do alpha-1 blockers help ED?

[Phil65]

Okay. thank you Namirrah. I have heard everything from an hour before sex to the night before and varying doses. If I recall correctly, the 4mg dose about 2 hours before sex had the most surprisingly good results. Guess I’ll experiment.

[Simbarn]

I take 2 mg Doxazosin before bed.

It does make a difference concerning nocturnal erections. They haven't completely returned, but they occur more often and I usually have at least a partial erection in the morning. It does improve my flaccid hang. And, it seems to make my ED meds more effective. Oral meds have never been effective for me. But, Doxazosin reduces the amount of Trimix needed and increases the time that it works.

This is very interesting. I have read in study's that clearly show in the animal model that sympathetic inhibitory action in the penis does increase as they age. That means that the forces that work to initiate an erection such as the NO pathway will have a more difficult time generating an erection and then maintaining one also. What is also interesting is that this increase in sympathetic action is also tied in with prostate issues.
Do you have any side effects from the Doxazosin? Does it affect your ability to ejaculate as I hear this can be an issue with these drugs?

[Namirrah]

It has not had any noticable effect on my ability to ejaculate.
If anything ED has sped up ejaculation, when I was younger I took a very long time to ejaculate.

I have diabetes. Men with diabetes often have reduced NO levels, due to endothelial dysfunction.
I believe that is why oral meds didn't work for me. I just didn't have enough NO for the drugs to work with.

[Simbarn]

It has not had any noticable effect on my ability to ejaculate.
If anything ED has sped up ejaculation, when I was younger I took a very long time to ejaculate.

I have diabetes. Men with diabetes often have reduced NO levels, due to endothelial dysfunction.
I believe that is why oral meds didn't work for me. I just didn't have enough NO for the drugs to work with.

Ok, well that is good it has not affected you in that way.
Correct diabetes can have a negative effect on NO. Read many studies on Diabetes and endothelial dysfunction. It appears to exacerbate this mostly from increased levels of oxidative stress, which affects us all eventually, but with diabetes quite sooner. The smaller blood vessels in the penis are particularly susceptible to the deleterious effects of excessive oxidative stress. I have also read interesting study’s on the combination of PDE5i and resveratrol in the diabetic animal model, which appear to work synergistically to improve endothelial function, specifically NO, lower ROS (reactive oxygen species) formation and even reverse some of the resultant damage. Could be something you may be interested to read. I could email the full study’s to you as they are not easy to find on the web.

[Namirrah]

Pm me a link.

I read a lot of Pubmed studies. Good information.

[Flavio]

[...] What is also interesting is that this increase in sympathetic action is also tied in with prostate issues. [...]

This is more than interesting, it's a fascinating piece of info.

Is there an established causal link between the two? I'd never heard of this before.

[Flavio]

[...] I have also read interesting study’s on the combination of PDE5i and resveratrol in the diabetic animal model, which appear to work synergistically to improve endothelial function, specifically NO, lower ROS (reactive oxygen species) formation and even reverse some of the resultant damage. [...]

I don't know resveratrol but I'm a huge fan of antioxidants, they really are the fountain of youth.

I take an excellent daily supplement from Naturmil that includes pycnogenol and vitamin E. Some pharmacies actually sell a combination of Viagra + vitamin E for improved results.