(BlackDoctor.org) — Men seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction are bombarded with bold ads for medications that fight ED or promise male enhancement through supplements. And you may be tempted to try these alternatives before taking more traditional erectile dysfunction medications or erectile dysfunction surgery. The question is, how do you discern the truth from the hype when it comes to non-medical erectile dysfunction treatments?
Male Enhancement Products: Too Good To Be True?
The marketplace is full of products that promise amazing results, guaranteed to give you an erect penis. But if a claim seems too good to be true, it probably is, warns naturopathic doctor Dean Neary, ND, chair of physical medicine at Bastyr University, a natural medicine university in Seattle.
“You’ve got all these products out there that sound like they’ll not only make your erections work, but make it bigger,” says Dr. Neary. “Making it larger is a no-go — you only have limited tissue. There may be some hope of fixing a weak erection by stimulating blood flow, but the tissues aren’t going to magically grow an inch.”
Alternative Erectile Dysfunction Treatments That Can Work
Neary prefers to treat erectile dysfunction in the context of a man’s overall health.
“My approach usually is more holistic. I am looking at getting weight off and increasing exercise, which can kick up testosterone levels,” explains Neary. He cautions that if you try to self-medicate with alternative treatments, you might miss an opportunity to learn about a more serious health problem, such as heart disease, that could be causing your erectile dysfunction.
Here are some of the alternative approaches you could try with the help of a trained health professional:
• L-arginine. “Probably the only thing that I’ve seen some results with is a high dose of sustained release L-arginine, which works like Viagra and Cialis,” Neary says. L-arginine is an amino acid that stimulates nitric oxide, part of the chemical chain reaction that gets blood pumping into the penis during an erection.
• Acupuncture. This alternative treatment, involving placement of thin needles into the skin at strategic locations, has been practiced for thousands of years in China. There are several sites on the body that practitioners believe can be stimulated to help ease erectile dysfunction.
• Exercise. Being more physically active can help erectile dysfunction in many ways, including improving heart function and boosting testosterone levels.
