What we know so far about PE, its causes and its treatment

[spanky Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close spanky]

yeah cocaine's the same for me. Which is a kinda bitter irony 'cause it makes me horny and filthy as all hell at the same time. Ho hum.

I've taken a lot of mdma, alcohol counteracts the effect, makes every pill a "smacky" pill, but MDMA reliably kills my ability to cum, and it takes me a week plus to "recover" from one hit. And that's all serotonin, which doctors know, as some will prescribe SSRIs for it.

Now that does make serotonin balance interesting, as it's a normal part of homeostasis, something that we all have and something we all experience the effects of our levels changing, mood swings, positive mood, depression etc etc.

I'm not for a second saying that Prem E is all about serotonin, but from experience, it has a huge effect, and if we're not trained or ready for the influence, it can easily take over.

[andrewvi7 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close andrewvi7]

Think this definitely deserves a BUMP!

Gonna give 5-htp a try together with calcium, magnesium and zinc tablets...

Since my Pre E went from manageable to 'run away train' on me in a short space of time, it might be the chemical/hormonal imbalance after all. Won't forget the exercises either tho... Thanks again Spanky, definitely provided a lot of useful data here.

[Texas Cowboy Member Find all posts View Profile Close Texas Cowboy]

This is my 1000th post. I wanted to do something worthwhile with it, so I'm going to use it to try to consolidate everythng I know about premature ejaculation, and everything interesting we've discussed that has promise. As some of you know, I came here with a serious problem I couldn't get under control at all but thanks to certain members (you know who you are) and certain discussions, I'm a long way on the path to beating this affliction.

Introduction
I'll start with links to all the main threads of interest (to me at least) and give a little rundown as far as I can. I'm gonna come back to this as I pick more things out, so forgive me if I edit this OP, either to make it clearer or to expand on it. I think it'd be useful to a lot of members to see things in one place. Feel free to discuss on thread of course, and if this grows I'll post a reply to double up the info both here at the start, and later for those following.

What Causes Premature Ejaculation?
This is a difficult question to answer as there are many factors and many forms. I will come back to this in time. However, I believe my PE, and many others' (maybe the majority) is a manifestation of a combination of physical imbalance in the pelvic floor from weakness and neglect (perhaps other physiological conditions too) and one's psychological response to arousal. Not exclusively one or the other as there also seem to be other physical factors in play, but those do not seem to be apparent early on or in severe cases.



Now I also believe this is complicated as it seems that if one of those needs work but the other is in good condition, a premature condition can still result that is indistinguishable from the result of needing to work on both. This makes diagnosis and appropriate treatment remarkably difficult.

Learning Self-Awareness
So where do you start? well. Kegels and edging are most likely your first port of call. The following articles from PEGym's Exercises section (linked above) in case you haven't explored this part of the site yet are found in the Last Longer In Bed section, but I'll reproduce the links here anyway in case you're lazy.
Kegel Exercises for Men
Edging
Ballooning

I am a firm believer that the best thing you can do to start off is to learn about your body and to learn about your arousal response. Edging and Ballooning will help you with that, as these exercises necessarily keep you aroused and in the zone for longer, so you have time to learn about your body and arousal and gain sensitivity to subtle (and not-so-subtle) changes in sensation as your arousal escalates.

Minuteman's long and in depth log is a great place to start, as he chronicles his long and extraordinarily detailed journey to understand precisely that. https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...asmic-log.html - Now this is a long read, and Minuteman goes much further and through to MMO (male multiple orgasm) than you may want or need to, but his self awareness is second to none, and if you're a newcomer to the details of your body's arousal process, this is a must-read.

I truly believe the best thing you can do for your sex life is to take this trip and learn about the most subtle effects of arousal on your pelvic floor, your mind and your body. You can take that as far as you want, but you must start that journey. It will astound you. I cannot count the number of times I've been like "how did I miss that?". If you're anything like me, you might even recognise some things, but because you never took the time and interest, you never really noticed or responded to those things consciously. Now's your chance to start. It might seem like a lot to keep in mind now, but it will become automatic in time. As has been said countless times on forum... it's like riding a bike. You'll never lose these skills.

A recent addition from BiggD here - https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...-response.html - is NOT to be missed. It's a big one, but he's summed up a whole load of stuff I've mentioned and linked here, and he's presented it in a three week training course that you can't fail to progress from following. Check it out. I insist.

Peaking - (or advanced edging)
If you're interested in taking that further, I would strongly recommend seeking out Barbara Keesling's book "How to last longer in bed" where she outlines what she calls Peaking exercises. I think they may be her own creation since interestingly I just read a book of hers for women about heightening pleasure where she also recommends peaking exercises. Anyway, these aren't necessarily for beginners - not because they're bad, but because they're hard if you're not ready for them and that might put you off.

In brief, peaking exercises are like an advanced form of edging. They require you to be able to identify discrete levels of your arousal from 1-10 where 1 is not aroused at all, and 10 is the PONR (point of no return). You should then use stop/start edging and kegels as you become more familiar with how they affect your arousal to climb to a certain level, say a 7, and then drop down to say, a 4. The object is to creep up increasingly closer to your PONR and dropping down again without blowing. These exercises both build up your tolerance to higher levels of arousal, and they teach you acute awareness of your own sexual response.

I cannot recommend these exercises enough for honing your self awareness, something that is critical to any successful PreE treatment.

More Kegels
Now, moving on, though I probably need to say a little more here, the following threads expand more on kegels and their effects, and discuss different kegels you can do in more depth than the on-site article linked above
https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...c-balance.html and
https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...ness-junk.html



With the discussion out of the way, here's a post from Minuteman's log I linked above (and in his sig at the time of writing) on different kegel exercises you can do that is a great reference. Don't be disheartened if you can't do all of these immediately, some of these are quite advanced and require a high degree of practice and control.
Minuteman's Kegel Master List

Now you understand a little more about what's going on with your body and your pelvic floor, it's time for the good stuff.

Control

Reverse Kegels as a competing response (pe_Zen's method)
https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...aculation.html - start here. pe_ZEN's approach focuses on combating the muscle contractions that escalate your arousal and using a competing reponse to re-train your body to respond differently. You need to have gained some awareness of yourself and your body's responses to really make use of this approach, but it's part of the package you'll do well to have in your mind. This also relates to a thread I linked lower down about involuntary kegels and I mention some more about this there.

My thoughts today, some time after reading this the first time are that re-training your body is largely about taking control and exerting dominance over your responses. Your body exhibits involuntary muscle contractions of all kinds, but unlike your heartbeat for example, your pelvic floor should be entirely under your control, and involuntary responses there may as well be the same as having your arms or legs twitching. By forcibly taking over, you're telling your brain that these muscles are yours. not its.

I've started a new thread on this, about using alternating kegels to exert dominance by flooding your body with messages so it can't get a word in edgeways
https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...dging-sex.html

Now, you have some ideas, let's discuss a cutting edge insight that will help you on the path to understanding your body. If this helps and inspires you even a quarter of what it did me, you'll be well on the way.

Establishing Pelvic Floor Muscle balance
https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...ical-cure.html - this is Pegasus' fundamental insight into pelvic floor imbalance. Read this, along with the implications thread linked below. These two threads describe, to my mind, the fundamental root physical cause for ejaculatory dysfunction and conceptually gave me more hope for actually treating my long term premature ejaculation condition than anything I had read previously.

https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...lications.html - This is the daddy. Read the thread above for a simpler heads up on what Pegasus is talking about, and once you get that, come here and learn some more.

Involuntary Kegels
https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...ry-kegels.html - This was my main insight after exploring Pegasus' balance theory as above. I now believe that to address the physical, and any imbalance you may have, tackling involuntary kegels first is a must, and no amount of kegel exercises will really help until you beat these. It's like a first stage to asserting control over your body. Get rid of them. You have two approaches. pe_ZEN's method as linked above, where you counter the involutary with an RK, or Minuteman's method of taking over the involuntary with a 1-3 second kegel hold before it dies down on its own.

Psychological Factors
Drummer19 has put together a really nice post on arousal control here that you should read which is mostly related to the psychological side. In it he mentions both arousal scales, critical to peaking exercises mentioned above (which I must elaborate on) and coins a variation of ballooning to increase tolerance. Go check it out.



Extra Information
https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...race-cure.html - This is an interesting thread with a lot of ideas collected together. Some physical, some psychological. mechanicJT did a great job here. Minuteman addresses mechanics main indicators in reply #21 and goes on to provide a mountain of insight. If you have Pre-E, you should read this.

As a slight aside, some people talk about desensitisation, and this may be related to one's experience of delayed ejaculation also. I read about, and subsequently recognised the twenty minute effect, where after twenty minutes of stimulation, perhaps through fatigue, continued stimulation is no longer so intense and doesn't push you past PONR so brutally. More info here. https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...y-minutes.html - I recently had this happen after ejaculating, after an hour's continuous edging (didn't have to stop/start - so a wank really). I'm intrigued.




If you need inspiration, here's something I posted about 2 months after having found all the above.
https://www.pegym.com/forums/prematu...man-again.html

Good luck!

HOLY COW!!! THAT IS A LONG-4$$ READ!!!

This is quite interesting, very informative, and it aids in a lot of ways. I admit the read was quite overwhelming at first, but the information was worth it. It took me nearly 10 minutes to process and understand the information. However I still have more to read with what is on the links. The Great thing is that it piles a great amount of information and sources on the subject and it's treatments.

[daedal Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close daedal]

Breathing exercises also help, they give you a detached awareness of the body and give you a kind of 'internal space' to remain detached.