Acupuncture is the ancient Chinese art of inserting needles or pricking the skin or tissues with needles to alleviate pain and heal a variety of emotional, mental and physical conditions, including erectile dysfunction. Let's look at some of the great benefits of acupuncture for men in general before we dive into its erectile benefits. First, it helps reduce stress. Men and women have different ways of handling stress, but men in general tend to deny being stressed (machismo effect perhaps?) and only acknowledge it when it's at dangerously high levels. Like Thomas the Train, they just keep chugging along. This is probably because most men find it a badge of masculinity - feeling productive and all. It's such a pig-headed way of thinking about stress that makes many men prone to its ill effects.
And usually, men go to acupuncture for pain relief. But although acupuncture helps relieve body pain, it can do much more than that. It can also help reduce stress levels. Results of a study that was conducted by Dr. Ladan Eshkevari - Associate Professor at Georgetown University's School of Nursing - on rats published in the Journal of Endocrinology show that those who were administered electronic acupuncture had lower levels of stress hormones. Another acupuncture-related benefit for men is that it can help increase mindfulness. Because men just go along mindlessly many times, they tend to go on autopilot and disconnect from their bodies. Being still and pausing in the midst of a busy schedule can be beneficial in terms of managing stress. Acupuncture helps men stay still for at least 30 minutes – when you can’t be near needles being poked at your body – and as such, regular acupuncture sessions can help men learn how to master the art of being still in mind and body. It’s like forced mediation and relaxation. This kind of purposeful stillness is a great opportunity to sharpen one’s senses and discover different ways to experience life, helping one become more alert and focused in the moment.
Finally, another benefit for men – should they decide to go for acupuncture – is improved sexual performance. Most big pharma companies – as would be expected – do their best to convince men that their only hope for potency salvation is to pop pills in their mouths to make their penises pop. While their pills can certainly help men deal with erectile dysfunction, they don’t necessarily address the root and often times, just the symptoms. They can also cause unwanted side effects for people who are not predisposed to such pills or are taking other medications that may react negatively with such pills. Acupuncture can help treat erectile dysfunction in several ways. First, acupuncture can help return libido to regular levels and reduce stress, frustration, tension, fear, and anger for an increased feeling of arousal.
Second, acupuncture can help improve the health of one's nervous system, which increases arousal and, as a result, blood flow to the penis. Third, it has been established that acupuncture can directly improve penile blood flow and help reduce erectile dysfunction. Finally, it can help rebalance one's body and release endorphins, which can help a man do without medications that increase the risk or exacerbate existing erectile dysfunction. As you learned earlier, some prescription medications cause erectile dysfunction. Acupuncture can be a natural and safe option for treating erectile dysfunction. A competent acupuncturist will diagnose a patient based on his or her current symptoms and medical history, from which he or she will identify the optimal acupuncture points for optimal treatment of the condition. Treatments can range from up to 20 sessions (one per week).
What to expect
If this is your first time experiencing acupuncture, especially to treat your erectile dysfunction, you may wonder – what should you expect? As with any other competent health professional, the acupuncturist does not go straight to pricking you with needles on your penis. She will first inquire about your lifestyle, health, medical conditions, behaviors, and any medications you may currently be taking to get a good general assessment of your condition. Among other things, she will check your tongue and measure your pulse. You will be fully clothed during your acupuncture sessions. The acupuncturist will simply roll up your pant leg sleeves, arm sleeves, and shirt for leg, arm, and abdomen needling, respectively. Generally, she will play relaxing music to help you relax while the needles prick your skin for up to 50 minutes.
When the session is done and the needles are removed, you will simply go back to your normal routine or plan. In fact, you will do so with an increased sense of strength and energy due to the energizing effects of acupuncture. Many people actually fall into a deep sleep during the sessions, which are also done later in the night. The next day, they feel even more energetic. Is there any evidence of the efficacy of acupuncture in treating impotence or erectile dysfunction? Yes, several studies have already established that. Specifically, let's look at a study conducted in Austria by Paul F. Engelhardt, MD, and his colleagues on the effect of acupuncture on physiological erectile dysfunction.
The study included 13 men with an average age of 42 years who suffered from physiological erectile dysfunction. To ensure that these men's impotence was not simply psychological, each of the men was given "erection" medications for 3 straight evenings and using what is called the Rigisan test, all men in the group experienced a full erection and, thus, establishing that their erectile dysfunction was not psychological. They were divided into 2 groups and each group was treated differently. In the first group, the men were treated with acupuncture for erectile dysfunction, while the other group was also given acupuncture treatment, but in areas that were not relevant to treating erectile dysfunction. The purpose of using acupuncture on different areas was to determine if a placebo effect was present and strong enough to allow the patients to simply relieve themselves of the thoughts that they were being treated for impotence. In the first group of 7 men, each underwent 2 acupuncture sessions weekly for 10 weeks on areas that are related to acupuncture that treats erectile dysfunction, while the men in the 2nd group (6 men) underwent 4 weeks of acupuncture but on areas or acupuncture points that were not related to the treatment of erectile dysfunction. This group was the placebo group.
The study showed that none of the men in the placebo group experienced erectile dysfunction relief with the placebo treatment and thus, were transferred to the second group or the non-placebo group. At the end of the study, 8 out of 13 men reported that they were cured of their erectile dysfunction and about 2/3 of them reported that acupuncture therapy achieved good results and no longer sought additional therapy.
However, the remaining 1/3 reported that the improvement brought about by the therapy was not enough that they asked for more therapy and were treated with Viagra. Another doctor, James Dillard, M.D., stated that acupuncture works on an emotional and psychological level in terms of treating erectile dysfunction. He states that as acupuncture sessions make men feel much better about themselves and are more relaxed, their erectile dysfunction tends to get better. Michael Haltemes, M.D., a director at the North Texas Urology Center, stated that acupuncture can possibly help men address their impotence issues and that dismissing it as only an alternative treatment without adequate evaluation of the information may be a disservice to men who are looking for relief from impotence.
