How Acupuncture Helps with ED

In this series of quick articles, I'm reviewing the mental ED treatments so you can decide what approach is right for you. 

Today: Acupuncture. We'll talk about what the research shows and a little about my opinion.

Right up front, this one this one is different from the other approaches that I'm covering, in that it kind of overlaps the psychological and the physical. It's a physical treatment that doesn't directly address the thoughts and beliefs that can drive psychological ED.  But, the promise is that it can be effective with some guys who don't have any underlying physical causes for their ED.  

How Acupuncture Works as an ED Cure

Let's take a step back.  You probably already know that acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medical treatment.  It involves inserting thin needles into specific points on the body to stimulate the body’s natural healing processes and promote health and well-being.  According to the acupuncturists, it helps for ED by stimulating the chi energy of the kidneys.  Note that's Chinese medicine kidney energy, we're not talking about actually anything being wrong with your kidneys.  

Great news: the needles they use are pretty much painless and usually inserted into the feet and legs.  Your junk will not be pierced in the process of an acupuncture ED treatment.

Low kidney energy can be caused by a number of things, but STRESS and emotional PRESSURE are two of the big culprits.  So rather than trying to treat the stress and emotional pressure by addressing the thinking (the way a sex therapist or someone like me would), the acupuncturists are addressing the body's reaction to the stress.  Use acupuncture to build up some good strength in the body -> you're getting better erections - >the mind builds a stronger healthier stress reaction.  Then your ED goes away.   

That's how the acupuncturists explain it.  

Scientists have a guess about how explaining it more scientific terms:  they think the better erections result from the needles activating the central nervous system where the neurotransmitters that drive the release of nitric oxide and the neuropeptides involved in the process of erection.  But at this point, there's no actual proof for the theory I could find.

What we really want to know is how effective is acupuncture as a mental ED cure.

Research on Acupuncture as an ED Cure

To be clear, there's' not a lot of really good research here and the quality of the research isn't all great.  But there have been a few decent studies on acupuncture for erectile dysfunction. And the results are interesting.

In a 2012 study of 176 guys done at a hospital in Yunnan China, they found that acupuncture combined with a regimen of Chinese herbs resulted in almost 50% of the guys treated having a full recovery from their ED.  Note that the numbers weren't as good with acupuncture or herbs alone. It was the combination that got the really strong results.  Also note that all patients got some psychological counseling along with the herbs and needles, so that blurs things a bit.

A 2013 study in Austria showed that in a study of 20 guys with psychological ED, 2/3 of them  were "achieving satisfactory erections"  with acupuncture treatment.  A little blurry there, too, though.  Those guys were getting a small dose of Viagra along with the needling.

There's also a 1997 Turkish study that gets cited a lot.  60 patients suffering from mental ED, the guys were treated with acupuncture for 6 weeks. The result showed that 60% patients of the treatment group were satisfied with sexual activity after acupuncture therapy.  The thing there is I could find a lot of references to that study, but I couldn't find the study itself.  So still a little blurry.

Sounds at least ok so far, but It gets a little murkier with the meta-studies.   Meta-studies—that’s where researchers analyze results from multiple studies to draw bigger conclusions.  In the studies they looked at, they thought the numbers were too small, there was a high risk of bias, and like I said, often other treatments were done along with the acupuncture.  The best meta study I could find concluded: "Low quality evidence shows beneficial effects of acupuncture as adjunctive treatment for people mainly with psychogenic ED. The findings should be confirmed in large, rigorously designed and well-reported trials."

So not terrible, clearly they're saying that studies are showing benefits for guys with mental ED.  Just that the evidence isn't great.

My Opinion about Acupuncture as an ED Cure

My take? For acupuncture, honestly, beyond what I just talked about, I don't have an informed opinion.  I don't think I've ever had a client who tried it and I've never known anyone personally who's done it for ED.  Sounds to me like it might be worth a try, especially if you're combining it with therapy or a Viagra-type drug.