Poor sleeping quality due to frequent erections at night

I forgot to mention that bringing my knees to my chest also helps me. This makes me think there may be a spinal element but it is definitely related to sleep state too. REM for sure. The Baclofen has made it manageable for me. I hurt my low when I was younger too and did a lot of mountain biking with a bad/rock hard seat. My problem started after I got married about 6 months after taking finasteride.

Have not tried knees-to-chest specifically but sleeping on my side doesn't help generally. Haven't done any sack-cupping.

I should have mentioned spinal stenosis also. Wonder what the connection between R.E.M. sleep and stenosis is?

Rick in NH

Rick , you need to see urologist right away if you have pain when ejaculating.

My spec, have this issue for 2 years
44 years
High stress engineering job
Relatively fit
No changes in health
Experimented Backlefon 40 mg, no help. improvement in waking up since 2 years ago from 2-3 in night to only one , usually could not sleep after 530-600
Persistent low back pain
Normal quality of sex with my wife
have 2 kids
Only goes away when fully waken up with couple of deep breath.
Seen all kind of doctors , one of my Urologist told me he has another patient like me for years and told me to try Ativan(anti depressant) for relief(I didn't try) and told me basically I need to live with it because it will not go away.
Please write your spec for others and if you found any relife, it seems there is no help from doctors, we only can help each other this way.

Forgot to mention that about 20 years ago I damaged my tail bone (end of spine) when fall asleep in a bus , since then I am uncomfortable sitting for long time.

Going today...thx for the wake up call...my condition has progressed so slowly that I'm afraid I've become less aware of gradual changes that have, over time, aggregated to bigger and more profound changes. Will post any new takes by the urologist. Rick in NH.

Has anyone ever taken GABA pill supplment to help with sleep? I've ordered 500 mg from Amazon and will post results once I try it.

Went to urologist, who was rather disinterested and ultimately prescribed bactrim in case it was prostatits. Overall nice guy who was very candid about the limits of his single-discipline approach, although he is willing to read the peer-reviewed literature and refer accordingly. Losing hope that I'll ever find relief...ugh.

Rick in NH

Neff
I have found that the only time I don't have erections is when I sleep while sitting up. Is that the case for everyone else? I use to be able to sleep on my stomach with no erections but then that changed and once In a while if I sleep on my side cuffing my sack it helps, but nothing has been as effective as sleeping while sitting ( I have yet to take drugs for this complication). anyone else tried sleeping in a sit up position?

neff , how do you sleep sitting up? on a chair? how?
John

I sleep on my bed with my back resting against the head board. I put a pillow vertically behind my back to keep my back cushioned. Then I place a neck pillow (travel pillow) around my neck and just fall asleep. It will def work,it just depends on your patience with siting up.

Has anyone been a regular user of Baclofen and found that it continues to be helpful in the long term? I would love to be in a situation where I'm only waking up once or even twice a night. Right now I'm upwards of 4 times a night every night and it's rough. I've been hesitant to even suggest Baclofen after seeing many of you on here indicate it stopped working after a short time. Also, been doing more thinking about why my number of times awake spikes at different times fo the year. Being tired often leads me to heavy caffeine use and during those times it seems that I'm up more than when I have maybe a cup of coffee in the morning then abstain the rest of the day. Has anyone else found a connection with caffeine intake making this better/worse? Also, another thing I've been reading about lately is Pelvic Floor dysfunction. Somewhere along the way in my life I find that I became a "clencher" where either holding in my stomach or just keeping pelvic muscles tight unconsciously most of the day. I'm going to try some stretching of the pelvic floor and relaxation to see if that is helpful. I'm thinking the pelvic floor plays a role here knowing that standing and walking eases the erection and the move is changing the positioning of the pelvic muscles. When I first get up at night it almost feels like the erection is "stuck" and the only way to make it reverse is getting the flow of blood moving. Also is there anyone out there in the medical world that seems to be studying this topic in the US? I've been reading the literature but can't seem to find even one person. Just some musings and thoughts this morning. Hope folks are doing well.

John

My urologist initially prescribed a testosterone blocker, cyproterone acetate, which is terrible: stops the srpe, but causes menopausal symptoms: anxiety, hot and cold flushes, massive sweats, weight problems, and even breast growth. So i've cut that down from 100mg+ to only 20mg per night. Starting Baclofen was the only way i could do this - i'm currently taking around 30-40 mg per night, along with the 20mg of cyproterone, and seem to be able to sleep relatively interrupted. On your point about caffeine - i'm sure that's a factor. Anxiety and stress definitely play a role too. I've seen a few 'alternative' medical practicitioners, and they're all sure that stress/the adrenal glands/kidneys have a role to play.

I tried the baclofen route myself and no real luck. Worked for a week 10mg then I had to up it to 20mg. That worked for another 2-3 weeks and then stopped working. Urologist prescribed an antidepressant (the name escapes me) but after reading the side effects and cautions, my wife and I made a collective decision to toss that garbage in the trash. I'm not one to take meds to begin with so it doesn't take much for me to avoid them. Caffeine probably doesn't help but for those of us up all night, it's unfortunately the only way to survive the day without becoming meth addicts. You probably read the same article I did about the pelvic floor and retaining stress in that area. I'm also a clencher unconsciously so I have been trying for weeks to be conscious of it and relaxing all the time. It has made no difference which sucks. Urologist sent me to a hematologist because I have borderline thallessemia. He thinks this can have something to do with blood cells. I think he's full of sh*t and firing shots in the dark because every time I see him it's shoulder shrugs and more drugs.

MJ from NJ

Hi guys !

This thread is an amazing source of information. I read a big part of it, and learn many things about the problem I share with all of you.

I found some “creative” ways to make my problems nearly disappear. However my problem seems less serious that some of you (see description of my problem below). I hope it will help at least some of you.

My problem:
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I’m 35 years old, and every night since 1 year I wake up 2-3 time a night with an erection that won’t go until I do something about it. When I do, I not always get to fall asleep again. Even if I do, it generate gaps of sleep during the night, and I’m very tired the next day.

My erections are not painfull. I’m very hard, however the head is not. That’s why maybe. However it generate the feeling you want to do something about it.. you know what I mean ;) Most of the time, I can’t fall asleep when I realize I’m hard.

Where it come from:
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I got an hypothesis on the source of my problem. In my case, it probably came from drug taking. I’ve read multiple time in this forum, that this problem can appear when you mess with your dopamin / serotonin. I realized that the proble started approximately when I started to take Ritalin (mess with dopamin) the weekend nights for recreational purpose. I did take some time MDMA (serotonin), but not so often. I usually mix with lot of alcohol, and often ends the night with sleeping pills (benzodiazepin), cause those drugs makes you sleeping difficult. So many chemicals !

I discovered that FDA emitted a warning about Ritalin and priapism in 2013:
https://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm375796.htm
what the f**k...

From what I read, the problem could also seems to appear after taking some anti-depressant, or after stopping them. It’s not my case however.

All those fact leaded me to the conclusion that that messing with your brain with chemicals might clearly infer the problem. That’s also why I was looking for a solution that doesn’t imply any long term use of chemical. U can’t know if side effects will cause other problems to your brain.. How could I guess that Ritalin would have caused that to me ?

First solution - peeing:
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When I get hard during night, like many of you, I realized that going to toilet would solve the problem. The problem with that, is that it require you to be fully aware, it takes some time, and you expose yourself to light. Things that will wake me up completely. Sometime I can’t fall asleep again after doing that. Especially If I’m worried about sleeping.

Second solution - standing up:
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I’ve read somewhere that erection at night are provocated by the fact that your body is completely relaxed, and your vessels dilated. That’s also why you could get an erection when you’re dying.. So I quickly realized that’s not the fact of peeing that solves the problem. That’s the fact of standing up. When you stand up, gravity has an effect on your blood circulation system. Your heart must pump harder to make blood go up to your brain, and your vessels contract to react to higher blood pressure caused by gravity. This makes your erection disappear.

So a solution that works 100% for me, is to simply standup 1-3 min aside my bed.

To increase chance of easily falling asleep after that:
don’t switch lights on
do not open eyes during the whole operation
when you wait standing up, try to keep your brain state as close as sleep as possible. Relax, try to continue dreaming. You can just rest on your wall for example :)
That’s a little bit weird, especially if your partner cross your path at this moment ! But it solves the problem, at least for me ;)

Even if this is better that the first solution, sometime I still can’t fall asleep afterwards. But I still get better results than the first solution.

Third solution - vessels contraction only
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Based on my previous learnings, I was looking for a solution that would increase chance even more to fall asleep when erection is gone. I found another solution that worked for me, but not 100% of the time. I know that exposing your body to cold makes your vessels contract. I found this solution by chance one night. That night I slept naked. I woke up with an erection, and prepared myself to standup. I removed my cover to start the operation, but were too tired to continue. So I lied here a couple of minutes uncovered. I remember I felt a little bit chilly. Then suddently my erection went away. I realized that it works better if I expose more body surface. Try for example to open legs or things like that. Try different poses.

This solution works better in winter. I guess you’ll have to find other solutions for the summer :) maybe using a bed fan ?

This solution doesn’t allow to get rid of erections 100% of the time. But when it succeed, I very easily fall asleep after it. Like always, do not open eyes, and stay relaxed.

Fourth solution - penis block
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I found another technique based on the previous one that seems to works a little bit better. I have no idea why.

Once you’ve done previous solution and you’re uncovered and chilly, the idea is to block the blood feeding your penis for 30 sec, 1 min. Then when you let it come back, it seems you lose the erection quickly. It’s still under test (tried 2-3 time), but it seems very effective for me.

How to block the blood ? It requires you to be quite flexible. Cross your right thigh over the left one, then the second part of your right leg your go under your left leg. To help you hold it, you can use your right feed to “snap” it. Once you’re done, contract your thighs. At this point, you should feel your perinea completely strangled. Stay like this 1 min. When you release, the erection should go away quickly after.

Please share similar techniques
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Thanks to those techniques, my sleeping quality has been nearly restored. I’m nearly not tired the next day, and can have a normal day. That doesn’t work 100% of the time, but it is still an amazing improvement for me.

I’m still looking for improving those techniques. I’m very curious to know if they worked for you ! Please comment, let me know, share variant / improvement. And let’s try to avoid taking pills whose (possibly unknown yet) side effects will cause unexpected other problems and makes you regret even more.

Daedalus