseases and organic injuries often require 3-6 months of systemic conditioning. ； Congenital developmental abnormalities, severe neurological/vascular injuries, or severe mental illness may require more than 6 months or even long-term intervention and management. This is not a casual conclusion. It is the most practical answer I have come up with after 12 years of experience in andrology clinical practice and handling nearly 10,000 cases.

The 28-year-old Internet programmer who was just admitted last week is the most typical case of mild illness. He stayed up until 2 or 3 o'clock every day to work on projects for three consecutive months and smoked constantly. When he had sex with his girlfriend, he was either not hard enough or he ejaculated within two minutes of entering. When he came for a check-up, his hormones and cavernous blood flow indicators were all normal. This is a problem caused by a disordered work and rest and the anxiety of not performing well. The plan given to him was not complicated: go to bed before 11 o'clock every day, jog for more than 30 minutes three times a week, take half a PDE5 inhibitor as needed before having sex, and cooperate with two psychological counseling sessions to help him relieve his psychological burden. As a result, he came over on the 28th day to report that he had successfully completed intercourse without taking any medicine last week, and his condition was even better than before. After another month of consolidation, he completely stopped taking the medicine, and it only took more than two months to fully calculate the time.

Many people feel that treatment is slow, mostly because they have not first figured out what type of problem their problem belongs to. The intervention logic for different triggers is very different, and even the judgment standards of different medical systems are different. I talked about this topic with colleagues with a Western medicine background in the department before. The consensus is that the speed of adjustment first depends on whether the inducement is reversible - if it is just psychological erectile dysfunction caused by recent stress and staying up late for a month, there are many people who can recover without taking medicine, only having two psychological counseling sessions, and adjusting their daily routine for a week. But if there has been clear organic damage, such as diabetes causing stenosis of the cavernous blood vessels in the penis, then blood sugar must first be controlled within the standard range. The blood vessel repair itself requires a monthly cycle, which cannot be achieved quickly. Many senior practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine andrology that I have come into contact with have different ideas. They value the overall balance of the internal organs. They rarely guarantee that patients will be better in a few weeks. Instead, they often say that "haste makes waste": for example, many people suffer from chronic liver stagnation and sulking during sexual intercourse. Excessive tension and poor control, only taking delayed Western medicine to treat the symptoms, and regulating emotions and blood can cure the root cause. This process can be as short as one or two months, or as long as half a year. There is no rush. The older generation even has a saying of "building the foundation in a hundred days". The first three months are to lay the foundation and not to rush forward.

Let’s talk about a very unfortunate negative case. Last month I met a 29-year-old young man. He had been married for only half a year, but he failed to have sex for the first time because he was too nervous. He has been having trouble with it ever since. I originally did several cognitive behavioral interventions, plus some on-demand medicine, and it would be better in a month or two. However, he was too embarrassed to come to the hospital. I secretly bought so-called "quick-acting aphrodisiacs" on the Internet and took them for half a year. Not only did my psychological shadow not disappear, but I also suffered from headaches and panic every day due to the side effects of the drugs, and my erection problems became worse. Later, it took me almost eight months to get back to normal levels. This is a typical "seeking for speed but being slow".

There are also many people who ask me, "Why is it that others are fine after one month, but I have no effect after adjusting it for three months?" Every time I encounter this kind of problem, I first ask them if they can do it for a month without staying up late, not drinking too much, and exercising for more than half an hour at least three times a week. Eight out of ten people can't do it. Think about it, while you are taking the conditioning medicine, you stay up until two or three o'clock every day, drink cold beer, and sit and play games for five or six hours. Even a strong body cannot handle it. It's strange that the conditioning speed can be fast. There were two patients with similar conditions, both around 30 years old. High blood lipids caused damage to the vascular endothelium and lacked hardness. One strictly followed the doctor's instructions and took lipid-lowering drugs, ran five kilometers a day, and ate a light diet. Within four months, he was basically normal. The other could not control his mouth or move his legs. After more than a year of adjustment, his blood lipids are still high, and his condition is good and bad. Isn't this gap coming out?

In fact, at the end of the day, when people are confused about how long treatment will take, they are essentially afraid of trouble and want to solve the problem quickly. I can understand this mentality. But sexual function itself is a barometer of physical health. If there is a problem with it, it is often a red light that has been on your body for a long time. You have to pay back the debt you owed your body slowly, right? As long as you find the right cause and cooperate well with the doctor's instructions, most people can get satisfactory results within half a year, so there is really no need to worry too much.