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Hi all,
I am a 55 year old man from the North of England, my erections stopped suddenly almost ten years ago and I have not had one since, I went to my GP, who eventually referred me to a urologist, who eventually referred me to a surgeon.
The treatment, so far, has been worse than the problem and has caused a lot of damage to my relationship with my wife, I need to compare notes with other guys in my situation, and get advice about what happens next, I don't know if I will be able to contribute anything positive because my experiences so far have been universally negative, but I'll do my best.
TTFN.

I had an implant 2 years ago. Best thing I ever did for my self. Any questions just ask. Gary

Stick at it Gary. I am much older than you and was implanted 3 years ago using the NHS. It has transformed the sexual side of our marriage and I wish I had done it much earlier. If you search my posts you will find details of my experience.I was one of the lucky ones. No pain just a short period of discomfort and a successful outcome.

niall4473 wrote:Hi all,
I am a 55 year old man from the North of England, my erections stopped suddenly almost ten years ago and I have not had once since, I went to my GP, who eventually referred me to a urologist, who eventually referred me to a surgeon.
The treatment, so far, has been worse than the problem and has caused a lot of damage to my relationship with my wife, I need to compare notes with other guys in my situation, and get advice about what happens next, I don't know if I will be able to contribute anything positive because my experiences so far have been universally negative, but I'll do my best.
TTFN.

If pills aren't working, get your Urologist to prescribe Invicorp injections on the NHS. You're entitled to a box of X5 injections per month. It's strong stuff, works a treat for me.

Implant is another option, but I can't comment on that as I don't have one... Yet.

Welcome to the forum.

niall4473 wrote:The treatment, so far, has been worse than the problem and has caused a lot of damage to my relationship with my wife,....

Care to elaborate? What treatment are you referring to. How has it damaged your marital relationship?

niall4473 wrote:I need to compare notes with other guys in my situation, and get advice about what happens next,

I'll be happy to share anything I can but it's unclear to me if you'd be interested in what limited knowledge and experience I have. Give us a hint. I couldn't guess what might be next not knowing where you're at now. An implant might very well be your best solution but not necessarily. Please don't let the implant guys talk you into going down that road prematurely.

niall4473 wrote:I don't know if I will be able to contribute anything positive because my experiences so far have been universally negative, but I'll do my best. TTFN.

I'm sorry your experiences have been negative so far. I pray you'll have better experiences in the future. Negative experiences are still information and may be useful to others. Feel free to share.

Good luck, and again, welcome to the forum.

Hi to all,
thanks for your warm words of welcome and kind words of encouragement.
To answer your questions and give a little more information about myself, I have now been referred to see a surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary, all other forms of treatment (including injections) having failed, I am not particularly hopeful that any implant operation will take place but having invested so much time and anguish in this process I feel now that I must see it through to the end, I want to be optimistic, but having been disappointed so many times, I think that I have started to protect myself by having such low expectations that I can't be again.

To answer Bidoink's question:

"What treatment are you referring to? How has it damaged your marital relationship?"

I have been married to my wife for 29 years and love her very much, I still fancy the pants off her, but any sort of penetrative intercourse has, of course, been impossible since my erections stopped just about ten years ago, for a while we continued to have a non-penetrative sexual relationship, but once I began receiving different forms of treatment to try, obviously this required us to attempt intercourse, and get both ourselves set up for it, and every single time I failed to get an erection. Now I will not need to tell anyone here what a traumatic, demoralising and humiliating experience this is, not only for the man in question, but also for his partner, male or female, who will inevitably suffer the same disappointment, frustration and inadequacy, plus feelings of unattractiveness as well.
Erectile dysfunction is bad enough, but having to rub ones own noses in it, time, after time, after time, " try 4 of these pills and come back in six months", "try 4 of these ones. etc", " try this strength of injection", "that strength", " "go and buy this very expensive but grotesque vacuum device, put your penis in it every night for six months, then try it again in front of the person you love most in the world and let me know what happens", and doing it for no benefit, just for humiliation and sometimes physical pain, takes a toll after years and my wife and I no longer have any intimate or physical relationship at all, we no longer even sleep in the same room.
What upsets me most about this is that it may have been unnecessary, if any sort of diagnostic investigation been done at any point and revealed a problem which was untreatable by any of these methods, then we would not have had to go through all this charade. Sex should be a joyful expression of love, not a demoralising, humiliating chore. I asked many times but was told that there was no point investigating ED for a definitive diagnosis, because the treatment would be the same in any case, is this the normal policy? I thought that once I went to see the Urology team, that was exactly what they would do, but all I have had in all this time, is one blood test (with my GP) a prostate exam and a single 10 second (if that) examination of my penis to see if the foreskin would retract, have other people had the same?
My wife has said she will happily resume sexual relations if I can sort this problem out, but she cannot cope with any more of what we have had, and I do not blame her, I do not want to try any more patent remedies that I need to be 'aroused' for.
Unfortunately, possibly due to having been impotent for so long, my penis has atrophied quite badly and I have the feeling that I might be past the point where an implant would be a viable option.
Thanks for you patience, will keep you posted.
Cheers,
Niall4473

Niall: I never heard of a penis atrophying, and I've read thousands of posts on this forum. Overcome that idea and think more positively!

Your NHS description reminds me of our free government health system, the Veterans' Administration. I stopped going there and started seeing private doctors, with better results, even though it costs. Maybe you have the funds to see a private urologist.

Do a phrase search here for "venous leak." I don't have this, but many FT guys seem to, and have made many comments on how it's detected and remedied. This forum has grown large in its ten years, and you can find a lot of good information if you spend the time.

While you're finding the solution, your wife might like dildo play. My wife loves to masturbate while I hold a bigger-than-me dildo in her. She gets the orgasms that my small penis can't supply, and we have a good marriage as a result.

Keep us posted.

hi also from the UK , Bedfordshire here, thinking about an implant

Atrophy of the penis is apparently a very common result of low testosterone in middle aged men., I had a blood test about 5 years ago which said thatI was right slap bang on the bottom limit of normal, my GP said that he does not prescribe TRT anymore and that the urologist could do that but , when I eventually got to see the urologist he wasn't interested in any kind of finding out what was actually wrong with me.

Niall ; if your penis has atrophied a lot and you are not diabetic then a penile implant put through sliding technique can increase your length. Best of luck !