Type II Diabetes, Low Carbing and Erectile Disfunction
 

Here is another subject I want to bring up and share my experiences for posterity. It seems to be an overlooked subject here on these forums.

I honestly do not know why I did not bring this up before, I should have as I have been trying to document all the changes I have noticed since I started trying to tackle my weight and my diabetes.

I noticed that from the time I was diagnosed with "pre" diabetes two years ago and discovering my A1C had shot up to over 10, I was experiencing symptoms of ED that were progressively getting worse. As I have mentioned before, my doctor put me on meds about 6 weeks ago and again suggested I could cure my diabetes with a low carb diet. I have had a lot of success and after my BG got down into the normal range, I had a very noticeable improvement in erectile function and was even having "morning wood" :)

About 10 days ago I discontinued my Metformin to see what would happen to my BG and to determine if I still needed it. My BG did go up - and then it continued to go up until night before last after dinner at 6pm my BG was 147 and was still 142 at 10pm before bed. Also my ED was back. As a result I restarted my Metformin that night, (Wednesday). Yesterday my BG was lower and today it's nearly normal again. 108 when I woke up, again with morning wood, and 101 after breakfast.

I just got to wondering if it was the lower BG or the Metformin and a google search revealed that Metformin is being used in some cases to treat ED! There are numerous articles on this, including a study that targeted men with insulin resistance who got better results than when just taking Viagra, Cialis etc:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22016348

I am not advocating anything here, just sharing my own experience and what I discovered.

I still hope at some point to be medication free but my experiment at this point revealed to me that I'm not there yet and have a ways to go. I may try again in another month or two.

Love that metformin! Thanks for sharing Bill.

Also its 5 cents a pill at WalMart instead of $10 a pill for Cialis, Viagra etc. which I do NOT use BTW.

I was watching a Robert Sapolsky video the other day, he mentioned a method for checking whether erectile dysfunction was a strictly mechanical problem. Postage stamps, applied judiciously, will show evidence of nocturnal tumescence.

Morning wood is actually a bit of a misnomer, the effect occurs anytime you enter REM sleep. I also experience this more often on a more ketogenic diet (more so than with a less ketogenic low carb diet), and also remember dreaming more often. So this might be evidence of improved sleep quality, as well.

again I can only say, thank you for sharing. To many of the women in or out of your lives do not realize your vulnerability in this area. Thankyou!!