Erectile dysfunction: why men don’t talk to doctors about it enough – penis transplant pioneer and fellow expert explain
Few men get help. Fewer men know impotence is a warning sign of heart disease, diabetes, or worse. Hong Kong doctor, and another who did first US penis transplant, talk about why men need to take their health more seriously
Men are notoriously reluctant to visit doctors, even more so for help on intimate below-the-belt problems.
Dr Andrew Yip, a veteran urologist in Hong Kong, recalls one case when a forty-something patient arrived at his clinic to talk about his penis crisis, having struggled to get his manhood up for the occasion for the last eight to nine years.
Why did you wait so long to seek help? asked a stunned Yip. “He told me his wife was 38 years old and wanted to have a child; it’s a special request, or duties like this, that get patients to see a doctor,” Yip says.
Based on past surveys Yip has done on impotence and men’s health, he says only about 10 per cent of Hong Kong men with this problem seek help. And the rest? “They don’t want to talk about it, they don’t think it’s a disease,” he said. Most Hongkongers do not consider erectile dysfunction a life-threatening condition worthy of high-priority attention.
Causes behind impotence are many – hormonal imbalances, psychological issues, relationships, to mention a few. But most men reading this article will not make the connection that erectile dysfunction could indicate coronary heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol problems and more.
“Once they start having symptoms of [erectile dysfunction], what you are actually finding is that it is a symptom of something deeper happening within them – their blood pressure could be out of control, they could be diabetic, they could have kidney disease or high cholesterol,” says Dr Dicken Ko, director of regional urology for Massachusetts General Hospital and one of the surgeons that performed the first penis transplant in the US last year.