Diabetes is not a nice illness to have. It damages almost every system in the body. Patients with Diabetes often also suffer from Erectile Dysfunction (ED). Diabetes causes ED by blocking the blood vessels in the penis and damaging the nerves going into the pelvis.

Patients with Diabetes also often find it very difficult to treat their ED.

Medicines such as Viagra sometimes work. But often, after a while, the medicine starts to lose its effectiveness.

Patients then need to resort to painful injections into the penis or to using vacuum pumps to achieve an erection. For some patients, even these treatments stop working and they end up requiring surgery to place a plastic tube inside the penis that they pump up with saline solution to get an erection (penis implants).

Fortunately, we now have a new tool to help us treat Erectile Dysfunction in Diabetic patients – Low-Intensity Electro Shock Wave Therapy (Li-ESWT).

Li-ESWT is not a new treatment. It has been used to treat ED since 2009. In 2014, this treatment was introduced into Singapore. It has been very successful in treating mild to moderate ED especially for patients whose ED is due to poor blood flow. I have also seen it work very well for patients who had ED due to some mild injury to their penises.

However, for awhile, Doctors were not sure of the effectiveness of Li-ESWT to treat ED in patients who also had Diabetes.

Recently, a study was published in the Journal of Urology that gives Doctors a lot more confidence in treating Diabetic patients with ED. In this study, it was found that Li-ESWT treatment had the same beneficial effects as taking Viagra. Of course, effects were even better when Li-ESWT was combined with Viagra.

For patients with Diabetes who are considering Li-ESWT to treat their ED, they should bear in mind a few points:

  1. First get your blood sugar level under good control. If the Diabetes is poorly controlled, the blood vessels and nerves continue to be damaged. So treatments for ED including Viagra and Li-ESWT may not work well.
  2. Start regular exercise. This helps blood flow to the penis and pelvis. Also, regular exercise will help control the sugar level.
  3. For patients who are overweight, lose some weight! This has been shown to not only help in sugar control, it also is a great natural way to increase the body’s Testosterone levels.
  4. You start with 6 sessions of Li-ESWT. However, you may need another 6 sessions 1 month after the first set of 6 for maximum benefit.
  5. For patients who have no reaction to Viagra, do not expect Li-ESWT to cure you completely. However, Li-ESWT will make you respond well to Viagra again.
  6. You may need to be on a regular low dose of a PDE5I (like Viagra or Cialis) while on the Li-ESWT treatment for maximum benefit.

For more info visit – Dr. TAN and Partners