If you have an involuntary penile erection, you should suspect that a man is developing priapism. What is it and how is the disease manifested? This is a serious male pathology, which is characterized by spontaneous erection. It is not related to male sexual stimulation and can last 4 hours or more. This condition is very painful, not passing after ejaculation.
Prevalence of the disease
Priapism (the term appeared on behalf of the god of fertility of Ancient Greece - Priapus) is an infrequent pathology in men (only 0.2%) who have sexual disorders and suffer from various urological ailments. It can develop at any age. It is observed mainly in mature men (20-50 years old), but boys (5-10 years old) also get sick.
Priapism. What it is? Anatomical explanation
The male penis has three bodies: two cavernous and one spongy. With physiological erection, smooth muscles relax. At the same time, blood flow through the arteries to the cavernous bodies increases . The latter swell and squeeze the veins that draw blood from them. This leads to maintaining the penis in a state of true erection. At the same time, it increases and compacts.
With priapism due to increased arterial influx or due to reduced outflow of venous blood, the process of “softening” of the male penis is disrupted.
True priapism - what is it? It is characterized by uncontrolled sudden penile erection, which can occur in any, even the most inappropriate place. There are two types of true priapism: ischemic and non-ischemic.
There is also chronic priapism, or pseudo-priapism. Other names for this ailment: intermittent night, sleepy priapism. What is it, consider further. The disease is quite rare. Diagnoseable, but its treatment is very difficult.
Causes of Chronic Priapism
Regarding the sources of the occurrence of nocturnal priapism, scientists do not agree. A healthy man experiences short, painless erections in his sleep, which last for seconds or several minutes. They are spontaneous in nature and do not lead to the awakening of a person. Even if a man wakes up, then for a moment, and in the morning does not remember about an erection.
With pseudo-priapism, violations of the depth and structure of sleep are observed. Such changes provoke a number of neuropsychiatric disorders. Most patients suffer from neurosis, depression, schizophrenia. Sleep disturbances can provoke organic brain damage, where neurosis-like symptoms, previous concussion, and concussion predominate.
Patients unnecessarily focus on true erections that occur at night. This enhances the course of the disease, in the future erections already occur under the influence of neurotic disorders.
Sometimes chronic priapism can be a consequence of transferred urethritis, prostatitis, or is a complication after instrumental urological procedures (cauterization of the seed tubercle, urethroscopy). In a significant number of patients with pseudo-priapism, examination reveals prostatitis.
Ongoing survey
According to the findings of encephalographies made by a patient with nocturnal alternating priapism, changes characteristic of depressive states were revealed. Therefore, the question begs: "Chronic priopism - what is it?". And the answer can be formulated as follows: pseudo-priapism is not a male disease, but is the result of painful increased attention of patients to physiological nightly erections and alarming expectations. Men confuse cause and effect and blame their own erections for sleep disturbance.
Doctors analyzed endocrine disorders in patients with intermittent priapism. But no changes were revealed. Despite this, all patients who were prescribed female sex hormones noted improved sleep and weakened nocturnal erections. But, unfortunately, after discontinuation of the drug, its positive effect immediately disappears.
How is night priapism manifested? Symptoms of the disease
The same type of patient complaints is observed:
- almost every night, closer to the morning, they often wake up due to a strong erection;
- sometimes there is an erection during daytime sleep;
- note pain, a feeling of "rush" to the penis and perineum;
- insomnia;
- in the morning they feel lethargy, weakness, apathy, decreased mood;
- less and less is the desire for sexual intimacy;
- reduction in the number of adequate erections;
- during the day, sexual excitability can be increased, an erection easily appears when communicating with the opposite sex;
- accelerated ejaculation during intercourse.
Course of the disease
The disease has a long course. At the beginning of the disease, nightly erections occur once a week. Then there is their increase and amplification, can happen from two to five times at night. Pain in the perineum and in the penis increases with each case. Sleep becomes restless, superficial.
Diagnosis of pseudo-priapism
Recognition of the disease and the diagnosis of chronic priapism do not present great difficulties. Unlike true priapism, nocturnal priapism is characterized by a decrease in erection after a man’s awakening, after going to the toilet (after urination or bowel movement).
Also, erectile stress reduction is favored by: walking around the room, active movements, applying chilled lotions to the penis or prolonged rest and a change in the usual environment. But all these manipulations do not cure the disease, but only alleviate the suffering for a while.
How to overcome sleepy priapism?
With timely access to doctors of men who only begin to begin at night, alternating priapism, the treatment would not be so long. In the early stages, when sleep disturbance occurs due to spontaneous painful erections, autogenic training, psychotherapy sessions and hypnosis help well.
With a late patient request for medical help, the above methods will not be enough. Therefore, to stop the pathological response of men to nocturnal erections, a long course of treatment with various psychotropic drugs is prescribed.
Patients are forced to take antidepressants (Pyrazidol, Azafen, Amitriptyline), tranquilizers (Seduxen, Elenium, Phenozepam), sleeping pills and antipsychotics (Stelazin, Teralen, Etaperazin) . The choice of the drug is up to the doctor. Electrosleep and acupuncture sessions are added to the treatment.
If men with pseudo-priapism are also found to have inflammatory diseases in the genitals, it is necessary to reorganize them.