What is premature ejaculation?

  Premature ejaculation is a relatively common ejaculatory disorder in men, and its incidence accounts for 20%-30% of men, significantly higher than erectile dysfunction 12%.  PE is a male sexual dysfunction with three characteristics: 1. ejaculation always or almost always occurs before or within 1 min after penile insertion into the vagina; 2. inability to delay ejaculation after full or almost full penile entry into the vagina; 3. negative effects on the individual, such as distress, apprehension, frustration, and/or avoidance of sexual activity. Intravaginal ejaculatory latency time is an objective indicator often used to measure the presence or absence of PE, but the range of abnormalities in IELT remains controversial because of the existence of individual differences.  Premature ejaculation is classified into the following four categories: 1. Primary: ejaculation generally shows an IELT between 30-60s in most cases, with a small percentage between 1-2 min, and occurs almost every time from the first ejaculation; 2. Secondary PE: short IELT, which may have a previous history of normal ejaculation, occurs within a certain time frame and may be secondary to urologic, disease/thyroidal dysfunction , or psychological/interpersonal problems, etc.; 3. Natural variability: PE is LELT may be short or normal, premature ejaculation does not occur continuously, feeling of reduced control over ejaculation, reduced or inadequate control over ejaculation, psychotherapy is often used as first-line treatment; 4. PE-like: ejaculatory dysfunction: ELT is normal or even outside the normal range, ability to delay ejaculation may reduced or inadequate, premature ejaculation in the patient’s own imagination, or lack of control over ejaculation.  The etiology of premature ejaculation is a multifactorial one, and the traditional view is that premature ejaculation is related to psychological factors, environmental factors, endocrine factors, and neurobiological factors. And it has also been reported in the literature that patients with primary premature ejaculation are not only due to psychological reasons, but most importantly, the excitability of the dorsal penile nerve, especially the sensory nerve excitability of the penile head, but also related to the stimulation of inflammation, prepuce, circumcision and neurological diseases.  The treatment of premature ejaculation: 1, psychological treatment: psychological treatment requires the cooperation of both husband and wife, the two sides of the relevant knowledge, sexual psychological education to lift the couple in the sexual life of a variety of bad emotions, to both sides to build a good confidence.  2, behavioral treatment: sexual skills, you can delay ejaculation by changing the position of sexual intercourse; you can bring more layers of condoms, increase the thickness of the penis and vagina compartment to reduce the friction of the vagina on the penis and the stimulation of the penis during vaginal contraction, reduce the stimulation of the penis in sexual life, in order to delay ejaculation. The stop-motion technique and squeezing technique, the principle of which is to expose the patient gradually to stronger and longer stimulation, thus reducing the sensitivity of the penis head behavior therapy.  3, medication: local medication: spray or ointment for local epidermis, the absorption of the skin to achieve the role of the drug effect. These drugs are mainly anesthetic drugs, which are used on the head of the penis before sexual intercourse to anesthetize the peripheral nerves through skin penetration to reduce the sensitivity of the nerves and prolong the latency time of ejaculation in the vagina to achieve the purpose of treating premature ejaculation. It is often combined with numbness of the glans penis, vaginal numbness and other local adverse effects affecting the quality of sexual life. Oral medications are mainly selective 5-hydroxytryptamine reuptake inhibitors, adrenergic alpha-blockers, and tramadol. Now there are a large number of clinical studies found that the combination of drugs have better clinical results than single drugs.  4.Surgical treatment: It mainly includes circumcision, lamb’s intestine implantation in the penile tether, penile head filling and thickening and penile dorsal nerve amputation, but dorsal nerve block may cause the occurrence of penile erectile dysfunction.  At present, the pathophysiological research, epidemiological research and clinical medical research on PE continue to make progress, which will bring new hope for the diagnosis and treatment of PE.