Some men experience Condom Associated Erection due to several reasons. In this video, Dr. Rena Malik discusses everything ...

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Condoms Killing your Erection?! Urologist Breaks Down Science-Based Strategies to Stay Hard

so have you ever lost an erection right after putting a condom on well you're not alone I'm Dr Reena Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and today we're going to talk all about condom Associated erection loss according to studies apparently 7 to 12% of men experience what we call Condom Associated erection loss with even smaller studies reporting up to 37% of college students having erection loss when using a condom and this often leads to removing the condom early in somewhere between 3 to 12% of men now this is actually a really big problem because men who report condom related erection loss are also more likely to have unprotected vaginal intercourse and less likely to use condoms consistently this puts you at a bigger risk for pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections now the good news is that not everyone tries to have penetrative sex after having issues with the condom often times they'll try to use different types of sexual stimulation like manual or oral or they may even incorporate their partner in trying to put on the condom for them now why exactly does this happen we're not exactly sure but it seems that men who face these challenges with condoms might need more intense stimulation to get aroused compared to those who don't and this comes from a pretty small study 142 men between the ages of 18 and 29 they looked at these men who had problems with condoms and those who didn't and about half of them had condom Associated erection problems and they showed them four three minute erotic films the first one was while they were distracted so they asked them to do basic arithmetic like addition subtraction multiplication or division with a video in the corner for 10 seconds the second video had a performance demand and what that means is they asked them to get an erection as quickly as possible the third was when they had some sort of vibration or vibrotactile stimulation and the last one had nothing additional and they wanted to see like is there a difference between these two groups now the minutes of the films were also very specific so like in the first minute they saw things like kissing or manual stimulation in the second minute they showed oral sex and the third minute they showed penetrative intercourse so again what they found was that as a whole all men had worse responses when they were distracted and better responses when they were told to perform better or demanded to have a erection as quickly as possible but in general those who had condom problems did not have any differences compared to those who didn't in relation to vibration or when they were distracted or when they were told to perform better and so what they found in all the men was that the average penal circumference increased from the first minute to the the second minute to the third minute however men who had problems with condoms in the past actually had less response meaning that their girth was actually not as wide as those who did not have problems now they only saw this in the first minute of the film they didn't see this in the second or third minute so this essentially tells us that there may be a chance that these men need more arousal at least in the first minute to get the same amount of girth as they do as other men but there are some associations so what we do know is that men may be more likely to have condom Associated erection problems if they have poor confidence in using condoms correctly if they have a problem with the way the condoms fit or feel or if they have sex with multiple partners interestingly in one study that they published in 2011 out of Indiana University wanted to find out what factors specifically were associated with condom Associated ere child dysfunction compared to people who didn't have this problem and so they recruited 1875 men across seven states in the United States and these were across college campuses on Internet sites on electronic bulletin board internet sites and um HIV SD prevention testing agencies and they asked them to fill out a daily diary and this was obviously when they had sex and they asked basically whether they applied the condoms too late who was responsible for putting on the condom and their perception of how long or girthy or firm their penis was compared to usual and then also if they had any difficulties in maintaining their erection they also asked them how snug or loose the condom felt and then did how long did sex last and how vigorous was the sexual activity they basically wanted to find out if there was any condom breakage slippage or if they used any lubricants or Oils or anything else that might affect the effectiveness of the condom and the interesting fact that I got from this paper was that 49% of these men were never taught how to use a condom that's a that's a lot so in the entire group about 12% of men used a condom and late meaning they applied it after intercourse started and 5% removed it before they finished intercourse so men who tended to put the condom on late usually felt that their condom was a bit looser if it came off too early it may have been because the guy felt that his penis was wider than usual or he had trouble keeping an erection was if they took it off early at one sexual encounter they were also more likely to do it again and also they found that people who delayed putting it on or took it off more quickly thought that their penis was shorter than usual or had trouble maintaining an erection so the take-home point is here that when men have problems with condom that tends to lead to a relatively stable Behavior meaning that they're often going to have these issues with condoms and they might put them on later or take them off earlier this may be because you build these habits or get these cues around condom use so you may have tried to use a condom once had a poor erection and then you start noticing that um when you're about to put a condom on you're like really stressed about is the condom going to come on quickly enough am I going to keep my erection let's do this as fast as possible and you're very distracted thinking about something else stressed anxious and then you don't get a good erection and then you're like oh it's the condom and then it sort of becomes this vicious cycle because each time you're more and more anxious and then you realize okay if I do this to either take the condom off early or put it on later I might be okay and so this is sort of what we call a psychogenic erectile dysfunction meaning that your brain is causing so much anxiety and stress that is making it difficult for you to get an erection and I've made a whole video on this so if you want to learn more about it make sure you check that one out another theory is that if you're using poorly lubricated condoms they can become pretty dry which can make it irritated for you and even your partner and ultimately reduce any sexual sensation you're having and unfortunately men who have these issues have been found to have higher levels of depression and anxiety and they were more likely to have mild erectile dysfunction in fact in one of the studies they found that 18 to 32% of young men who had condom Associated erectile dysfunction met criteria for mild to moderate Ed when taking a survey so that's pretty remarkable and again I think a lot of this may be psychogenic but ultimately it's important to identify this and talk about this with your doctor so that we can help you through this now the other question is like what if you're taking medications for erections a lot of people will use viog thealis these pd5 Inhibitors recreationally before they see a doctor so will this actually help so a study looked at 705 men and they wanted to see if these medications protect against condom Associated erectile loss and the answer is no men who use these medications were substantially more likely to report erection loss during sex while using a condom have condom slippage and take off the condom before completing penetrative sex and so it may be that you're actually having a rectile dysfunction problems but you're attributing it to the condom so again important to get assessed if you're having issues with sexual function now what can you do at home before you see the doctor one is you want to make sure that you're taking enough time to get aroused and you're getting adequate stimulation so whatever that is for you and if you remember from the beginning of this video these men who had condom related erectile dysfunction they were actually needing stimulation for over a minute longer longer than a minute to get to the same level of stimulation as someone who didn't have these problems also I really want you to practice putting a condom on and generally try to put it on when you're self-stimulating just to get a sense of if you're doing it correctly as I mentioned before 49% of people were not even taught how to put a condom on and so that may reduce the likelihood of erection problems if you put it on correctly and have the right size so I've talked about condom size before so make sure you check out that video and I also in that video showed you how to put one on here are some tips on how to put on a condom so first and foremost when you get the condom you want to make sure to push the air out of the tip and leave a little space there so there's a place for the ejaculate to fill okay that's number one number two you want to make sure that you put it down all the way if it's not fully rolled down it's going to fall off and so you certainly don't want to do that what's the the point of wearing a condom if it's going to fall off thirdly you want to make sure you have the right fit condom so I've talked about condom size in a video before so make sure you check that one out there are condoms available that are extra thin there's condoms that are available that are um in different sizes and particularly even ones you can custom for your own size so make sure you check the links in the description if you want to try those out I always tell my patients like call some condom companies to get some samples because they'll send them to you and then you can determine if if they are comfortable and they fit you correctly so that you can start buying those condoms and lastly use lubricant so condoms can be sort of dry and sticky and so you can put lubricant on your own penis you can put lubricant on the outside of the condom but you have to make sure it is the correct type of lubricant so you can use water-based or silicone-based lubricants water-based lubricants do evaporate quickly so you might need to reapply them silicone base last a little bit longer so you can try those as as well never use oilbased lubricants because those can actually degrade the condom and so we don't want that either right so only water-based or silicone based and I'll link some lubricants down below but again check out my video to learn more about lubricants another thing that's really important is to realize that during sex penises fluctuate meaning that sometimes they're going to be more rigid sometimes they're going to be a little less and sometimes you might lose an erection and that's okay that's pretty common but you just want to give it time for it to come back so stimulate give it time and you can even try to eroticize the US using the condom so maybe have your partner put it on incorporate it into foreplay rather than sort of just rushing to get it on very quickly and then the other important thing is to make sure you're taking enough time to put on the condom now this is really important so they looked at this in a study of 440 men and those men who felt like they didn't have enough time to put on their condom were three times more likely to have condom breakage almost 2 and a half times more commonly reporting slippage of the condom almost three and a half times more likely to have difficulty with erections and two times more likely to report reduced sexual pleasure of themselves they also reported problems with their female partner having difficulty with sexual pleasure and irritation so guys make it part of the experience make putting on a condom part of the foreplay make sure it's not something you rush through take your time and make sure the condom fits correctly so bottom line condom Associated erection loss is a serious issue and it happens to so many men even young men so you're not alone if you're struggling with this and it can be a serious problem so make sure your condom fits appropriately and take your time make it part of the erotic experience and don't rush if you guys like this video you might actually find my video on BOTOX for your erections pretty interesting so check that one out and as always you're going to take care of yourself because you're worth it

Dr.

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