Confused about erection "issues"

To make a long story short, I had a heavy porn addiction ever since early childhood. I ended up finding Thunder’s place and this site: at the same time (late December ‘11/early January’12).

I basically quit porn completely and started doing PE (Linear Newbie Routine) at the same time. I haven’t watched any porn since December ‘11 and don’t intend to go back, ever, and the introduction of PE improved the quality of my erections, made me go from no night/morning wood to multiple night wood and morning wood, the first appearance of veins at the base of my penis, and so on. So many improvements from both quitting porn and introducing PE into my life.

But the issue I’m having is that despite multiple night wood, morning wood, and improved EQ, I still can’t achieve a 100% erection. If I get an erection standing up, it’s pretty good but not 100% unless I jelq to a 100% erection and the erections I get laying down (from night/morning wood) isn’t 100% either. I also notice that my erections laying down aren’t that great (the blood in my penis does all it can to flow right back down).

I’m just confused because the folks at Thunder’s who’ve gotten positive PIs from PEing report “raging-hard” erections at night, in the morning, and at random.

Is it because my brain hasn’t completely gotten unhooked from porn and the dopamine levels haven’t reset or is it because I’m undertraining (I’m by no means overtraining; I always keep track of the PIs)?

How’s your general health? Overweight? Smoke cigarettes?

Never smoked, never will. Never drank, never will. Pretty active (have been heavy lifting for a year now, do occassional cardio), about 15-20lbs overweight (6’0”, 186lbs). I only have coffee three times a week, I eat whole foods (no junk food and no fast food), and I get great sleep every night.

Sounds like you are good and healthy and take damn good care of yourself! Congrats.

I wonder if it is not a performance anxiety issue? That is, you are so worried that you won’t get 100% hard that your worries won’t allow you to get 100% hard. Basically you can’t get into the moment and relax enough to get a hard on. So you get caught up in this unhealthy loop.

So you are observing and judging yourself like a spectator at a basketball game. Rather than having your head in the game.

sparkyx has a pretty good article on this. If you get a chance, take a look at it:

Psychogenic Impotence or Performance Anxiety

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Thanks, I guess the best way I can put it is to sum it up in terms of a percentage for overall EQ (including how many times I get an erection and so on).

Overall EQ prior to quitting porn and finding Thunder’s place - 30%
After quitting and doing exercises - 70%

I want 100%!

30%! Wow that’s amazing! Congrats on what you have achieved by quitting porn and making your unit healthy.

Could be time to talk to your doc about this and see what he has to say?

Maybe, part of me thinks that because I didn’t do the full reboot*, I’m not fully healed yet.

*Full reboot according to that site I linked to is 3 months without porn, fantasy, erotic literature, and masturbation. I only did 3 weeks of no masturbation.

Don’t take that site so seriously dude, it is about moral/religious beliefs sold as mathematically proven theorems.

First: how old are you? I have to say something about the ‘110% erections from PE’. While it is true that PE makes your erections harder, it can’t really give you back the erections you had when you was, say, 16yo. I can remeber when I was that young: there were times my dick hurt so it was hard. If you are comparing your present erections to those, not even Cialis can give you back that. I heard that those who take huge amounts of testosterone get that ‘100%’ level.

So said, if you feel you have erections issues, you should check your health. Glicemix index, cholesterol, blood pressure, free testosterone levels and everything.

Like marinera says, don’t take that site so seriously. Can agree with no porn, but no masturbation or fantasy about real sex seems like fanaticism to me. Some of the more extreme guys say “no real sex.” Which seems counter productive, because the point is supposed to be to rewire from images to real life sexual partners.

Marinera got more specific about some health things that might be going on. I don’t think you need to be scared about anything, just talk to your doc.

Best of luck and keep us posted.

For me, two o three weeks away from porn is all I need to get back to “normal.” Even a little limited porn mixed in occasionally helps with the libido.

I agree with Marenara. We need to know your age and a visit to the doctor, a Uro dealing with male sexual dysfunction preferably, would be helpful.

22 years old, Last testosterone test I had was last year and it was at 600 (with the range being from 100-800 or something along those lines). I’ll definitely get another blood test this summer and check those things out.

Oh and I never had these raging hard ons in high school that you guys talk about either. I had a bunch of random ones, yes, but they were never super hard. My erections now are 100x better than they’ve ever been, but still not where it should be.

22yo. Then something is not right. About T, check the free T of course, most of times Docs check only total levels.

Estradiol is VERY important to be tested for. High estradiol kills erections. Ask your doctor for estradiol ‘sensitive’ blood test. It’s very important to get the ‘sensitive’ test.