Erectile Dysfunction

Their arrival at Portuguese pharmacies was more than 20 years ago and came to revolutionize the sex life of many couples.

The drugs had the merit of initiating an authentic democratization of erectile dysfunction by allowing more talk on this subject, still considered inappropriate for many people. The sex life of couples has changed definitively; if until its appearance a Erectile dysfunction was considered a disabling situation for a normal sexuality, with all the negative effects for the masculinity and virility of a man, from there one begins to speak in difficulties in obtaining an improvement, which can be resolved or improved.

Until then, the solutions available to treat impotence were invasive – intracavernous injections and penile prostheses, and therefore not accessible to all patients.

From the moment we have at our disposal an oral drug with proven efficacy, the paradigm of erectile dysfunction has definitely changed. An increasing number of men began to be treated in a comfortable and perfectly safe way. On the other hand, the greater demand for this medication also caused more to be started to talk about sexual dysfunctions.

Defined as the inability to obtain and maintain an erectile in order to allow satisfactory sexual intercourse, erectile dysfunction is highly prevalent and is more notorious at older ages, being present in 5-10% of men aged 40 years and in 40-60% at 70 years.

They are usually a source of multiple complications, where depression, anxiety, deterioration of quality of life, relationship problems and also aversion to sexual activity stand out, and may have several causes, including psychological. But the most frequent is an obstruction of blood flow in the arteries of the penis (cavernous) conditioned by various cardiovascular risk factors including diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, smoking, obesity and lack of physical exercise.

These factors are also responsible, at the same time, for damage to the other arteries of the body and that may lead to severe cardiovascular events that often interfere with the survival of the patient, such as acute myocardial infarction and stroke. Therefore, erectile dysfunction is seen today as a precursor of cardiovascular disease and is considered an opportunity to identify patients who are at risk, correcting not only impotence but also the risk factors involved and referring, whenever necessary, to specialized cardiac evaluation.

Once this situation is recognised, your doctor will ask for some complementary diagnostic tests, identify cardiovascular risk factors that require specific guidance and propose individualised and appropriate treatment to the situation, taking into account the actual expectations of each particular case.