114: How To Address & Move Past Erectile Dysfunction w/ Orest Komarnyckyj

Erectile dysfunction is a pretty common thing that affects men as they get older. Erectile dysfunction affects more than just a man’s sexual performance, it impacts his confidence, relationship, and other aspects of his health. Orest Komarnyckyj from Old Guy Talks is here to talk about what we can do to help our partners with erectile dysfunction.

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The most important thing to understand about erectile dysfunction is that it’s more common than you think. There are so many different treatment options out there, both medical and natural, but it really does come down to trial and error until you find one that works for your partner. I also share some supplements he can take to support his sexual health.

Talking about problems in the bedroom are never easy, but once you approach the subject calmly and openly, it will be easier to talk about. Your partner is very likely embarrassed that they’re experiencing erectile dysfunction, so reassure him that he’s not alone. Encourage him to seek out qualified medical practitioners, more than someone who’s just going to give him a little blue pill and move on to the next patient, to try to find the root cause of his erectile dysfunction.

Because even though erectile dysfunction medicine might work at first, a lot of it won’t be effective long-term. Orest explains what else happens to a man’s body when he takes ED medication for a prolonged period of time. Did you know that erectile dysfunction medication is actually rising in popularity among young men because of the unrealistic expectations set by pornography?

Orest talks about the alternative options, some natural and some medical, that are available instead of erectile dysfunction medication. He also shares the first steps you and your partner can take in order to regain your sex life. Sex into older age is possible and we all deserve a healthy sex life with our partners.

Does your partner have erectile dysfunction? What medication is your partner taking? How are you going to approach having a conversation about sexual health with your partner?

 

In This Episode:

  • What other aspects of men’s health erectile dysfunction impacts
  • Why you and your partner shouldn’t give up if the first treatment option doesn’t work for him
  • What supplements your partner can take to support men’s sexual health
  • How you can start talking about erectile dysfunction
  • Why you need to have these intimate discussions with your partner
  • What happens to the body when your partner takes erectile dysfunction medication
  • What alternatives to erectile dysfunction medications are available
  • What the first steps you and your partner can take to help them through erectile dysfunction

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Quotes:

“We’re all really different on this stuff. Some things are going to work well for some people. For others, everything’s going to work. And for some people, it’s a journey of discovery for what’s going to work and a lot of times, it’s not going to be just one treatment.” (8:46)

“Erectile dysfunction is a thief because in many ways it robs you of emotional and physical intimacy that is so necessary to have a quality relationship.” (16:03)

“Being able to be sexually functional is very important to your reality, your essence, as a man.” (29:19)

 

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Transcript

Generationally, testosterone levels in men are going down in a significant way. The Massachusetts male aging study, it looks from 1987 to 2005 and they're showing just generationally lower levels of men having testosterone, which is manifesting itself in a lot of different ways. But this is has to do a lot with the endocrine-disrupting compounds and we're continuing more and more exposed to and this is affecting the development of men as men.
Hello everyone and welcome to Couch Talk. I'm excited today to be talking about men's health, men's sexual health and things that really guys don't want to talk about, women don't know about or want to talk about and how critically important it is. You hear me all the time talking about vaginal health issues like vaginal dryness and the related consequences that this can have and how it can affect connection and intimacy in a relationship. So it is a challenge, it's a challenge as we get older. So I reached out to Orest who is a dynamic, fabulous, intelligent old guy. Honestly, he has oldguystalks.com and has a fun podcast. And, tell you a little bit about him. He is a blogger and...
He's 66, a blogger, former periodontist, but really a standup comedian at heart as well as cigar aficionado and loves fine liquor. He does not hold back when he talks and he really says that he's looking to live the next stages of his life full of (beep). He wants to share those experiences with you and hear about yours. Now he has spent a lot of time in the anti-aging space. He's been following this throughout his career and interviewing doctors and scientists on cutting edge medical therapies. So he has personal experience that he brings into the picture and is impassioned to share about how we treat erectile dysfunction and dissatisfaction. Right, because it's not just that. So Orest welcome. Welcome to Couch Talk. This is an intimate place for intimate conversation and I'm thrilled to have you here.
I'm thrilled to be here. I'm looking around to see whether I'm in the right room after the introduction. I'm not sure who you're talking about, but I guess I'm here.
Oh no cigar, no martini? What's going on?
A little bit of a time difference, so it's nine o'clock in the morning and it's... And I'm not in Mexico so. If I was in Mexico there might be a bloody Mary or a beer, but I do have my old guy talks mug so I'm having a lot... I'm having a lot of... In the morning it's coffee until about noon and I'm a coffee addict.
Ah, okay. All right. Well I think you're living life on the fast lane and just really bringing a lot of life to people's lives as well. Share with us your journey, how did you come and impassioned to this and why you're so impassionate about talking to number one, people about the difficulty of erectile, I like how you say dissatisfaction.
Well erectile dysfunction or dissatisfaction, it actually, a lot of times we end up in these places because of self-interest. As you get older, it comes as no surprise that things don't work as well as they used to. And I had actually also an unfortunate situation where I had been talked into having a prostate biopsy and I wish I'd never had it. And everybody said, "Oh, it's all going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine. Nothing's going to be different and nothing's going to be, there's no side effects or anything." Well, it wasn't like that. And then I started to hear about... I was talking to the physician's assistants at my primary care doctor and she said, "Oh yeah, I hear that. I hear that. Not infrequently."
I'm going like, "Really? That's not what I was told. I was told as all going to be fine, no consequences and nothing's... Good." So I went through all the stages of grief, where you kind of anger, disbelief, this and that, and then kind of came to a resignation or.... Or I call a resignation. I think it's officially called acceptance, but sometimes you just kind of, you're resigned to the reality of things as they are. I've been in the... It's called age management now. I'm old enough to call it anti-aging because I've been in it so long anti-aging space. I've been actually, I make no bones about it. I mean I've been on therapeutic testosterone replacement for over 22 years now and if you want me I can ramble on. But basically I at age 45 my waist and my age were the same and my waist was outpacing my age.
I looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy and had the same consistency and I got married very late in life. I didn't get married till I was 40 so that means that we waited a few years before my wife had our first daughter and so I was 45 so had to make a decision about whether I was going to be a grandfather or father because at that point you can go either way at that point, and you see a lot of men deteriorate in their forties rather significantly and kind of [inaudible 00:05:03] and things like that. So I've been in the anti-aging space quite a bit and also as a regenerative surgeon, as a periodontist, so very familiar with regenerative products.
Actually, the first time I ever used plate rich plasma was in 2000 and yeah, I mean that was a long time ago-
On the forefront.
There weren't even centrifuges then I use actually ahead of a hospital profusion machine to draw the PRP. But I happened to be, I had actually an injury to my bicep tendon from working out and a friend of mine said, you should go see this doctor. And I saw her, her name is Carmen Mora. And we started talking, we start talking about just stuff in general and this and that. And then we got on the topic of ED and she said, "Well we have all these other things that we can do for ED now."
And one of them was, she started telling me about PRP and I started laughing because she didn't know I was a periodontist at that point. She started telling me about this, so I said, "Well Carmen, actually the first time I used PRP was in 2000." She kind of looked me like, wait, who are you? So we got into this and as I got more and more into this space, the first thing I discovered was there's several new therapies that are out there that were not available until recently and everyone is different and you're all going to respond to them very, very differently.
So I had a chance to interview expert doctors to treat erectile dysfunction, dissatisfaction on a regular basis about these expert therapies that they use in their offices. And so I was able to put these interviews together and then I got into a lot more about, and this is kind of maybe about what [inaudible 00:06:35] partner in life, male or female. What are the ramifications in the relationship for a person who has erectile dysfunction? And it really affects people at so many different levels. When you start really to look at it, it's absolutely incredible.
That's so true. Well tell for our audience too, what is PRP and how is it being used for erectile dysfunction and then we'll definitely get into the other modalities as well.
Yeah. Platelet-rich plasma is basically your own blood product. Basically you... Let's say they may take a 20 ccs of your blood and spin it down in a centrifuge and they take out the part that has a platelet-rich plasma, which has a significant amount of growth factors and they apply that. That's applied topically. Some people are using it with... I think it's called, we're supposed to call it allographic biografts, AKA STEM cells.
Sometimes people will use that in combination with those types of things and that works very, very well for some people and basically what it does is it actually increases the vascularization in that area. And erectile dysfunction is all about proper vascular blood flow. It's all about blood flow. It's all about getting blood to the penis. It's all about keeping it on the penis until you're finished with having sex. Using your own body's healing capacities actually is what PRP is, basically in a concentrated form. As you well know, PRP is used for... I'm hard-pressed to find a part of the body now that people aren't using PRP for. It's actually a kind of amazing thing that people are using and that's one of the therapies that work very well for many, for many men.
Yeah. And now we're getting into peptides, right? Peptide therapy for erectile dysfunction as well. Now there's some interesting stuff coming up there.
Yeah. Peptides are an interesting thing in that they have a different form of mechanism. At least the ones that I'm familiar with is that they work on your brain versus locally. And the peptides I'm familiar with, that are used for erectile dysfunction are actually more of an aphrodisiac because they actually work on men and women. So it was kind of an interesting thing because it works on your brain and stimulates your brain versus, versus the local stimulation like you would with a PRP and other therapies that are out there.
But the PRP, you're seeing good results with that?
I think that a lot of people are. We're all really different on this stuff and some things are going to work really well... Some things... For some people everything's going to work and for some people is a journey of discovery about what's going to work, what doesn't. And a lot of times it's not going to be just one treatment. And also it really depends on where you start. If you aren't just kind of having what I refer to as dissatisfaction and that dissatisfaction is like, well maybe, maybe alcohol that you've had is starting to affect you more than it has in the past or maybe that you're not able to... Certain positions that used to be able to do are not... You can't do them as easily or can't do them at all anymore, it kind of [inaudible 00:09:25].
And so erectile dissatisfaction and dysfunction is that you slowly, unless you've had a major event, like a prostatectomy or some prostate damage or some sort of thing [inaudible 00:09:34], you slowly kind of ease into it and you don't really know that it's happening.
All of a sudden you're kind of like, "How'd I get here?" And you don't really understand. It's not like a diabetic. What kind of starts, all of a sudden they have high blood sugar and then next thing you know they're taking oral meds and next thing you know they're taking shots and you still kind of, it's a grad... for most, it's a gradual decline. And part of it is you accommodate that decline over a period of time and you have a new normal, which is not healthy, that can really affect a person and a person that are in a relationship and in just incredible different ways.
Yeah. And I want to go into that. I'll talk... Because I treated a lot of men with erectile dysfunction. So I treat with... I help women with sexual health and they bring in their guy, right? So part of my whole philosophy is erectile dysfunction, early signal of cardiovascular disease. So we know that. So heart health is crucially important. Aerobic exercise, high-intensity interval training to boost up testosterone growth hormone. So that's part of it. High-intensity interval training, getting a good night's sleep. And of course, get Keto-Green. Follow those regimens. Extended fasting, a small eating window cut back on all the inflammatory foods, processed foods, and glucose, sugar. So there's that nutrition aspect that goes without saying. And then supplementation. So you used mighty maca plus, two to four scoops a day, in men with erectile dysfunction, libido issues as well.
Sometimes we have to go up a little bit higher initially and then go back down to two scoops a day and then arginine alpha-ketoglutarate to increase nitric oxide. So maca will also increase nitric oxide. But then adding in arginine and I use a product from Xymogen called N.O.max. And then adding in something that keeps testosterone free. So I use another product from Xymogen called Testoplex. So that was my sexual health triad for sexual dysfunction. And that usually gets blood flow, improves erectile tissue and responsiveness, sensitivity helps with premature ejaculation. So we see those aspects. And then my next thing, depending on the age of the client, would be to add in something that's going to increase the body's own natural testosterone production. So whether it's Clomid or something like that to stimulate in a male production of testosterone and or adding in testosterone as well.
I never want to feedback continuous, negative feedback continuously to keep... To at all inhibit the brain from producing... signaling the production of testosterone. So want to keep alternating that and keep a Clomid on board as long as possible if we need it to just keep that stimulation going. So testosterone on board and then again, making sure we know where testosterone is going, that it's not going to estrogen causing moobs, it's not going to dihydrotestosterone. That's going to be very, very potent male testosterone that can cause balding also aggression. So there's a little bit, but we don't want it to be pushing those directions. And it really depends on the individual genetics and environment that are part of that. And I'll add in zinc, typically 60 milligrams of zinc a day may be chrysin, again for this conversion issues that we want to have this nice compliment that we're keeping testosterone free and available.
And then sometimes we need to add in... I've used secretagogues to help the body to help stimulate the body's production of growth hormone in those ways, but sleep and high-intensity exercise, those are fundamental, foundational and absolutely necessary in working with erectile dysfunction and just like we have G-shot or O-Shot injections for women, PRP for men and now there's peptides how that's coming about. But I always like let's get the new nutrient building blocks in there first. Now this can cause a... Again, going into the discussion of how this affects relationships, how do we talk about it, how do we work with our patient through it, and what are some things that we can do to help our partner with erectile function?
A lot of it has to do with the fact that most men, first of all, because it occurs relatively slowly and most men, and it's embarrassing and not infrequently, more the rule than the exception, is that men don't want to talk about and they won't talk about it to their significant other. They generally don't talk about it to their doctor and they don't talk about it to other men. I mean, men don't sit around having a drink and smoking a cigar and say, "Hey, by the way, my junk hasn't been working. How's your junk? How's your junk working?" So they don't really, it's not something that that happens and this isolation that occurs doesn't help the problem because it's a problem that will continue until you take active action to go ahead and treat it whichever modality you choose. But what happens is that in the relationship there's a distancing that occurs between the people in that relationship because there's a lack of communication and there's a frustration.
Quite often men will shut down and not talk about it. And you can imagine that in you're sitting, you tried to have sex and you're unsuccessful and there's a quiet that ensues as the expression goes a deafening quiet. It's a deafening quiet that ensues. The woman maybe try and to have a conversation and the man is generally, will generally be resistant to it because they're embarrassed and say, "Oh, it's fine. It's just a temporary thing." Or they spin all sorts of stories in their head about this to themselves and to this person they live with. As it continues it kind of gets a life of its own because there's just, the more you kind of have to build up and continue to build up to tell the lies the more and more and more in this regard from the other person's perspective, sometimes the other person, the woman may wonder, "Does he love me anymore? "Is he attracted to me anymore? Is there an affair going on? Has he substituted me with porn?"
All those things kind of occur and that distancing just kind of continues on and then all of a sudden, next thing you know, these loving couple turns into these people that are basically roommates. They're are no longer husband and wife and no longer lovers. They're just kind of roommates that are functioning in the world without emotional and physical intimacy, that's really important in a relationship. It's that loss in some ways so that somebody once termed the fact that that erectile dysfunction is thief. That erectile dysfunction is a robber because in many ways it robs you of emotional and physical intimacy that is so necessary to have a quality relationship. Now, some people, just I know we've talked about some people just accommodate and just kind of get used to it and this is kind of the way it is.
For men they tend to lose interest in life in a lot of different ways. They tend to not be as social. It may even affect them in their business because they're indecisive. They just aren't really there. And there's a frustration and anger that is often present that's associated with that, that can explain somebody may be really short and testy all the time. Well, if you're like that all the time, then people don't want to be around you, which adds to your isolation. So it's just, it's just a total, yeah it's a cycle. It's a snowballing effect of builds upon itself. And unless you take significant action, especially if you're in the middle of this, you have to take really significant action to break out of this cycle because it's a challenge to break out by then, just like any kind of cycle. It really is a significant challenge to break out of it. And the hard part about it is that most of the time you don't, even with erectile dysfunction, you don't really even know you're in this cycle because it's your new normal.
Well, and it's so true Orest at the same time, this is happening to a man, vaginal dryness, discomfort with sex. You know those things. We're not talking about that either. So it's working both ways and that creates a separation in the intimacy of a couple and it's not where you want to be. And so husbands and wives trying to be there for each other, but then having this roommate phenomenon versus sexual intimacy and it is good to know that there's so much that can be done about it.
Orest
Yeah. The whole concept is that as we get older, without that frank discussion, most men do not realize what's going on in a woman's body. They kind of know it, but they don't. And I'm not even sure that even though a woman experiences changes, especially during menopause, what she experiences, I don't think they really... Sometimes I don't think they actually understand exactly what's going on in terms of the effects. You're experiencing the effects, but you don't know what the effects really mean, I guess I'll say is it that you experienced the symptoms but you don't understand what the end result is of those symptoms. One of the things that we've talked about, because we spoke about this earlier, is that guys are just kind of stunned when we talk about... and I mentioned to them that a lot of women, especially if they've had vaginal births, have urinary incontinence and there was, this is kind of like, "Oh, I never knew that."
Then you hear it go, 'Oh yeah, my girlfriend does." And you know, this is something that people hide versus, I mean, you don't want to sit there and broadcast it out-
Yeah, there's a lot of shame with it.
You don't want to post it on your Facebook page on Facebook, but you certainly should be able to have that discussion with your significant other.
Yeah. Yeah. You really should.
Yeah. And there's lots of things and the same thing with men. And the crazy part about it is, is that we are at a time, there are things that can really significantly alleviate the pain that we are undergoing as part of the aging process. I mean, we don't never really could... We're not stopping it, but we can alleviate the pain. There's so many things that are available now to do that, that you don't have to age in a decrepit way.
Aging is mandatory. Suffering is optional, right Orest?
Yes, exactly. Yeah. This whole thing about, "Well, that's the way I remember my grandmother. That's the way I remember my parents." Or whatever is that it's exciting some of the things that are out there to improve the quality of your life. And the other thing is that most people will do many things to... If you talked about someone about improving their life, they're kind of interested, but if you talked somewhat about relieving the pain in their life, they're really committed. That's where the thing is, is that these things will help minimize or eliminate a lot of the pain in your life. The all the anti-inflammatories things that you can do that are available out there. And there's many things that are actually available out there and you just have to pick one.
Yeah. And really want to be clear, we're not talking about Tylenol and Advil, right? We're talking about... My Mighty Maca Greens has Tumeric, quercetin, Resveratrol, greens, una da gato, just potent antioxidants that affect, that help our body combat the inflammatory pathway. So yes, exactly. And then again, the lifestyle right here, I'll push, I'll plug again. Keto-Green, not keto dirty but keto clean, which is Keto-Green, right? That lifestyle, it's more than about what we eat. It's a lifestyle. Orest, I want to talk about so many men, we've seen this now for decades as a practicing physician, the Viagra first on the markets Cialis to follow. And so these meds for erectile dysfunction, how are they affecting men? How are they affecting their sexual function? What are some cautions? And-
Orest
I'm working with someone and he's in his early twenties and what I was stunned to hear was how many of his friends are using ED meds. I like-
Wow, wow.
There's a whole bunch of stuff that's going on to men, in terms of endocrine-disrupting compounds and things like that. But the whole thing about the ED pills is a couple of things. One is that, and this is, I'm not a physician, this is not medical advice, but this is just my own perspective on things, is that when you are suffering from erectile dysfunction or dissatisfaction, you kind of have at the very beginnings in the early stages, two courses that you can go. You can go down the med course. And the med course is kind of an interesting thing because it's easy to get, it's a quick reply.
It's just easy access. I mean, you can buy it on the internet, there's all sorts of doctors now that are ready to prescribe. They're ready to prescribe this stuff without ever having you seen as a patient was just totally just mind-boggling. It's just like, "Wow, we've gotten to that point." I mean, yeah, we want access for everyone at the health care, but how do you know this person? I didn't know what's going on in their life. You can do a quick consultation with them over the phone, 10, 15 minutes and you just write him a script just so you check off some things so you don't get in trouble. ED meds are very, very interesting in that with the exception of Cialis, most of them, the window of opportunity is just a few hours. Heaven forbid that let's say you take your ED meds and you think it's all great, so you go to the bathroom and brush your teeth and you come back and your significant other is asleep.
That's never happened, has it? One of the side effects of ed meds is a headache. So actually, a friend of mine, he used to complain about these headaches by this. And the only thing that the ED, it didn't improve his sex life, but it sure gave him a lot of headaches. That's the whole thing. And for many men, ED meds over a period of time, lose their effectiveness and then [inaudible 00:23:22] and then next thing you know, your primary care physician says, I can't give you any more. You're kind of, you're at the limit. And so you've got this decreasing efficacy. The other option is in these, especially in these early stages, is you have some of these therapies that are out there, that one, you don't have to time your sex. If you do some of these things that you can be more, it can be more spontaneous, you don't have to go like, "Hmm, okay."
Or, you know, "I have three hours, I have three to five hours." It can be more spontaneous, more natural, and you don't have to worry about taking the meds. "Oh damn. I went away for a weekend. I forgot to take my ED pills." Then what do you do? I kind of liked the idea of having, rather than taking pills, and there's plenty of things that we need to take medications for, but if you can do something to increase the healing capacity of your own body, I think that's far superior way to go. Especially since it's, it's a vascularization thing. And that tends to kind of help alleviate the more dramatic symptoms later on, especially if you're increasing vascularization, which most of the therapies, that's what they do, is increased vascularization.
Yeah. Yeah. And so we're talking PRP, we're talking peptides talking-
Sonic wave. Yeah.
And the sonic waves. Tell me about that.
Sonic wave is just basically-
It sounds like Star Wars.
I actually, I think they call it, I call it sonic wave, but I think they actually call it shockwave. It's shockwave, no one wants to be shockwave.
No, no. Good play on words, switch it up.
Well literally, they call it shockwave. I don't like that, I don't think that's a good marketing term. Shock therapy. And basically what they do is that they send impulses to your penis area. Basically, what it does, it stimulates blood flow. It basically regenerates some of the blood flow in those areas. And again, those work well, the thing about that particular therapy is that often times it requires multiple treatments. And again, depending on where you start, if you are on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being great and you're starting at five, you may get yourself back up to a nine but if you're starting at a two your endpoint may be a six in terms of it.
So a lot of it has to be... From the urologists I've spoken to, a lot of it has to do for some of these therapies, where you start, of how bad you are. And I think that that's part of getting on this at an earlier age when you're dealing with just more true dissatisfaction rather than erectile dysfunction, which really is just the inability to get an erection or even maintain one and maintain one during sex. The whole thing about maintaining an erection during sex is an interesting concept in that when you have erectile dysfunction, during that act of what should be an act of love, the act of intimacy, for many men, you're not even there. You're not even there. You're not present mentally. And it's not because you're a bad person, you're just, you're not present there mentally.
You're just there as thinking, "Oh gosh, I hope my penis doesn't go limp. I hope my penis doesn't go limp." All that. And this is all getting inside of your head. Yeah. Even enjoying the physical intimacy, the emotional intimacy at the level that you could be if you weren't worried about that and believe me, your partner is also is worried about that. "Oh gosh. I hope he's not frustrated. Hope he doesn't have, I hope he's not disappointed again, I hope this works." That is another big component in terms of the actual act of sex is significantly affected by the potential or and the realization of not being able to complete the sexual act. Yeah. How do you recommend they reframe that? Well, I think we have to look at therapy.
You want to just address what's going on in the bedroom or wherever were you having sex, but what's going on? And I think there's a certain amount of personal self-honesty. A man has to have some self-honesty about this, to say, "Okay things are not working like they used to. Things need help. I need... Things I'm trying. The ED pills, they worked for a while, they're not working anymore. I need to go find someone who really knows what they're talking about." And that's a little bit of challenge now. Because there's a men's vitality clinic on every quarter and who knows? I mean it's a cash business. It's very lucrative, but half the people I've met, I don't know if half or whatever, but I suspect that a lot of the physicians in there don't really exactly know what's going on or what they're doing, that's an unfortunate thing.
But that's the reality of it is that a lot of times you want to make sure that you're in a situation with a healthcare provider that actually is taking the time to understand what your problem is, what your condition is. If they can get you in and out of there in 15 or 20 minutes, they don't really know who you are.
There's not much on the prevention getting to the root cause and relieving those issues versus symptom treatments and to manage. So they have to be very conscientious about that.
This ED, if you know people kind of, sometimes people snicker and it's so funny because when people say, "Well what do you do?" And I tell them and then the room just kind of goes quiet. You can be at a party and I just talk about it.
I know my wife's got used to it. She can just go, "That's what he does." And then later someone will come up and they'll start asking you questions. It's so comical because they go "I'm okay, but I have this friend..." That's such an old line. "I'm okay. But I'm really, I'm only here talking to you about this because..."
Yeah, I mean it's uncomfortable, right?
It's uncomfortable. And like I said, many men don't want to talk about it and it's totally understandable because does being able to be sexually functional is very important to your reality. Your essence as a man. There's this term that's really used now that I actually totally disagree with. It's a term that's called that men are being feminized. Men are not being feminized. Men are in many ways turning into eunuchs, which is a whole different thing.
The women I'm around are pretty strong. It's not that you become... And that's used to say that you're becoming weak or becoming feminized and stuff I go, "No, that's not what's happening." That's not what's happening. It's not that men are becoming women. It's actually they're losing their essence as a man and they're becoming eunuchs. That's the worst part is they're becoming a shell of what they used to be as a man. It's not being replaced with something. It's not being replaced with something.
It's basically you're just kind of losing it and becoming this shallow version of what you used to be and that's what happens to men as they get older. You see that especially in because I mentioned that I've been on, you see that in the gym I used to... Before we moved to Las Vegas a year ago, I'd been going to the same gym for 30 years and so I see the guys who are my age and I could tell which ones are really taking care of themselves from a hormone replacement level and which ones are not because the ones that are not are all of a sudden lose a kind of like you have this shriveled in, their shoulders are coming forward and they're shriveling up and they're cranky. Oh my gosh, they're cranky.
They're whiny and cranky-
Well, they're inflamed, right. There's inflammation going on. There's rapid aging through inflammation. I would tell you Orest that my journeys around the world, I met women, men, all ages, but I'm specifically thinking of one gentleman, Dr Wilhelm Vieira that I met in Brazil, and he's very... His area of research has been essentially quantum physics and vibrational medicine. And he was in his late seventies when I met him. This is over a decade ago, over 12 years ago. And he was just six feet tall, silver hair, the muscular body does do no hormones. He does no exogenous hormones whatsoever. He lives in the South of Brazil, near [inaudible 00:00:31:44]. He's outside every day, believes in vibrational medicine, energy, and he just beats his chest and have an orgasm every day, I mean, that was his big thing. Just, he goes virile, strong, sexually intimate, he's been married for years and virility.
It's like, okay, well what has he tapped into that, we're using... We're tapping into the exogenous thing and sometimes we need exogenous support. But what's that innate vibrational energy. And I think that's really key. Vibrational energy hormones are vibrational. So if we are clogging our hormonal communication systems, we're going to deplete our body's necessary resources. If we are living inside, blue lights, watching TV, brains getting dull, not out in nature tapping into the earth vibrational energy as well as high quality, nutrient-dense, rich, freshly picked plot foods. That's also critically important. So, and then other areas in the country that I think that's men without hormone therapy, very active, very physically fit, not suffering from erectile dysfunction. And so it's something we've got to get this natural balance and never forget how important those foundational philosophies are because we're not destined to be shriveled up old people. We're not destined to be that. We can be tall, strong and dynamic.
This whole thing that you brought up, what I guess some people refer to as endocrine-disrupting compounds, the blue lights, the hormones in the food, the GMOs, all the-
And porn right? And porn will deplete testosterone levels, right? People don't realize that it's such a testosterone depletion.
Yeah. And the other thing is that porn has an interesting effect in that there's a thing for young males, I was just stunned when I saw the statistics. It was in England that said that 50% of boys age 12 will have seen porn online. And there's a thing called PIED, porn-induced erectile dysfunction. And what that has to do with the fact is that your brain is rewired and that you are no longer sensitized to normal sexual stimuli because you've been hypersensitized to things on porn. And so you have these young kids, and this goes back to what we were talking about, I was talking about earlier about this guy who says he has so many friends on ED meds in their early twenties and part of it is that they have this concept that they see this porn movie, which they have no idea how many injections those porn stars are put into their penis.
I mean they're all jacked up between the ED meds, try max, all sorts of stuff. Just so they could film for six hours. I don't care who you are, if you're going for six hours, it's not natural. But they have this whole idea and then how the woman's supposed to act and all this during the porn they've learned, during having sex and all that stuff. And so have this totally unrealistic idea, expectation about what sex is. And I won't say when you're at that point where you know it's love or making love, but most of the time its lust. But it's, you have this whole idea of what it's supposed to be because you saw this in a movie and when you get around to it, it's not like that.
And so you're having a hard time responding because you'd been desensitized to normal sexual stimuli by the porn that you're looking at. And so it becomes a problem. There's actually a Department of Defense study that actually says that... because they have a big problem with porn because they got people stationed all around the world a lot of times without the ability to have physical contact with their loved ones, things like that. And then there's a... That porn was actually related to women. You can Google that, the Department of Defense studies and it's a very, very interesting because it that's a problem now with [inaudible 00:35:51] and sexual assault and a lot of that may be due to porn. The other thing that a lot of people may not realize is that we talk about testosterone levels, generationally testosterone levels in men are going down in a significant way.
The Massachusetts male aging study and it looks from 1987 to 2005 and they're showing generationally lower levels of men having testosterone, which is manifesting itself in a lot of different ways. But this has to do a lot with the endocrine-disrupting compounds and we're continuing more and more exposed to, and this is affecting the development of men as men. I'm talking about seeing younger and younger men in their office with erectile dysfunction and low testosterone values. And this has articles about... We've all seen articles about millennials having less sex than boomers did or other generations, but a lot of that has to do with the... Testosterone is very, very, very important for sex drive in a man and doing that. The other thing is there's a study out of Hebrew University that talks about sperm counts that have been cut in half, 1973 to 2011 and the study actually kind of extrapolated out and this is only in the industrialized world.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I saw that in my medical practice as a gynecologist and helping so many clients with fertility is in the 90s we said male factor was 30% now it's easily 40 to 50% so we see that male factor infertility is becoming a bigger issue. So there's certainly a generational component to this as well as the toxins are affecting the fragile sperm. I mean it is, fragile sperm, and so we need to be, to empower that and just having the discussion because marriages are suffering, right? In this perimenopause, menopause, andropause we have these physiologic changes that create behavioral changes and then we think it's the partner or it's the relationship and it's not, it's physiology.
And once we re-ignite physiology, reignite the relationship or as I have a program, it's called Sexual CPR. I am the women's health expert, but not the technique or relationship expert. Let me just qualify that right now. But the women's health expert and because also a component for men's sexual health is what I teach as well because it affects marriages and having this conversation, understanding each other, what you're going through and how that affects us relationally is vital for healthy marriages. The longevity of healthy marriages. And I'm glad you're speaking about this. So solutions, give us... Let's close with some solutions and next steps.
The first thing for a man is to find a knowledgeable doctor to basically make sure that they are optimized from a physical standpoint. That's... I would say that's a hormonally optimized from the nutrition standpoint to be optimized from a health standpoint in terms of physical fitness because that alone will make a huge effect in terms of your life and the quality of your life. Not just the longevity, but the quality of your life. And then start having awkward conversations. I think that men avoid having awkward conversations and maybe women do too. I-
Was there a way for a woman to talk about it with their guys? Say, "Hey, I've noticed...," What do you say? You're worried about hurting feelings or emasculating your spouse.
I think you start with the fact that I love you. I want us to have the best relationship possible. And there are some things that are going on [inaudible 00:39:50] that challenge. And I think we need to talk about it. That's the worst thing a guy could hear. I mean that's, that's the death note. It's like we need to talk about something like, "Oh (beep)."
What did I do? What didn't I do?
So don't start the conversation with "We need to talk about something," because this will mean the defenses and the radars go up. But I think it just kind of comes in from that kind of supportive way and then kind of ease into that conversation. And I think once you start that conversation, I don't think it's a difficult conversation to have. I think the start is the more awkward and I think that there's also out there a number of marriage coaching programs that are helpful.
I'm sure there's plenty of, there's some that are out there that are bad. There's something out there that are good. I know I've interviewed someone about one of theirs and they really deal with the relationship aspects from both from a body standpoint, from a physical standpoint in terms of your own individual bodies, from a balance standpoint, in terms of your relationship, from a spirituality standpoint and also about finances, about the business how they relate to each other from a finance standpoint.
So I think those kinds of situations where you address those four aspects of your life, you have to talk about them, not in anger. Because a lot of times, not infrequently those conversations come up. But it's usually when, not infrequently is when people are pissed off or they've had that second or third glass of wine and that's not the time, that is not the time to be having that conversation. The three glasses of wine and that's not a time to be having a serious conversation. That's actually a time to say like "Stop, we are not having this conversation. Neither of us are in a frame of mind or a mental capability to have that discussion at this point."
Yeah, exactly. Timeout. Let's come back to this when we're both at unhappy.
Yeah. I don't think we use coaches enough.
No, I agree. I every good... say every good athlete has a coach, every good relationship, have mentors, coaches, good examples that you can have these conversations with.
So I think those are the two things. And at the same time both for men and women. I think it's also important that you say, "Okay, where am I in this? Who am I in this relationship? What am I doing in this relationship?" And there's going to be good, there's going to be bad. But having to make an assessment and writing it, that actually writing it down. I mean just thinking about is it becomes just more of a wishful thinking exercise, but write down saying, "Okay, these are the positive things I bring into, into this relationship between us and these are the negative things. This is the baggage that I carry in this relationship." It does an important part, to be honest with yourself about who you are. And that's for both people in the relationship, both the man and the woman in a relationship. Because some people always go, this is the big lie that some people tell themselves is that "They're not right for me. I'll go find someone else."
Right, exactly. And then they initially get a charge and then they think "Oh well that's the reason" and that's not the reason.
And my comment to that is wherever you go there you are. Because of the same mistakes that you made in the previous relationship, you're going to bring those mistakes. They will not... you're right, initially, there's that kind of, that whole honeymoon period, this and that, and they won't show up initially, but I'll guarantee you, I'll guarantee you that the same issues, the same pattern will show up in the next relationship because-
Different faces, same problems.
Well, again, people don't want to accept that because of personal growth, we're talking about personal growth, it's a hard thing to do. It's not easy. My concept about stuff is that there's no such thing as the status quo. There's no such thing as maintaining. You are getting better where you're getting worse. There's no such thing as like, "Oh, I'm just kind of maintaining." No, you're not. No, you're not. People talk about that. The weight while they're putting on five pounds every year, "Oh, I'm just maintaining." No, you do not go look at that picture from three years ago. You're not maintaining. You're either improving or you're getting worse. The status quo is just not possible.
Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate that. That's so important. All right, Orest, how do people get ahold of you and what's the next way they can contact you? I know we got, oldguystalk.com.
Old guy. Singular. Old guy. I'm the old guy. I'm the only one that gets to talk. No one else gets to talk on. No, actually I tend to talk sometimes too much. You can get ahold of me on oldguytalks.com, there's a contact form. You can also find out, you have a link to my product on the cutting edge medical therapies to treat erectile dysfunction.
Tell us about that.
Well, what I've done as this was a journey of self-interest and self-discovery for myself based on what happened with my prostate biopsy. I have interviewed several doctors and one scientist on cutting edge medical therapies. Everyone cringes when I use the word cutting edge, you'll make a face. I should, I need another word, but that's all right. So I've gone into great length on these interviews.
This is not like a consultation that you would get into in an office because I have these doctors after hours, sometimes I'll be smoking a cigar and having a glass of scotch and we're having a conversation about their particular area of expertise, their particular therapy that we're doing. And a lot of these interviews are about 45 minutes or so. So we get really into the details of a particular therapy, sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're serious. I bring my own sense of humor to them, but we get into a lot of detail and as you know, these doctors spend a lot of time with their patients. And so these consultations would run several hundred dollars for an initial consultation with these and you get this information at a fraction of the cost. And it's the fact that because I come from this place of being familiar with regenerative therapy, even though I'm not a physician, I kind of know some of the things to ask.
And so I'm not coming in there and just kind of blind and because I've been in this space, I know what to do, so we go into a lot of details and then we have other interviews that are available in there. Some of them are with some experts on testosterone replacement therapy. Also, there's an interview with the cardiologists about how erectile dysfunction can be an indicator of heart disease and then we have some relational stuff in there too. I have an interview there that was is with a woman who had 17 million hits on her Ted talk. It's Sexless Marriage, Infidelity, and Masturbation. That's the title of her talk, so I got a chance to have her to interview her and so there's a lot of value and we'll be continuing adding value to that.
We'll put that in the show notes.
Put that in the show notes.
It's myjunkdoesnotwork.com right. Is that it?
I think you guys have your own special link.
Okay, thank you.
This is a continual process because I'm just not stopping at this point. I'm talking to you about other things that are of interest and it's not at myjunkdoesnotwork.com it is about that. Yeah. But at oldguytalks.com it's also about vices. We talk about cigars, we talk about liquor, we talk about stuff that are, I'm just starting training for a Spartan race here soon. So I'll be talking about that, about exercising as an older person, which has to deal about how to deal with healing and some [inaudible 00:47:56].
Well, I want to thank you so much Orest for being with us. Oldguytalks.com, Orest, tough topic, sharing your story, sharing your information. I really appreciate it. So you know, in Couch Talk, this is an area, like I said, guiltless, shameless, open discussion and time for an intimate conversation and to get real because if we're not talking about it, it just continues to brew under the surface. Continue to like an infection. Right. And so we want to open it up. We want to talk about this. We want to improve our marriages for the life of our marriages, for the life of ourselves, and improve that connection, improve the intimacy because intimacy increases oxytocin. And that just improves our connection, even more, not to mention the most powerful anti-aging and regenerative hormone. So thanks to Orest today for sharing his wisdom.
We've talked about erectile dysfunction, we've talked about erectile dissatisfaction, we've talked about how prostate health matters, as well as some natural interventions and leading-edge therapies that can be implemented to improve sexual function no matter what you're dealing with. And I've seen that over and over and over again with couples from the female perspective, from the male perspective and as couples work together. But the way we have this conversation when we increase our openness, our vulnerability; because nothing is more vulnerable than our sexual health or sexual intimacy.
Dr. Anna
When we open this, we can increase the magnitude, the health, intimacy, and love within our relationship even more. And I've seen that happen with couples over and over and over again. And for women for sexual health, check out sexualcpr.com as well, because that is key. There's a lot more to sexual health and having sex. But we'll have more on that. And again, thank you all for listening to Couch Talk and please give us your reviews. Give us your comments. I love reading your five-star reviews and I'm so grateful that you're sharing this information. I know we, again, we talk about some intimate stuff, so thank you for being here on Couch Talk and I will see you next week.
 
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Dr. Anna Cabeca

Dr. Anna Cabeca

Certified OB/GYN, Anti-Aging and Integrative Medicine expert and founder of The Girlfriend Doctor. During Dr. Anna’s health journey, she turned to research to create products to help thousands of women through menopause, hormones, and sexual health. She is the author of best-selling The Hormone Fix, and Keto-Green 16 and MenuPause.

Learn more about my scientific advisory board.