Why You Need Shockwave Therapy

Male sexual dysfunction is a common systemic disorder that increases with age. In fact, there are many components involved in maintenance of normal male sexual functions: vascular, neurological, hormonal, and psychological.

Some major conditions of male sexual function include erectile dysfunction (ED), Peyronie’s disease (PD), decreased libido, and ejaculatory disorders.

Erectile Dysfunction (ED)

There are many causes to ED, including cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, hypertension, obesity, high cholesterol, smoking, and certain medication use. As such, many experts pair CVD along with ED because they share many risk factors. For this reason, either conditions can be predictors of the other condition. In fact, if treatments has to be geared towards treating CVD, otherwise the outlook of ED treatments will not be optimal. 

Peyronie’s disease (PD)

PD often present as having penile pain, curvature, shortening, scar tissue/hard plaques, and/or sexual dysfunction. However, the cause to PD is not completely well understood, but generally revolve around combinations of physical trauma, connective tissue disorder, and heredity.

Although PD appears to be more physical in presentation, it may still result in stress and anxiety, which further contributes to psychological sexual dysfunction. Concurrently, there are many treatment options as well as surgery that have shown to be effective for PD. Hence, we focus on reducing mean plaque size, reduction of pain, and prevent progression of the disease.

Decreased Libido

In reality, it’s normal and natural for men to notice a gradual decrease in sex drive as they age, sometimes accompanied by other sexual dysfunctions. However, not all men will experience this issue until they are well into their 60s and 70s.

There are many reasons for decreased libido, including testosterone deficiency, stress, relationship issues, psychological instabilities, certain medications, alcoholism, recreational drugs, and other systemic conditions. Given that this problem has such a wide range of causes,
we aim to do a more comprehensive work up to figure out the main reason for an individual suffering with decreased libido along with ED/PD, so they can be treated accordingly.

Ejaculatory disorders

Ejaculatory disorders consist of premature, delayed, and retrograde ejaculation and anorgasmia. Specifically, premature ejaculation (PE) is characterized by the inability to delay ejaculation on all or nearly all vaginal penetration or feeling stressed out and tend to avoid sexual intimacy as a result. In addition, many men with PE also have concurrent ED as well. Presently, the exact cause of PE isn’t known, but it largely revolves around psychological along with biological factors. Psychological issues may include relationship problems, trauma, sexual abuse, poor body image, anxiety, and depression.
Comparatively, biological causes include irregular hormone, neurotransmitter production, and inherited genetic.

All things considered, there are many treatment options for PE and are effective, ranging from behavioral corrections, medications, counseling, pelvic floor exercises, meditation, yoga, and acupuncture. Shockwave therapy can be an appropriate treatment option if PE is accompanied by ED.

Mechanism of Shockwave

There are several proposed mechanisms of ESWT:

1. Slowing the initiation/progression of destructive joint disorder
2. New blood vessel formation
3. Anti-inflammation
4. Tissue and nerve regeneration

To summarize, the key take away point of these mechanisms of action is that it’s application is diverse and can therefore be used for many health conditions.