For men with Peyronie’s disease—a
condition that causes the penis to have an irregular curvature in the
shaft—maintaining a great sex life is next to impossible. But a new
treatment method to alleviate pain may be on the horizon.
Researchers ran two clinical trials in which they injected the drug Xiaflex into men’s shafts with the hopes that it would soften scar tissue and reduce the curvature of the penis. And after roughly a year of treatment, 67 percent of the men saw improvement post-Xiaflex. In fact, in the first trial, the average curvature for men treated with Xiaflex dropped more than 17 degrees in a year.
The drug is currently awaiting approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which may not reach a decision until the end of 2012. But why should you care now? Because your prized possession may be at risk, too. (But for easy ways to protect your manhood, check out the Testosterone Transformation.)
Peyronie’s disease affects 8 to 10 percent of men around the age of 40 in the United States, but the typical age of onset is in the early 50s, says Culley C. Carson III, M.D., an investigator in the trial and a professor of urology at the University of North Carolina.
“I’ll often see patients who think they have some type of cancer, but really it’s just an undiagnosed case of Peyronie’s disease,” says Dr. Carson.
And what’s more, between 65,000 and 120,000 guys are diagnosed with Peyronie’s disease every year in the United States, according to a report from Auxilium, the maker of Xiaflex.
But don’t freak out about your junk just yet. Here are all the facts you need to know about the condition.
What causes the curve? Peyronie’s occurs due to a plaque that builds up in your penis, says Dr. Carson. It typically starts out as a localized inflammation, which then progresses to hardened scar tissue that reduces flexibility and causes your penis to bend during erection. “Peyronie’s disease can often result from an injury during sex,” Dr. Carson says. But realistically, anything that causes vascular trauma or injury to the penis, such as athletic activity or an accident, can receive the blame, he says.
How does it affect your package? Once the scar tissue begins to harden into a plaque, the tissue tethers the shaft into a curved position, because that section is no longer as elastic as the rest of the penis. “The curve can be anything from minimal up to almost 90 degrees,” says Dr. Carson. “The [penises] that usually need treatment have 30 degrees or more of curvature."
Can it screw up your sex life? You bet. Things start getting painful when your penis becomes erect, making sex more difficult for you and your partner, says Dr. Carson. But the pain associated with an erection usually only lasts for the first 4 to 6 months. So most men can continue sex, but it’s just not as pleasurable, says Dr. Carson. (Read about another devastating disease that kills your sex life: The Orgasm Flu.)
What are the current treatment options? Unfortunately, there are no approved oral medications that actually work, Dr. Carson says. Patients are usually put on Potaba, a drug that reached the market before the FDA required proof of effectiveness. “When oral treatments don’t work, which they usually don’t, docs recommend Interferon, another injected treatment,” says Dr. Carson. But again, Interferon can’t guarantee a cure.
Case in point: One study, published in the journal European Urology, found that after treating 25 Peyronie's partients with injections for five weeks, researchers saw a 28 percent decrease in the size of the plaque. Yet when the same researchers conducted the study 2 years later on a group of 30 men, no decrease in plaque size was reported.
If the docs exhaust every other option (and the case is extreme enough), surgery is a last resort. “There are three basic operations that we do: Two are based on just straightening the penis, and the third is a penile implant,” says Dr. Carson. But again, he pegs surgery at a 75 percent success rate, and each option may lead to erectile dysfunction and shortening of the penis.
Source:http://goo.gl/O29d6Z
