Poor sleeping quality due to frequent erections at night

MJ from NJ update:
MRI results were negative. No damage to the area. Two weeks ago, Dr put me on 20mg of baclofen at bedtime and it seems to be doing the trick right now. Last night I didn't get out of bed once!

Anybody have an update? How are you all doing? Anything helping?

Eugene here....

Sorry for my absense. I just checked my email

_[removed]_ which you guys have been writing to.

Several people have emailed me recently for the questionnaire. Steadyhealth gave me permission several months ago to post this email address to gather information on this problem. So, if you are reading Monitors, please check back several months ago.

Please write to me to get the questionnaire so that we can have more people giving us information.

So far from the questionnaires, for which I have about 10, there is no obvious smoking gun (no pun intended), only that urination is the common way that guys get these erections to go away. They wake up pee and it subsides. Other people have other tricks that only occasionally seem to work, strange positions, walking around for a while etc. Urination is the effective way it seems. I am not sure why. Is it a mechanical trigger of release or blood from the erection or a neoroligical trigger?

There does not seem to be a key medication involved that precipitated the problems.

Men are of all ages from in their 20s to 60s. From all over the world. And some men report up to ten events per night. It would be interesting to know if these men experience REM sleep more than the other men?

Just to give you an update on my situation. I still have SRPE which I have had for two years. I am 50. For the first year I was having from 4 to 6 events. I took baclofen and it helped for a month, but then I needed to take more until I was taking 60mg. I found it became inneffective fast. So, I decided not to take it anymore and went cold turkey off it, with no withdrawal effects.

I started to write down the times at night that I would wake up with a SRPE erection. Sometimes 4 times, other nights 5 and up to 6, I did this for two months and for some reason the events went down to 2 or even 1 event per night. Now I would say two events per night is the usual and thsy always happen in the early hours of the moroning. I think I mostly dream in theearly morning. I wake up and urinate and jump right back in bed.

I have learned to accept this problem as just a part of my life, and perhaps that has helped me. I know I am an anxious person worrying about many things, including my health, but I have learned to not worry about this. And, quite possibly it has helped.

If you have any further questions please be in touch with me.

Eugene thanks for the update

Like Eugene, I have found acceptance seems to help. After visiting several doctors, I no longer worry about the symptoms so much. Just get up, pee, return to bed and sleep. There must be some relation to anxiety because now I only suffer one or two incidents per night too. The only remaining problem for me is the angle at which my penis bends upward during the incidents, meaning the only way to urinate is to sit down and lean forwards to angle it down into the pan. Regular elections aren't so bad.

Rezz

* erections! Damn autocorrect...

Thanks Rezz. I had a very similar feeling: accepting the problem may actually improve it to some degree. Anxiety about the problem may exacerbate it.

I agree that it is awkward to position oneself on the toilet with an erect penis, BUT it can be done! And in fact, the erect penis prevents urination, so it must subside just a little bit before the flow can start. I run water a bit, and squeezing the sides of the penis between opposed finger and thumb in a repeated fashion helps the flow to begin.

Eugene

Hey guys, I am 50 and also suffer from this condition. Always been healthy, workout regularly, eat healthy for the most part. I have talked to a few friends regarding this also. Has anyone mentioned the visual effects of viewing porn? Quite possibly the images can fill your night time dreams causing this. Does anyone have a take on this?

I too have the same discomfort in the bladder. I have suffered from this for at least 25 years. I vary 2 - 6 times a night. often every hour from 3:00am on.
TG from MN.

Begood,

It' not sexual. Nothing to do with sexual imagery so just stop with that nonsense. It's an autonomic thing. All men get erections during rem sleep regardless of what they are dreaming of. I believe ssris and finasteride may damage the autonomic nervous system and open the door to this.

Did you have an Tinnitus with the lack of good sleep? I do as well as the erections throughout the night. I think it has to do with stress (I was living in house I rented which eventually had mold issue and landlord never bothered to come by when I mentioned woodpecker issue. A year later when I couldn't sleep, breath well at night I went into doctor & requested catscan as I thought maybe I had giant tumor in head from ringing. They came back & said everything is fine. I said; Everything cannot be fine. I feel like c**p. Doctor said; Maybe you have allergies. I said; Yes, cat hair and dust. I keep the place immaculate and there is no cat. He said; What about mold? And I immediately thought of woodpecker from prior year. I went directly home and walked around to the side of the house that I had originally heard the bird (woods side of house). The place looked like somebody took a machine gun to it. I followed the holes to the inside of the garage & w/a flashlight spotted all the BLACK MOLD where the wall met the ceiling (next to the living room area). I threw maybe 10 essentials into my car and drove out of the home I had lived most of my adult life in (17 years). I found a hotel about 15 miles up the road and sat in a small room for the next 6 months (May thru mid Oct at almost $500/week) before I moved 40 miles south into an apartment complex for the first time in my life. It was like going to a University and showing up half way thru a semester as I knew no one of the 323 apartments. My Mom, who I spoke with everyday for about 1 hour (since 2002), passed away in January. I went for a sleep study and was told I had a touch of sleep apnea. I got the CPAP machine and found it gave early help (or maybe I calmed down a little thinking I would have a break from all the stress), but lately - 9 months later I do not feel I am getting much from it. I can add that the erection thing started at the hotel, but I seemed to walk it off and get back to sleep ok. It always seemed to start at the 4 hour mark. I thought this was because that is usually when REM sleep starts. The bad thing is I think my body is adapting. Meaning, I went to bed one night in particular and noticed the clock read 1:30am. I had this dream and awoke and it felt like I wasn't asleep that long, so I looked at the clock. It read 1:38am!!!! I couldn't believe it. I jumped right into REM sleep. Same thing with the erections. They are really supposed to happen during REM sleep. Well, I used to sleep 6-7 hours and never wake up in the night. Now, over the last 1+ years, I wake up almost like a clock 4 hours into any night's sleep with a full blown erection, I have to get up and walk it off, because otherwise the erection just stays. So, I will walk for about 1-2 minutes and each 30 secs that goes by wakes me more and makes it harder to get back to sleep. Here's the thing, I will go back to sleep and wake 10 mins to 60 mins later with another erection. Question: I think it could have something to do with one's back. I have had to go to a massage therpist on and off for the last year as my upper and lower back have been knotting up ALOT.

Mark

John here. I've been suffering for about 3 years. Same issue as everyone else. 4 hrs sleep then up several times till morning. Just had a really bad night last night and as I think about the difference in what I did the day before the only culprit is food that causes me a lot of gas. Seems like the more intestinal gas I have going to sleep the worse it is. I've actually found improvement every so often by taking an antigas pill before Bed.

It's been about a month since I've been taking the 20mg of baclofen every night and I'm now back to where I started. 2am rolls around and I'm up every hour putting an ice pack on my jewels. Accepting this as our new norm cannot be the answer. I contacted Eugene for the questionnaire and Im awaiting response. I hope I can help in any way possible to find a solution to this condition, and I hope you feel the same. No one (except those of us with symptoms) is going to take this seriously enough to do anything about it. There'll be no SRPE awareness days. No PSAs. No donation pages. This thread was not easy to find, so if you're posting on and/or reading this thread, SRPE is obviously affecting your life enough to try to find answers. Let's pool our resources and maybe we can get the answers that we seek. Happy and healthy new year to all.

MJ from NJ

If you have answers/concerns, by all means, speak up.

If you're soliciting, beat it.

Hello guys. The holidays had me out of my chair (work) and things pretty much resolved. It took 2 weeks of only working 2 days. I have always felt like chair sitting for me exacerbates this condition. Also of course there was less work. I have been taking my 20mg a night of Baclofen. I also got really sick and did not sleep well for 3 days (severe cough and fever). Anyway I broke the cycle and it paid off as I always knew it would. Problem is I need to work and can't quit just to make this issue go away.