Erectile dysfunction or ED is the one of the most common problems of men's sexual health and the most common form of male impotency. Throughout the world ED affects the sexual lives of many men of every age group and their partners in the one way or another. This disease usually covers many disorders but commonly ED is referred as the inability to obtain an enough erection for an absolutely fulfilled sexual activity.
This should be noticed that the word 'impotency' could also be used to describe other sexual problems related with lack of sexual desire, ejaculation and orgasm. The word ED clears the fact that other problems are not concerned with erectile dysfunction.
Erectile dysfunction or ED varies in severity. It can be of three types. They are, the total failure to achieve erection, inconsistency in the ability to get erection or a habit or tendency to sustain erection for the very shorter period of time. This discrepancy makes defining and estimating ED a rather tougher task. The bigger problem is that mostly suffering men are often very hesitant in discussing this problem. So this problem usually remains undiscovered. While ED can occur at any age but, naturally it is uncommon among the youngsters and more frequent in the elderly people. Only some sort of physical injury can make any young man suffer from this problem.
By the age of 45 this problem starts developing as a very negligible part of sexual life. Studies conducted in USA showed that only 5 percent of men of the age of 40 were experiencing natural ED. The penis contains two hollow pipe like and spongy structures that goes along with the tube that carries urine and semen out of the body. When a man gets sexually aroused the signals from brain causes more blood to flow through these pipe like structures causing them to expand as much as seven times of their normal size.
This increase in blood flow produces erection by straightening and stiffening the penis. When this sexual arousal is finished the blood is drained out of these spongy muscles and the penis regains its normal non- erected size and shape. Sexual arousal, response of nervous system and the response of blood vessels are the three components that work in a very delicate collaboration with each other to produce and sustain erection. If the work of any of these components is disturbed by any external or internal threat it can disturb man's health and cause erectile dysfunction.
Many physical problems can cause ED, such as, diabetic neuropathy, any cardiovascular disease, surgery of prostate cancer, injury to spinal cord and hormonal disorders such as low testosterone count. Sexual health of the men with addiction of excessive smoking, alcohol and other drug abuse also suffers from ED. Some psychological issues like stress, anxiety, depression, guilt of not completing the expectations of his partner, low self esteem and fear of sexual failure also contributes as much as 20 percent to the reasons of erectile dysfunction. The condition worsens when both physical and non-physical factors combine to cause ED.
For example a small physical problem that delays erection may cause anxiety and doubts in man's mind about achieving an erection. This anxiety further degrades the condition of ED. Generally it is noticed that a man suffering from ED, caused by any physical factor also suffers from these psychological factors. In a one line it can be said that erectile dysfunction is a sign of any physical or psychological problem that needs immediate treatment.

In the current era, where so much research had been conducted to find out the treatment for every thing, medication of ED was also given special attention. The treatment for erectile dysfunction has a wide variety of options that includes everything from medication to use of mechanical devices to surgery and psycho counseling. Before deciding the best treatment or the pair of treatment, the physician had to examine the exact cause and the severity of your erectile dysfunction.
In some cases the treatment also depends on the man's willingness to spend money and also on the preference of you and your partner. Oral medication for ED includes drugs like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.
The first to come in market was viagra. It was approved by FDA in 1998 and was launched in the very same year becoming the first FDA approved medicine for the treatment of ED. Since then, cialis and levitra have also been approved, which provided more choices in oral medication. These pills share many thing but they also have many dissimilarities. They vary in doses, effectiveness, power and side effects. Needle injection therapy and muse also comes as the treatment of ED. In NIP a very fine needle is used to inject alprostadil (Caverject, Edex) into the base of the penis.
It produces erection in about five to twenty minutes, which can last up to 1 hour. It has proved handy because injection goes directly to the spongy tubes and because very fine needle is used pain is also minor.
But side effect like bleeding from penis can also occur. Prolonged erection is the most common side effect. MUSE or Medicated Urethral System for Erection is used to insert a small suppository into the tip of penis. It helps to increase the blood flow, which causes erection. It is a painful therapy in which side effects like pain, minor bleeding from urethra can occur. The next treatment uses vacuum devices.
This is done by putting a plastic tube around the penis and then pumping to create a vacuum in that tube. Once erection has occurred a ring is placed around the base of the penis to maintain it.
This ring is removed after sex is over. The treatment of surgery is for those who are suffering from ED caused by some physical damage to penis or pelvis area. Psycho counseling is advised to the cases where stress, anxiety or any sort of psychological factor is responsible for ED.

Erectile dysfunction was once considered a very rare and a taboo subject but now that more and more people are coming out to see treatment it has no longer remained the same. Because of this, doctors are getting help in researching about the causes of ED and are finding new and better treatments.