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Dr Anne Truong
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00:00 – Introduction to Dr. Anne Truong 01:34 – Why a woman doctor focuses on men’s sexual health 06:02 – Erectile dysfunction: A warning sign of health issues 09:55 – Prostate cancer & ED: The misunderstood link 14:08 – The 6 Systems to Get Hard explained 24:29 – The universal health formula: diet, stress, sleep, exercise 28:29 – Shockwave therapy demystified 33:47 – Stem cell therapy: How it works for ED 40:10 – The dark side of Viagra 45:15 – Can ED from prostate surgery be reversed?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Unstress Health. My name is Dr. Ron Erlich. Well, today we are diving into a topic that affects so many men. And for that matter, it affects so of their partners as well. And yet often it remains hidden, never discussed. And that is the topic of sexual health. Now, my guest is Dr Anne Truong. And Anne is a pioneer in this field with over 25 years. Of experience in anti-ageing and regenerative medicine. And she shares her own personal experience with her and her husband. She’s helping men reclaim their vitality through cutting edge treatments and holistic approaches. Now, there’s a common theme that runs through so many of our programmes. And it’s interesting to hear how the solutions may sound also remarkably similar. Although there are some real cutting edge stuff here that you need to pay attention to now She is the creator of and here’s a catchy title if there ever was one The Six Systems to Get Hard and the host of Sexual Health for Men podcast now Dr. Anne is breaking taboos and empowering men to take control of their wellness journey and get ready for this fascinating conversation that challenges conventional thinking and offers some real solutions. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Dr. Anne Truong. Welcome to the show end.
Dr Anne Truong [00:01:34] Thank you for having me here.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:01:37] And I’m always intrigued to hear about a practitioner’s personal journey into their area of specialty. And this area of speciality, of course, is something that is of interest to at least half of our listeners, if not all. Let’s just, could you just share with us, what drew you into this specialty of men’s sexual health?
Dr Anne Truong [00:02:01] Right, right. So, like, why would a woman like me, not a man, talk about men’s sexual health? Well, I not only talk about man’s sexual, but women’s sexual as well, but I focus more on men. And the reason why is actually for selfish reasons. It’s for self-interest. So, I, you know, in my mid-40s, I was noticing that, you know, I had some sexual issues as well. And so was my husband. And my husband also had some heart issues and he had to have a procedure and had to be on a heart medication. So when you have heart medication, it affects your sexual function and that is also contraindicated to even take any type of ED medication. And since being a doctor and I have backgrounds in doing acupuncture, Um, and, and from doing acupuncture, I know that I, um, I know the, I’ve learned how the body can heal itself and how the body is really one, uh, organ rather than separate, uh organ. And I wanted to find a natural solution for, uh uh, uh sexual dysfunction, particularly ED. Uh, so that’s when I deep dive into it. And at that time I was already doing. Stem cell therapy for pain. So I am a board certified medical doctor, treated over 37,000 patients for pain, and one of the things that I use is using your own stem cell to treat and reverse the condition. So, but with that knowledge, I dive deep into how to restore sexual function and did a lot of research, and I, as well as my husband, were my own first patient. And that’s how we explore and redefine or get heart system that we are using now. And I have found that your sexual function really just needs to be reawakened and boosted for it to start working. And oftentimes, it’s down to the basic things that we take for granted that is pivotal. To sexual function. So my interest in this is, again, it was self-interest and then it became a passion because I feel that, you know, sexual health is such an integral part of our health and it’s integral part who we are, but yet it’s shameful, it’s dirty, it is a taboo. Is, you know, we talk in the closet, we don’t talk openly, and it’s even prohibitive to even talk about the sexual organ name on social media, but yet we see movies that are sexually explicit all the time, but if I say the word penis on social media oh my god you know my video is banned and it’s like you know I get, I get a warning from social media. So, you know, it’s such an integral part of who we are. And it’s really, if they weren’t for sexual activity, we wouldn’t be here, right? And so it is, we won’t be there. And so I wanted to really my passion is to raise awareness of sexual health. And alternative to treatment for sexual dysfunction besides just medication. And to bring it to the forefront, like what we are doing now with mental health, that is not shameful, it is not dirty, and it’s not weak if you have it.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:06:02] Yes, and it’s always interesting, isn’t it, as a health practitioner, to motivate your own personal journey, you know, because we’re not just practitioners, we are individuals on a journey through life. And when something comes up that challenges us, particularly health-wise, and we happen to be health practitioners, it can certainly drive our interest even deeper and further. And it’s interesting to, I mean, that’s why I was so looking forward to talking to you because I do believe, as you’ve said, it’s a taboo. But, you know, to put it into perspective, and you mentioned heart medication affecting sexual health, and one can only imagine the effect that so many other medications have on sexual health. I’m thinking particularly antidepressants and the ubiquitous nature of those. I mean, how big a problem is… Sexual dysfunction, you know people not being as healthy in their sex lives as they would hope or like
Dr Anne Truong [00:07:04] Well, it’s very common, more common than we think. And there was a large study that was done in 1994, that was a long time ago, that shows that 50% of men over 50 have ED. It’s very, very common. The reason why it’s common, and that rises as you get older, 60% have ED when they’re 60 and 70% have when they’re 70 as well. And so the reason why that ED is so common is because ED is affected by common condition as you get older. When you get old, you have high blood pressure, you have high cholesterol, you get diabetes, you gain weight, you become more stressed, you don’t sleep as well. So all these factors accumulate as you get older and ED is really defined as decreased blood flow. You’re not getting enough blood flow to the penis and therefore you’re not able to get a functional erection. And all those conditions that I mentioned, high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol, or being overweight, stressed, and not sleeping well, all of that compound that it happened to happen when we get older. And then also as we get older, we also tend to make less testosterone or hormone, which also affects the erection as well too. So there’s a lot of factors that plays a role as you get older, but they’re all reversible. They’re all reverseable, except for maybe testosterone. Now you can increase your testosterone innately or by diet and exercise, but sometimes you may need a little bit more supplement to kind of get it to a range that is optimal for you. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, we all know a reversible medical condition through changing in your diet and your exercise. So it’s more common because we tend to have more common ageing disease, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:09:22] Yeah. Well, I’m looking forward to talking about that. But also another one that throws us into this area is prostate cancer, too, isn’t it? Which is, well, there’s a whole controversy around whether people die from a prostate cancer or with prostate cancer. You know, yeah, the difference. And of course, people who get a diagnosis may be pushed towards surgery, which creates a whole range of other issues. Um, that’s a big problem too, isn’t it?
Dr Anne Truong [00:09:55] Yes, it’s, you know, let’s be clear. Testosterone replacement therapy does not contribute to prostate cancer, right? It actually is helpful for cardiac condition and it’s also helpful for erectile erection as well. Now, benign prosthetic hypertrophy, you it’s a large prostate that is not cancer, actually increases… It’s the same number as incidence of ED. So by the time you’re 50, 50% of men have enlarged prostate and 60% of the men will have enlarge prostate. Now enlarge prostates itself does not contribute to cancer. It just happened to be there. And some men have prostate cancer will have a very low PSA number. That’s a normal PSA number. And so that’s why it’s a little concerning when you have a higher PSA number that it may be prostate cancer, but you have to watch. We see a higher incidence of prostate cancer and prostate cancer is really, the prostate is really more affected by the DHT, which is the inflammatory metabolite. Testosterone, DHT is dihydrotestosterone, and that is what makes the prostate inflamed, and that a hormone that is kind of a bad hormone, that is a precursor from testosterone, and that hormone actually increases with… A poor diet and sedentary activity. And so that’s kind of correlate with, you know, what I said about sexual health maintenance as well. So with prostate cancer, it is a mixed bag, you’re right. Do people die with it or from it? Because men that gets it are also older. They’re also frail and they undergo surgery. And then, or they undergo treatment, which then 99.9% of them, the sequela prostate surgery is ED. And so they end up having ED, and then they have to deal with that and have the stress of that on top of the cancer and everything else. So you kind of wonder, and I don’t think the verdict is out there. I don’ think it causes death, I think, because the. Prostate cancer, in most of the form, it’s slow growing versus fast growing. And oftentimes it affects men that are in their 70s and 80s as well too. So it’s more controversial than we think.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:06] Yes. And I’ve, I mean, I think the, um, the other thing about it is that, uh, if your sexual health, if you’re, if your sex life was one way before you had prostate cancer, um after, you know, like, you, it’s not going to get better after it, is it? Like, so it’s good to get yourself optimally sexually healthy. That’s almost an oxymoron, isn’t it? Because You know, all the things you’ve mentioned here about sleep, about blood pressure, about diabetes, about putting on weight, about this, about that. I mean, it’s obvious that we do need a holistic approach to this problem, which is why I’m so intrigued into your you the fact that you’ve developed this this and this is a very catchy title and the six systems to get hard protocol. And I’m intrigued by this systematic approach not just the name but what it involves. Could you walk us through these systems, how they work together to improve sexual function?
Dr Anne Truong [00:14:08] Yes, yes. So actually, that name came from a friend. We were sitting on a bus together and we were going to an outing and he’d go, why don’t you just name it to get hard to them? Because that’s the end result. That’s what happened. You know, and I said, You know what, you’re so right. Cause I was debating on how to name it. And he said, you know, think about it. It’s to get hard. I’m like, okay. So anyway, that’s how we got the name. So I thought it was a good story. And it came out from really looking at the whole sexual health. But I don’t have to explain what it is, does it? When I say the title, everybody knows what it means. Exactly. So. Um so uh and the reason why i said that is because it doesn’t have prohibitive words if i say the word sex if i stay the word sexual health if i said the word erection it will be banned everywhere i have to use words that are not banned uh so i have too tread very carefully what words i use or else it’ll be banned and so the word heart doesn’t get banned the word ed doesn’t not banned. But if I say the word erection, it will be banned everywhere, right? Because in the social media world, nobody gets an erection, right? You can’t talk about that, right. So, but anyway, aside from it, the sixth system, it comes from really the knowledge of thinking of your body as a whole. It’s an interconnected system. It’s no organ, it works in isolation. And that the first thing I wanna say is that your erection starts in the brain. All right. Your erection starts in the brain. It doesn’t start in your penis. How do you get an erection? It starts in their brain. If it doesn’t happen in the bring, nothing’s gonna happen below the belt at all. And that’s how I came up with it. When I came, when I learned about that, I was like, God, that makes so much sense because we have, so the response starts in a brain. That’s how we have arousal, desire, right? That starts in the brain. That starts in the brain, and what feeds the brain the information is our five senses. It’s our eyes, what we see, what smell, what eat, the taste, what hear, sound, and what we touch. At the five senses, I even call it fantasy, your ideas in your mind, your fantasy, the six system. But that all feed into the mid-brain area where you know, you start to stimulate arousal. And that’s where the, so that’s just the number one is the brain, is where you focus on stimulating the, stimulating the senses would then go to the brain area to stimulate the, that, that mixed with emotion. Because your psychological state, your emotional state gets all blend in with the sensory input as well. Meaning if you’re depressed or you’re anxious, then that can mix in and may dampen the signal. But if you relax, you’re enjoying the moment, then that gets carried through to the next step. So your emotional state almost act as a filter for the stimulus that gets sent in. And so like that, all the five senses and even your thought, it goes through the filter of your emotional states. That’s the emotion. That’s a second. System. And the third system is your hormones, all right, because that filter to the emotion and then the hormones gets released in the hypothalamus and the brain that releases all these hormones and chemicals that initiate the process of the nerve. So that goes to the hormones that initiate to the nerve, the nerves in the back of your brain right here, it goes down the nerve. In the the chain that called the parasympathetic nerve that goes down which then increases your so the nerve is the third one and the so what’s that we said the brain the emotion the hormone I’m sorry that the nerve it’s the fourth one which then it goes to the nerve right it goes through the nerve and the nerve go to the heart which then increases your heart rate, which then increases. Uh, which then increases more blood to flow down. So the fifth system is the blood vessel is the blood vessel and the heart. And then, uh, the sixth system is the, uh the penis muscle. So that’s a six system because, uh it could, you have to increase your heart rate. Your heart rate, uh will, uh we’ll pump out the blood that goes through the blood vessel, the blood vessels open. And therefore the penis muscle has to be in a relax. In order for it to get more blood flow to create a functional erection. And what’s interesting when I first got into it, it was the opposite because when we exercise, our, like when we do like a bicep curl, our muscle has to be contracted in order to do the curl, right? And it has to relax when you’re relaxed state. But the penis muscle or the corpus calvinosum is a smooth muscle. It has to be relaxed in order for it to get an erection. And when it’s not in an erected state or a flaccid state, then it’s actually contracted. So when you’re not, you don’t have an erections, the penis muscle is actually contracted, it is not relaxed. So it needs to be relax in order for it expand to take in all the blood flow and in order to create an erection. That’s the reason why that if you’re not right up here, if you are stressed, and if you anxious in your mind, your penis muscle not gonna be relaxed. It’s not gonna relax and it’s not going to get an erection. All right? And I’m talking to the men, how often do you feel that when, you know, you’re distracted, you’re still thinking about work or there’s some things that worry you or whatever, and you’re in the heat of the moment and the erection is just not as good as it used to be. Right? Because the penis muscle is not fully relaxed. So when it’s not fully relaxed, it’s going to accommodate the blood flow that it needs. And therefore, it’s now going to be able to expand. When it’s expanding, it is not going to be able keep that firm erection to be a functional erection. And to all men, you know, when that happened, men think there’s something wrong with them. When it’s not, maybe you just had a tiring day. Maybe you just distract on a stressful day, you know, and, and you just need to be in a better state here. So that’s why I said that the brain is a larger sexual organ. If the brain, your emotional state is not in a right state, nothing going to get filtered through. And so that’s why when we work with men with sexual dysfunction, we go through each of those systems and to check it. One, is he using his five senses? How is his emotional state? Is he depressed? Is he distracted? Is his stress? And then the next part is we measure the hormone level. We do blood work, we do bloodwork to look at your testosterone, look at FSH, LH level, look at your prolactin level, all right? We also look at you thyroid as well. And then the next phase is that for the nerve, we can actually find out whether you’re inflammatory. They will look at inflammatory factors as well, and then for the blood vessel, we look at nitric oxide level, which can be measured from the saliva, and we also look at… Uh, uh, endothelial dysfunction, blood work as well. And we can also measure blood flow to the penis with, with the penile Doppler ultrasound. And that’s how we can see how the muscle is working. We can see the blood flow is working, uh down there. And, um, and we, the, and that’s one of the reasons why we use shockwave, uh therapy, shockwave therapy uses sound wave, sound wave energy. Uh to the penis to stimulate more uh blood flow and uh that that’s what our main treatment is with your own steps out which are the platelets in your blood uh we inject that into the penis to again increase blood flow uh and also it will it help with the flexibility or relaxation of the muscle we’re also now doing Botox to Botox the same Botox that goes to the face for wrinkles now. Inject it into the penis because remember what I said earlier in order for you to get an erection the muscles got to be relaxed so sometimes the muscles not relax so now we’re injecting botox in there to help it relax as well too and uh but all that it’s really boosts more blood flow to the penis but in the end he has you know the man still has to work on his diet and his exercise routine. And sleep and stress management because he doesn’t do that then internally his body is still going to be in inflammatory state and that if he wants the treatment to last longer he needs to work on that. The treatment is really to boost, to give it a boost but in order for it to continue longer term, he need to have, he needs to work on the four pillars. Of sexual health, which is diet, exercise, sleep, and stress reduction.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:24:29] Well, isn’t that a common theme? I mean, I could be doing a programme on cancer, autoimmune conditions, mental health, you name it. I could do a programme on any of those diseases and this will be a familiar story. You know, what? This again? What? It’s back to diet, stress, sleep and exercise. Surely it can’t be as simple as that. Um but it is and how it manifests itself is is our genetic predisposition you’ve mentioned i mean it’s so interesting to hear you put the brain up there as the the main sexual organ because i think often it’s said that men think through their penises but actually uh you know um there there we go the brain and given the ubiquitous nature of mental health of stress of hormone disrupting chemicals. Of chronic inflammation, I mean, it’s a wonder that any of us have a normal sex life.
Dr Anne Truong [00:25:27] Yeah, you’re absolutely right. Yeah, there’s a lot of factors in our environment and in our diet and in lifestyle that predispose us to have sexual dysfunction. That’s why, it’s like that study was done in 1994 that shows that 50% of men over 50 have ED, but that doesn’t account into our processed food, our lifestyle now. Uh, internet and then COVID. So I think that number is a lot higher. And like you said, you know, I, in my forties, I had sexual dysfunction and, uh, so was, uh my husband who and we’re both in, uh good health and we don’t, I don’t take prescription medication, but it was all hormonal. But the good part is, you know the good Yes, once you get older, you’re predisposed to it. But the good part is you don’t have to accept it. It is reversible. There are things that you can do to maintain sexual longevity. And I wanna stress that it’s not about sex because when you have good sexual health, that means good general health. That means longevity. That means quality of life. We’re not just talking about sex here. We’re talking about quality of live, living longer, being more active. Because studies have shown that people that have more sexual intercourse, like three times or more in a week, live longer, they have less cancer, they have less heart disease, less dementia, better quality of life, better relationship. And so that’s what we all want, right? We all want quality of as we get older. And so, but again, how do you prevent that? How do you treat that? Back to the basic and the most simplest stuff that is in front of us, but we like to chase shiny object, right? We want to get this device, we want to this and that thinking, oh, this pill is going to take care of it when it’s really down to diet, to exercise. And stress reduction, because I can guarantee you, we have more sexual dysfunction now in 2025 than we did in 1925.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:27:51] Yes, yes, I’ve no doubt about that. But when you when you outline those six systems and you put you break that apart, well, I mean, as like I said, when you put it like that, it’s a wonder anybody’s having sex at the moment. But but it’s interesting. You’ve mentioned a few things there. Shockwave therapy is an interesting one because we did a programme on that a few months back. And and it was interesting. Just tell us a little bit more about shockwave therapy and how it’s used, how often it’s needed to be used. You know, is it a regular ongoing thing? What’s the story with shockwave?
Dr Anne Truong [00:28:29] Right, so it’s really shockwave therapy. It’s called shockwave because when the energy hit the tissue, it feels like a shock, but it really harnesses the power of sound wave technology. It’s the power sound wave, and it goes through either a magnet or it goes to water from the machine that transfer that energy into kind of like a laser beam, right? And that energy is like a laser beam and it can penetrate. As far down as nine inches. That’s the focus shockwave. It’s called low intensity shockwave therapy or focus. Focus shockwave, which is the one that’s been researched the most to be effective for ED. There’s another machine shockwave called radio shockwave that’s more acoustic. That’s more using acoustic shockwave it’s really more in using more mechanical shockwave not the energy or sound. So that’s radio. They’re two separate shockwave, but they’re often used interchangeably. But the one that has been researched the most is the focus. The radio is really more mechanical shock to the tissue. So what I’m gonna be talking about is focus shockwave. So it harnesses the energy. Of down weight and either go to a magnet or go to water and then it transfers that energy and it goes as deep as like nine inches and when that energy is transferred to a tissue like either you can use it on the knee, you can it on shoulder, you could use it on the penis but it all does the same thing. What it does is decrease inflammation and it actually will increase mitochondria. Increases ATP and it actually on the end point what it does is that it increases cellular mechanism for healing and angiogenesis. Angiogenosis is the ability to make more blood vessels for healing because you need blood to heal. Blood is the river of life. If you don’t have blood, you’re not going to be able to function. You want healing, you need blood. So all the end point of what chocolate does. Is to bring in more blood flow or condition that we call angiogenesis. I can go deep dive into it more but it’s really increasing ATP. It increases a lot even a lot of cellular action as well and so you it takes about um about uh 20 minutes to do but again you can do that on the shoulder for shoulder pain you can get that on your penis you can give that on on the woman uh vulva area in the end it’s about restoring blood flow again and the treatment takes about uh twenty twenty five minutes and uh the recommended frequency it’s about once a week for six weeks or twice a week for three weeks. In some instances, it may need to go as far as 12 sessions instead of six sessions. So the more severe the condition is, you do more treatment and the milder is you do less. And it’s a treatment that is done in the medical office and it’s not invasive, it’s on the skin, it’s non-invasive, there’s no injection. Um it’s almost like taking a massage or kind of like going up and down the treatment area and it feels and it doesn’t make any noise the focus it makes a little like chick chick chick chick it’s like a little tick tick tick sound uh and it really it very is very very tolerable it’s non-painful and it’s not an injection or anything like that and you come you come in and you can leave and you could do resume your usual activity but it’s been very powerful It is one of our main pool that we use to restore sexual health, along with using the stem cells and the Botox that I talk about. But we also use the shockwave therapy to help with pain as well. Very good with rotator cuff pain. It’s very good with hip pain, blowback pain, neck pain, and knee and ankles. Yeah, and you just have to know the anatomy and you have to the source of the pain. To target that machine. So it’s a very powerful, useful machine.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:04] Interesting. It’s interesting you mentioned it, because it was something I was intrigued about after our programme with a chiropractor called Adam Gavine, who talked to us about shockwave therapy. I think Dave Asprey, who’s a well-known character in America, has been very instrumental in introducing it. The other one you’ve mentioned is, you’ve mention it a few times, stem cell, and I know people hear this. And think, wow, this is cutting edge medicine, and it probably is, but I wondered if you might just share with us some of the basics as you’ve just done so nicely for shockwave therapy about stem cells. How does that work? Yeah, tell us about stem cell.
Dr Anne Truong [00:33:47] Yeah. So the stem cell, our body has them cells that are in abundance. And we have the healing ability to heal ourselves. Like for instance, if you cut yourself, you cut the finger, what happened? The blood goes into that cut. And then the platelets are the one that create the clot. And that over time, over time that cut becomes a scar. And over time the scar disappears. That’s your own body stem cell working that is on automatic. So what we do is that we know that the platelets are the ones that create the clot and are the one that start calling all the other cells in the body to come and initiate the repair response or the healing response. So the stem cell that we use for restore sexual function are the platelet. The platelets are cells that your body make in the bone marrow that comprises about 1% of all your blood. So we have five litres as our blood. It comprises 1% of that. And those cells are the ones that create the clot. But it also sends messages to the other cells in the body saying, hey, come here. There’s an area of injury. Let’s heal this, right? Show how we harvest a stem cell. Is that we would do like a venipuncture, like the same thing you would go to the lab and get your blood work drawn to evaluate for like your blood sugar or your cholesterol level. It’s the same things, but we take a larger volume. We would take out either 60 millilitre or 240 millilater of volume, depending on the patient condition. And then we would centrifuge and process that down and just get the platelets alone. We don’t get the red blood cell or the white blood cell. We just get the platelets alone and that is delivered to either the penis or into the knee or into ancle or the hip. And how it does is that the platelet, again, they stimulate repair. But one of the things it does also is decrease inflammation. It decrease the inflammation of the area and assimilate other cells to come to the area. To repair. And what’s the end point? Increased blood flow. So it increases blood flow and increases blood by three months. And the end-point is again, increased blood flow, that’s the end point. And that’s how our tissue repair, our tissue repair because we need blood to bring the nutrients for the cell to start repairing and for the cell to live. We need those nutrients. So platelets call the different messengers to come in, to lay down the groundwork for more blood vessels and more blood flow. So that’s how the stem cell work. And it’s autologous because it comes from your own body. So therefore there’s no side effect because it’s your own cell from your body which then is delivered to an injured area, all right? So I have to take the, your cell. That you have and put a lot of it into an area to stimulate a healing. Like I said, it works great on the penis because one of the main function is to increase blood flow, but it also work in the knee. It work in acules, it work in ancle as well too.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:37:31] Now I think our listener may have slightly missed it because you said it very quickly about taking your own blood and centrifuging it, spinning it so that we can pick out those platelets. That’s the beauty of that kind of therapy. How often is that needing to be repeated or is it an ongoing treatment that every Six months or twelve months, one.
Dr Anne Truong [00:37:52] Uh well for ed for ed it’s actually um it’s interesting for ed uh the more severe uh you uh you have ed when i say severity it’s like is it hasn’t been 10 years 15 years 20 years i saw a patient that had 30 years of ed well the longer you have ad of course the condition is more severe right as time goes on so uh it but if you just started having ed maybe a year or less than five years, it only takes one treatment. So the frequency of treatment depends on the severity of the ED. So if a man has an ED that is over 10 years, then it’s pretty moderate to severe versus a man that has ED from one to five years. So the treatment will be once for a mild case. And then if he continue with his lifestyle modifications, such as diet and exercise, then he doesn’t need another treatment. And if severe, then usually, you know, he will have one treatment and then two more treatments for the whole entire year. And then, if he continues with his diet and exercise regimen and be consistent about, then he may not need another treatmen at all. But it all depends upon what he does after. I mean, I can do the treatment to boost blood flow, but he has to work on his, on the foundation, which is his body, his, you know, his what’s going on in his body in order for the effect to last. So that’s what, that’s why diet exercise is pivotal to making the treatment last longer.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:39:43] Now, we’ve talked a little bit about the effect that some medications can have on erectile function or dysfunction, but of course, Viagra is a medication that a lot of people will have heard about and many people will be using. What is your thoughts about Viaggra? What’s the pluses and minuses of this drug, of using this kind of intervention?
Dr Anne Truong [00:40:10] Right, right. So how, first of all, how Viagra work is that it, it, when you take it, it increases cyclic GMP and cyclic, GMP increases nitric oxide. So the bottom line is that increases nitrous oxide. When nitric oxides increase, it increases blood flow and that’s how it helps with erection. But it doesn’t just work on the penis alone. It also increases blood flow everywhere else too. So that’s one of the side effects of. Viagra is blue vision like dizziness and vision changes and also low blood pressure because it opens up blood vessel. You tend to have a lower blood pressure and then sometimes you tend to pass out. That’s how you get dizzy. That’s why you get the headache as well. So if you have high blood pressure, then the effect compound, right? The effect compound when you take Viaggra, And so that’s what causes the common side effects is dizziness, headache, the blue vision, and also heartburn. You get the heartburn from it as well. Men tolerate it, but some men cannot tolerate it so they cannot take the Viagra. So that’s the side effect of that, but that’s short-term, but the long-term side effect of Viaggra is a visual. Vision loss as well as hearing loss. There’s two studies that came out that looked at a long-term use of Viagra is that vision loss and hearing loss, permanent loss, as well. And so, but I see Viagras as more as a temporising measure. It’s almost like putting a Band-Aid on an infected wound. Because when you take Viagra, you’re just treating the symptoms when you’re not able to get an erection, but you’re treating the cause of why you need to have, why you have ED in the first place. Is it because you’re blood, I mean, because you are not exercising? Is it you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes, you are overweight, you’re now sleeping well, maybe you’re stressed, you know, as well too. Those are the factors that need to be considered. So before a man take Viagra, he needs to kind of look at what’s his diet, what’s he eating? What’s his exercise routine? Is he sleeping? How’s his stress level, right? And so, but when you take Viago, you don’t worry about any of that. The most men that take Viagea think that, oh, you know, I help with my erection. I don’t need to do anything. When it’s farthest from the truth, because when you Take Viagga and you have an erection, you’re just ignoring the cause of the problem. You’re just putting a Band-Aid on an infected wound. And over time… The Viagra is not going to work anymore. Why is that? Because it’s not going work anymore because the disease, the problem why you have ED in the first place, which is compromised blood flow has gotten worse. Like your diabetes has gotten worst or your blood pressure has gotten worth. It has gotten words. And therefore you no longer have enough blood flow down there for it to be functional, even with Viagras, because you’re just putting a bandaid on an infected wound and the wounds get worse and worse over time. And so where are you gonna be after that? So you just know that studies have shown, research has shown that 67 of men that has ED, seven to 10 years down the road will have a heart attack. All right, will have heart attack, so it predisposed you. So ED is really a warning sign of a cardiovascular disease. There’s a warning sign that, hey, your body is saying, hey, you know, I’m not getting enough flow down in the penis here. Let’s have a look at what’s going on in the body. Fix this. You don’t fix this, then the blood flow compromise will progress to the heart. And the reason why the penis is affected first when you have blood flow compromised is because the penis artery is one to two millimetres. It’s very, very small, the size of like an ant. That’s how the diameter of the blood vessel. But the heart blood vessel is three to four millimetre and the brain blood vessel six to eight millimetre. So what I’m trying to say is that effect the penis first because it’s the smallest blood vessel, but then you don’t do something about it, it’s gonna progress to your heart. All right, and.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:44:50] And what about when we’re coming back to prostate cancer, because a lot of men do find themselves being treated for prostate cancer by surgery, which invariably can cause varying degrees of nerve damage. I know they talk about nerve sparing, but a lot nerves are damaged. Is that reversible?
Dr Anne Truong [00:45:15] Well, that’s a good question. Kind of yes, and it depends on the man. I have seen patients that had prostate removed and had ED because the reason why is because the nerve that goes to the penis that help with erection, it just goes right on top of the prostate. It just wraps around the prostate, go to the penis. So when you remove the prostate that nerve is stuck to the throat on top there. So it’s gonna be affected. It’s either going to be cut or it’s either gonna be damaged because it’s right on top of the prostate So it’s not It’s it’s just there right? It’s just kind of like you have to cut through the abdominal muscle to get inside to your stuff of it Right. It’s there. So that that’s why 99 percent of people have Uh ed after the surgery so having said that I have seen men that have prostate removed that uh started doing like the four pillars I talk about, which are diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management, and intermittent fasting, and penile pumping, I have seen them reverse. I’ve seen them have erection again, even after prostate surgery. So that tells me, now that’s the minority, because a lot of times men that get prostate surgery are older. Uh uh they’re older and they become kind of despondent and also um they’re not as sexually active because their wife or partner is also older and she’s probably like not interested in sexual activity either so it’s not uh you know something that the man really wants to uh uh uh to get back so it really depends on the person but yes there are structural damage It is more of a challenging case to get back to treat, to get back to an erection. But I’ve seen it done. I’ve see some of my patients that has had the treatment. And I have two patients that had prostate removed and didn’t get the stem cell. They did not come to my office. They just undergo my group coaching programme. Which is diet, exercise, sleep, and stress reduction, and penis pumping, and intermittent fasting. But then again, they were in their 50s, and they’re able to get their erection back again, within about three months. And so it is good news, and that’s why I keep telling men is to keep working at it, and you never know where You never know where, what’s going to happen because I truly believe that, you know, even though you have ED, if you keep working at it, it’s amazing power of how you can heal over time with just diet and exercise. You know, I have a friend who’s a doctor, she’s a neurologist, and she has multiple sclerosis and she was in a wheelchair, paralysed, could not walk, but is in a wheelchair for about five years. She changed her diet. Change her mindset, and she was able to walk again. This isn’t Terry Wahls, is it? Yes. Yeah.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:48:48] Yes, well, I had Terry on as a guest and she’s a very inspiring story and and it’s it’s a it’s an amazing story. And again, a practitioner going through a personal experience having an epiphany, which has had flow on effects to thousands, I think, of patients because of her own experience. And you’ve given us so much today to think about. You’ve raised this taboo story to a level that’s, you know, that’s why I was so looking forward to talking to you. You’ve got a podcast, which is Sexual Health for Men podcast, which we’ll obviously have links to in our show notes. And you mentioned some courses and stuff. I want to thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us.
Dr Anne Truong [00:49:37] Well, thank you for having me here. And for the listeners that want to find out more information about how to restore sexual health again, check out my YouTube channel, Truong Rehabilitation Centre, or just type in my name, Ann Truong, and the channel will come up. And that’s where I share everything. I put everything out there. I’m very transparent what we do, the treatment, because ultimately I want you. To restore your sexual health yourself. Ultimately, I don’t want you to come to my office. I don’ want you the see me. I want you, to have the knowledge and the power and the stuff that you need to do to restore you sexual health. It can be done. It just need consistency and focus to do it. We have seen thousands of our listeners have seen improvement, which just. Minor adjustment of just their diet, of just like stop drinking sodas and stop eating donuts every day. You know, just a little minor adjustment like that and they’re seeing morning wood and they’re see a firmer erection. So just to give you a view or something, we have a good morning wood smoothie, which It’s full of anti-oxidant, full of… Fruit and vegetable that are high in nitric oxide that if they take every day, along with instituting intermittent fasting of 12 hours, they will see results. So they can go, so you can go to the URL, goodmorningwoodsmoothie.com and be able to download that smoothie recipe to use every day. Try it every day for 30 days. And just add in intermittent fasting, just stop eating after 8 p.m. And then you can eat again at 8 a.m., which is 12 hours. And we have seen a lot of our listeners seeing results. And the smoothie just involved really the spinach, arugula, blueberry, and beets, and all that all blend in to just the smoothie that you drink every day. So I’m honoured to be on the show. And I hope that the listener find value in our episode.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:52:05] Thank you so much. Well, if you ever needed another reason for taking control of your own health and focusing on nutrition and focusing on exercise and focusing, on sleep and rest, reducing stress, which is really what this Unstress Health podcast and membership and platform is all about. Well, here’s another reason now as well, sexual health. Now, we’ve done various programmes on sexual health before. We did one with sex therapist Ian Kerner in that wonderful programme. She comes first, which would accompany this one very nicely. We’ve also done a great programme with Dr. Rob King, a men’s health specialist here in Australia. And a member of our advisory panel. And of course, we have some great resources which we will share in the show notes that are connected with Dr. Anne’s YouTube channel and the great resources she is only too happy to share with you. So I hope this finds you well until next time. This is Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Be Well.
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