My story is a bit of a jumble but I’m mostly interested if others had ED as part of their initial presentation for prostatic issues and if that has improved with management?
the longer (and more boring) version is this:
after many years of perfect sexual function I started to become less able to get or maintain an erection. This became a bit embarrassing and I just gave up having any form of sex with my wife. It was quite depressing at the time and this finally became obvious in late 2018. I lived with it for some while but, after discussing it with my wife, I decided I’d see if I could resolve it. By this time it was 2020. I’d tried viagra but the headaches were horrible and the results less than spectacular.
it should be noted that I had started ramipril for hypertension in 2017 so I wondered if it was a secondary effect but the bp was under control. During work-up of my hypertension the ultrasonographer noted that my prostate was ‘bulky’. The Gp did not follow this up.
I did see a GP in late 2020 and had a full set of bloods done including PSA which came back as 4.89
i was referred to the urologist on a 2 week track and had an mpmri in Dec 2020. A follow up appointment in Jan 2021 suggested that it was followed with a mri in one year. I had this mri in Dec 2021. This consultant had suggested I try tadalafil for my ED but it was worse side effects than with viagra. And no erection benefit.
the mri result was reported in early 2022 as a pirads 2 and to follow up PSA.
the blood sample was taken in may 2022 and the date for reporting was initially going to be October 2022 but this kept being pushed back until at (most recent) October 2023.
I had a follow up full blood screen including PSA for bp meds monitoring in Dec 2022 and reported the PSA to the urologist (7.89). Suddenly , apropos of nothing else, I got a phone call last week calling me to a phone appointment on Saturday.
at that appointment it was reported to me that my last mri was pirads3 and the consultant asked if I’d been offered a biopsy. This was clearly new to me. He has now booked me for a DRE and discussion on biopsy to be done within 2 weeks. I’m deeply confused as to how this has all escalated when everything seemed so ‘hands off’ for so long.
long and short - I still can’t get an erection of decent quality.
what makes this a little bit worse is that medical and surgical management of problems is literally my job as a vet surgeon.