The Solution Episode 52

Erectile Dysfunction: Part 1.
Craig, Greg and Josh discuss the silent struggle with erectile dysfunction that many face, revealing how stress and hormonal imbalances intertwine with our overall well-being.  The episode digs deep into the root causes of ED, from the harmful effects of cortisol on our weight and hormones to the critical importance of diet and self-talk, exposing the flaws in the quick-fix mentality that too often dominates Western medicine.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:32

Champion bachelors Craig and Greg present a myriad of topics centering on relationships and addictions in the positive lights of experience, strength and hope. Both have struggled with the strongholds of addiction and with relationships that went awry, and both have emerged on the other side stronger, wiser and better prepared to become what they once set out to be. You're listening to the solution.

Speaker 2 1:05

Welcome to the solution. I'm your host, craig Dahlin, sitting here with my co-host, greg Carter and Josh Goading, and we're getting ready to have us a heck of a show tonight, and so welcome, men.

Speaker 3 1:18

Welcome, hello, yeah, welcome.

Speaker 2 1:20

We're having a great show tonight. We're going to be talking about ED. It's not ed, but it's ED erectile dysfunction. It's ED is in the house.

Speaker 3 1:31

God, I hope not.

Speaker 2 1:31

We hope not, hey Well.

Speaker 1 1:32

Show on the door. Show on the door. That's what she said.

Speaker 2 1:40

Well we got three guys in a building. We don't I'm not really checking out ED, but yeah, but we're going to be talking about ED tonight, solution people, and this is going to be a good one. So, guys, let's just start this right off. We're going to, we're going to make this a two part show. You know, we were talking about this earlier and we looked at all the info on it and we thought, hey, man, we got, we got two shows here, possibly three, but we're going to bust it down into two. So we're going to talk tonight about when it starts, when you notice that erectile dysfunction hit you, and then we're going to talk about, well, basically, what happens after that. A little bit. It's about a four part deal. We're going to hit about two parts tonight of it, but there's a lot of info. There's a lot of info. So we're going to talk slow, we're going to, we're going to. We're going to go over these points two, three, four times, because I think they're that important and I think the rectile dysfunction is something that's really set into our culture, it's really taken hold and it's not good, you know, and there's reasons why this is happening and Western medicine says well, the answer is in a little blue pill, or it's in a pill. Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

Speaker 2 3:04

I do know, though, that it starts with low testosterone. They say Of course, I believe that. But how does the low testosterone get there? You know, there's various ways they're going to say one way they're going to say well, as you age it says in the books as you age, you get you. Obviously you do you start to develop low testosterone levels. They just say as you age. Well, there's many of other schools of thought too. They say that does not have to be that way. Okay. Then they'll say well, how do you keep up your testosterone levels? How do you keep them high? Well, us three guys hit sitting here right here, we know a little something more than that, and others do too, but I'm just saying I think the answer, I think the answer is possibly it's not about testosterone levels, but it's about do we have too much cortisol in our body? You know how's cortisol made, guys.

Speaker 3 4:16

Stress that's the first thing that comes to mind. Stress, yeah, and that's a fat. When your cortisol levels raise, that's a fat producing hormone. A lot of people don't know that cortisol is a fat producing hormone. See somebody sit around stressed, walking on eggshells for a period of time. During that period of time, they're probably going to gain some weight, gain a few pounds.

Speaker 2 4:40

Yeah, Right, you know, and the reason for being and it was I was developed a long time ago when a person got stressed if they were being attacked by a wild animal.

Speaker 3 4:51

Yes.

Speaker 2 4:53

You, your body, to respond to that stress, to protect the body. This is there as a protection. Actually, cortisol is yeah, so it didn't start as an enemy and it doesn't have to be an enemy if we learn how to handle our stress levels Right. We've kind of gotten away from that. Yes, and that's. That's a bad thing when you get away from handling your stress levels, because I mean, you know, we're all just like one big Mac away from you know whatever killing over, you know you know, the big thing is is is is our diet in the United States.

Speaker 2 5:33

It's not the best, poor diet.

Speaker 1 5:36

Poor diet. I'm only medically obese.

Speaker 2 5:39

Yeah, but you know, there's technically yeah and there's, you know, there's these cities. There's just so much going on. You well, you look at the media, you look at television. What do they try to pump at us? You know, crime, crime, crime, death, death, death. All this stuff, what does it do? It raises everybody's stress levels.

Speaker 3 5:57

Yes.

Speaker 2 5:58

Resulting in everybody having too much cortisol in their body, which, in men, it lowers their testosterone level. Now, men have testosterone and we have estrogen. Women have testosterone and they have estrogen, but it just happens to be they have. They have a lot more estrogen than they do testosterone. We have a lot more testosterone than we, than we do estrogen, and if we're at the correct levels, we have 10 times more testosterone in us than a woman does, and a woman has 10 times more estrogen in them than a man does. Just to give you an idea a little illustration there.

Speaker 2 6:36

So that's what we're looking at. I don't think we're looking at a this epidemic where the testosterone is getting wiped out. I think we're looking at a situation where the um Cortisol levels are just driving too high because of stress. Yes, the end result is a call a limp rhymes with ick you know right, okay, yep Flaccid. That's a way Flaccid yeah that's okay.

Speaker 3 7:09

Flaccid, that's probably better way, not like flaccid, flaccid. Flaccid, that's probably a better way of putting it.

Speaker 1 7:15

It is, but unable to enlarge, yeah.

Speaker 2 7:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 7:23

Unable.

Speaker 2 7:24

And well, let's Greg talk about. You know one of the solutions to this in Cedar Rapids.

Speaker 3 7:31

Oh yes, there's a clinic up there. What they do. They do laser techniques where they go around, you know, treating the outside of your organ, the male organ, with shots of laser and it's supposed to break up the, like, the little plaque that's inside the blood vessels and veins inside a man's genitalia, you know, yeah, and that'll promote more blood flow because, like, like are the rest of our veins and arteries, that can clog with plaque. Yep, that can clog with plaque down below too. Absolutely yes.

Speaker 2 8:07

Yeah, there's an instrument called the Phoenix. That's been advertised for what? A year or two, or three, I don't know, yeah, yeah, I've heard of it, that's something you can use on your apparatus too, and it blows out the pipes, yeah, you know. And safe, wow. Well, that's actually something you can buy and use at home.

Speaker 3 8:26

Yeah, it'd have to be safe.

Speaker 2 8:27

Yes, so, and it really has some, just a many many good reviews, Just imagine loose plaque being on the move and going into your heart there, I don't know. Well, I don't know how all that works, totally.

Speaker 1 8:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2 8:44

But hey, at least you wouldn't have ED. Yeah, you don't have to worry about that, right.

Speaker 1 8:55

Right, you die doing what you love.

Speaker 2 8:58

Yeah, yep, you're cleared for takeoff, but I mean you know, right there, that sounds like a real, real possible solution. It does.

Speaker 3 9:09

It does.

Speaker 1 9:10

Shoot it with a laser. This is the future. Yeah, oops.

Speaker 2 9:14

And blew it off. Yeah, and also exercise. Yes, you can reverse a lot of that stuff. You know you can. Just a good old cardio workout, you know, every, every, whatever other day for a good bit of time, and you're going to lose some weight. Your body's going to get much better. Things start to react better.

Speaker 3 9:36

Yes.

Speaker 2 9:37

You know what are some other ideas? Because I think we're right now. We're working off the premise that cortisol is just it's too high, yes, in our bodies, and what that does is, when we get stressed, that hormone cortisol is released into our body and we get too high levels of that. That's not good. No, it raises, you know, we end up gaining weight, among other things, and it's just not good. But I think that is possibly the million dollar word here. I know this whole subject, this whole conversation, has some famous words in it, and to those words that are famous within this conversation to me are obviously ED and testosterone. It's cortisol. Cortisol is a big, big word in this conversation. Yes, there'll be some more coming out and we'll point them out, but we're all about getting to the bottom of it, because, you know, some people shy away from him. The thing that I noticed that's been shyed away of the most of and I don't want to sound like I'm beating my drum, but the words have been shyed away the most from his cortisol.

Speaker 3 10:53

Yes, you're very subtle when we're brought up.

Speaker 2 10:57

You don't do you.

Speaker 3 10:58

No, no, no. You just hear lifestyle change. You know you'd never hear why you make the lifestyle change.

Speaker 2 11:07

Yeah.

Speaker 3 11:07

To help lower the cortisol, because, as a result of the high cortisol, you know, there's all kinds of psychological factors. One would be, obviously, relationship problems that affects intimacy and that would make you a little depressed. You know, right, that's one of them that lowers your self-esteem. Right, that would be one that would affect your, you know, erections, ability to get erections After a while you're going to start feeling guilty because you're going to remember your past performances or not being able to perform in difference, you know, usually deals with your, you or your partner's disinterest. That stage fright, you know, reluctant to initiate sexual contact, because that's very important too, the initial to initiate the sexual contact. You know what I mean. It's stage fright they call that.

Speaker 3 12:06

Yeah, yeah. That'd be stage fright Like, oh my God, I'm going to take my clothes off. And for what Is it going to?

Speaker 1 12:14

work this time or not.

Speaker 3 12:15

Right, right, I mean, yeah, it's crazy. So all that together creates stress, which happens to be one of the symptoms of psychological causes of ED. But all of those that I just read stresses the grandfather of them all, right, yeah, because that the godfather, because that's all of those will in a turn create stress, right, right. And then that's not even a mention of pornography addiction, because, like that, right there there's, you know, courses, as mentioned earlier we talked about that in another show causes, unrealistic expectations about sex itself or sexual partners.

Speaker 3 12:55

You know, yeah, that's like a guy that I knew several years ago. He's no longer with us, but he would always go to the strip tease clubs and, in effect, is dating, you know he. He went to some high-end strip tease club and so he would compare all the ladies he would date With how these high-end girls would look like. And it was. They just don't really look good. And I had to tell him. I said you're, you're dating, you're looking to somebody to date. You'll want to Date somebody who looks like a dancer and prances around like a dancer. You know that, you know, sort of messes up a lot of things.

Speaker 2 13:32

Yeah, he couldn't figure that one out. No, no, he couldn't figure that out?

Speaker 3 13:35

No, and of course the usual.

Speaker 1 13:38

I think this girl likes me.

Speaker 3 13:39

Yeah, I think this answer likes me keep whipping out the money. She's gonna like you all right.

Speaker 2 13:43

Yeah, she was smiling at him yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 13:49

She definitely loves you, yes.

Speaker 2 13:50

Yeah, she definitely cares, right, yeah, oh yeah, it's a great place to go to pick up chicks. I Know they love you when they look at you and smile.

Factors That Impact Sexual Function

Speaker 1 14:11

You stayed with us this far and that shows commitment, proving you possess the trait required to obtain the solution. Now let's rejoin the show already in progress. Obviously, right now this function isn't really important issue to people because, you know us. It can undermine Intimate connections and makes people think the person doesn't love them or that they're, you know, no longer Right viable as a couple, or so it's. It's deep, you know emotion, it's emotional issue. Touchy, a touchy issue.

Speaker 2 14:47

Yes, and it's one that can really pull somebody down the rabbit hole to can it? Yes, if you're not honest about it right away, because, heck, it's probably just there's, there's solutions to it, you know.

Speaker 1 15:02

But I think it can often be a symptom of an emotional dysfunction. So, yeah, we're saying, when there's problems in the relationship, then it can. It can be symbolized or it can come up as that, as as a rectangle, this function. That's just sort of like one warning sign. Let's say right of of you know maybe some resolved issues in the relationship where, if you're so so, a emotional blockage translates into a Blockage of sexuality. So we it's all kind of interrelated, I think.

Speaker 2 15:34

I Agree a hundred percent. I mean what? What if you have a bad mindset about things in life? I Mean every these thought, the thoughts that come into our mind and leave. They're going directly, they're going to or through our body, and they're you mean, that's the way we talk to ourselves, the way we do different things. I mean our body takes these things on.

Speaker 3 15:57

Yes.

Speaker 2 15:59

I would think diet plays a big, big part. Oh god.

Speaker 3 16:01

Yeah, so much that what they talk about the high fruit toast corn syrup, a lot of foods have that in the oh Nasty stuff.

Speaker 2 16:10

Yeah, well, yeah, and I was talking about that earlier the the Metabox syndrome it's. Yeah, you know that that when high fruit toast corn syrup came into being in the United States, it was the mid 60s and and then at the same time, well, after World War two, you know, they did all of the preservatives and on the meals that they would send around everybody in the World War two. And then that's the pre-packaged stuff, that's the meals ready to eat. Yeah, the meals ready to eat, very ready to throw in the microwave. They are full of nasty stuff that preserves them. Yes, you know, and there the grocery stores are full of that stuff. Yes, and that's what's going into our body and you know how you can imagine what that's doing to people.

Speaker 1 16:51

Yeah, chickens are coming home to roost my late.

Speaker 3 16:55

My late mother she used to like watching that show. The biggest loser, yeah, and it was really funny, because this guy was went into this Potential clients house on the show because here I can look through your coverage. I need to get rid of some food and he's just started grabbing. You could hear cellophane crunching. He goes why are you throwing all this away? You're not even looking at it. He goes if it's in a package, if it's in cellophane or plastic bag, he goes there's loaded with preservatives. We're getting rid of that. I already know that. Yeah, it just started taking them and throwing them away.

Speaker 3 17:25

Yeah, and I thought that was so funny that he didn't have to look at it. He already knew it was bad because it was packaged. He knew package.

Speaker 2 17:32

Yeah, he knew. Yeah, if somebody would just go on, you know you could take your. If you would just go on a nice salad, grit some green salad, some green lettuce, some nice green lettuce, and chop up a carrot in there, throw the onion, whatever you want to do, tomato, whatever. If you just did that, you like, you know, half of the week. Yeah, because of the amazing change it has on the body.

Speaker 3 17:59

Yes.

Speaker 2 18:00

Amazing, and they're so. Our bodies can change really quick if it gets fed the right stuff.

Speaker 3 18:06

Yeah, and even frozen vegetables won't lose its nutrients. It keeps the majority of my thing done this kick lately to where? But is it? Birds eye makes it there's a have these small bags of mixed vegetables that you can microwave it right in the bag.

Speaker 2 18:23

Yeah.

Speaker 3 18:24

Which is very handy you can just microwave it, so sometimes that's my meals.

Speaker 2 18:28

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, you're right, I mean frozen vegetables. We can. There's all that. There's a good access we have to getting the good food. We just have to. Our problem is, well, I can speak of my problem once in a while. You know you, this is a good idea to eat what you, what you should eat before you eat what you want to eat, right? Yeah Well, I quite, quite often will reverse that around I'll eat what I want to eat before I eat what I should eat. But by the time I get to what I, what I should eat, I'm full of eating what I want to eat.

Speaker 2 19:02

Yeah, and that's bad, that's a bad move.

Speaker 3 19:04

Yeah, yeah, I hear you eat my salad at the end of the meal.

Speaker 2 19:07

Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 19:08

I told my mom ago well, the salad will help clean you out. And actually one of the European countries, that's their tradition to serve the salad at the end of the meal for their last.

Speaker 2 19:16

Really, yeah, for that reason, for that reason, that's neat, yeah, so you start off with dessert then.

Speaker 3 19:23

It'd be nice, wouldn't it? Yeah, that's a good point, yeah.

Speaker 2 19:30

But yeah, but you know I, everything's down there, right there, it's at the middle of yours. Well, it's at your waist. I mean, if you here's what you do, here's some good exercises that are great to do. They call them Kegels.

Speaker 3 19:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2 19:45

You know we're sit ups, do just, you'll get the fire burning in the belly. Yeah, if you get the fire burning in the belly, work your core and lose some weight down there. If a person does that, they're probably going to be good to go. They're going to be a long way and go in and help in themselves.

Speaker 1 20:02

Yes, what are the Kegels have to do with?

Speaker 2 20:06

the Kegels. They're. They're an exercise you do and it's in direct. You're exercising that area there, getting those muscles down there working, and we're going to that way. But I think that it's an easy thing to do. Maybe just to you know, buy the pills. But what I'm saying is I go out and buy the pills if you want, but be ready to just be working on the other things at the same time. It's not cheap right?

Speaker 2 20:38

No, and you can wean yourself off of the pills and then, before you know it, you know, the unit is ready to roll. Yeah, and mom and mom is happy.

Speaker 3 20:49

Yeah, I want to rock rock rock. Yeah, I want to rock rock.

Speaker 1 20:56

Yeah.

Speaker 3 20:57

You know.

Speaker 2 20:58

So yeah, man.

Speaker 1 20:59

So reducing stress, is that the?

Speaker 2 21:01

idea to reduce stress Just overall. You know, if you reduce, stress is brought on and then, once stress is brought on, then you get the cortisol, and cortisol is a big. It will kind of wipe out your testosterone level yeah, it will. And people nowadays there's a lot of people they'll stress and they'll stay stressing. Now, like during, maybe, covid, that was a lot of stress. Who was throwing that stress at us TV News? Oh yeah, they had people there was. So people were dumping down a lot of cortisol.

Speaker 3 21:37

Yes.

Speaker 2 21:37

And you know that's. It's just, it's crazy what they do.

Speaker 1 21:42

Yeah, drug use alcohol use and drug addiction. That can be a big part of the work that was functioned to.

Speaker 2 21:48

Oh, absolutely so, addiction addiction. Now you're, right.

Speaker 1 21:52

That's the Shakespeare said. You know, it increases the desire but decreases the ability, or something like that. Yeah, meaning alcohol.

Speaker 3 22:01

No, you're right. Hard on the circulation too. Yeah yeah, party, and it is just regular partying is hard on the circulation.

Speaker 2 22:08

I see it is, and that's why a good exercise, a good cardio exercise, is great for your circulation Right.

Speaker 3 22:16

Yeah yeah. Sit in a sauna bath or a steam room once in a while, if you have access to one. Yeah yeah. Sweat the murals out, yeah yeah. Yeah absolutely yeah, drink some beetroot juice right.

Speaker 2 22:28

Hey, I'm a big advocate for that. I am too. You get the powder.

Speaker 3 22:35

You get the you can get a powder mix. You can get a powder mix.

Speaker 2 22:37

actually has some flavor, yeah, yeah but I think, yeah, just kind of live your life in a mindset of that, I'm going to try to control my anxieties. Yeah, you know that way, to try to control the cortisol that gets down.

Speaker 1 22:55

So just give up, women. I think it's the best way to give up women.

Speaker 3 23:03

Can't do that, right, yeah, can't do that.

Speaker 2 23:06

Listener, we thank you for being here with us and be ready for the next one? For sure, Because we're going to be locked and loaded on that one and we're going to be talking more about ED. So with that I say good night, fellas. It's been great talking.

Speaker 3 23:23

Great talking. Good night, y'all Good night.

Speaker 1 23:30

This concludes this episode of the Solution. Thanks for joining us and be sure to check out our next episode. Send your questions and comments to Craig2042 at gmailcom. Be sure to subscribe to the Solution so you can be notified the moment the next exciting episode is ready for you to listen to, and please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast player.