Medical study on Kegels vs ED & venous leaks

[TommyGUNZZZ]

I always think it is good to show skeptisism to everything, it makes topics less one sided. It is important to note that all venous leak surgery has the habit of only correcting the venous leak for a short time (6 months maximum for 90% of surgery recipiants) I know that personally if I had a "minor" leak, I would never get surgery. I'd imagine that most logical people wouldnt undergo surgery with a minor leak as well, not worth the trouble/money. So it is quite possible that surgery would have been rejected regardless of the pelvic exercise being successful or not.

Maybe some experts can shed some light on this, but I dont think that pelvic floor muscles can affect veins in the penis, which is where the problem of the venous leak exists. Also, I hardly consider a one paragraph report on a medical study reliable. if pelvic floor exercise were truely "a realistic alternative to surgery" then It would have probably been more appropriate for the doctors to be a little more specific about the study/results.
Exercise being more effective then surgery is pretty fing crazy... but this isnt what the paragraph is saying, it says that subjects prefer not to have surgey, and perhaps by coincidence or perhaps by causation that they were doing kegels before, which may or may not had an effect on their decision to undergo surgery.

Personally this looks like the doctors are reporting a result that they want to report, if that makes any sense. But it does say that the sample had proven venous leaks, which is interesting... I'd like to know the method and how it was proven. If it were doppler why wouldnt they disclose that fact? What if it was proven by examination/description of subjects? It doesnt say...

Also it says that the workout was given a total of 5 times, or once every week for 5 weeks. I dont know any part/muscle of the human body that will show a large noticable difference in function after 5 sessions of exersice spread over 5 weeks, unless these doctors have developed a super pelvic floor training programme which heals venous leaks in 5 weeks = Absurd

I dont mean to hate Big Al/Board, but there is no proof other than one measly paragraph and a little too much gray area in the material for this to be conclusive about the effect kegels have on venous leaks

[Batwoman]

You make some good points, but keep in mind that unless you have online access to a library that subscribes to PubMed, all you were seeing was the abstract of the article. The rest of the article is there, it's a 6-page article in the Journal of Urology. That is a mainstream journal with high scientific standards, so I would not doubt that the results were reported appropriately. The use of the term "significant" is scientific shorthand for "statistically significant" which means that the data have been subject to rigorous statistical tests to rule out that the results occurred just by chance. Anyway, I agree that it is always sensible to be skeptical, but in this case I think the authors were not making outrageous claims, just reporting the findings of their study. And these findings do suggest that doing pelvic floor exercises can help at least some men with venous leaks.

[UKGuy]

I will give my honest opinion on this as someone who has tried this and suspects they have some (mild) leakage. Well I tried kegels for a good few days and I was consistant with them. I think I responded well to doing kegels because I am used to doing them before. After just a few days I could notice a big difference my penis felt heavier when flacid and hung lower just taking a leak often triggered an instant but unwanted erection. My erections were much harder steel hard almost the glands also engorged more and full. It's true about the other positive effects of kegals too because I shot my load far rather than dribble, I could get harder much quicker after ejaculation and my orgasms were mind blowing at times probably the best I ever had. However I noticed I would still start to loose my erection quicker than I should without stimulation especially the glands deflating although more slowly than usual (I assume because of the increased blood flow) so this suggested to me I definately have some sort of leak.

This is just my personal experience using them.

[Big Al]

I always think it is good to show skeptisism to everything, it makes topics less one sided. It is important to note that all venous leak surgery has the habit of only correcting the venous leak for a short time (6 months maximum for 90% of surgery recipiants) I know that personally if I had a "minor" leak, I would never get surgery. I'd imagine that most logical people wouldnt undergo surgery with a minor leak as well, not worth the trouble/money. So it is quite possible that surgery would have been rejected regardless of the pelvic exercise being successful or not.

Maybe some experts can shed some light on this, but I dont think that pelvic floor muscles can affect veins in the penis, which is where the problem of the venous leak exists. Also, I hardly consider a one paragraph report on a medical study reliable.

The reference is an "abstract" of the study done, so the information provided is going to be as condensed as possible.

if pelvic floor exercise were truely "a realistic alternative to surgery" then It would have probably been more appropriate for the doctors to be a little more specific about the study/results.
Exercise being more effective then surgery is pretty fing crazy... but this isnt what the paragraph is saying, it says that subjects prefer not to have surgey,

A lot of "experts/professionals/doctors" will tell you that surgeries, drugs, and other costly procedures are vastly superior than non-Allopathic types of treatments for just about any kind of malady out there- and keeping people convinced of that is what keeps them in business.

and perhaps by coincidence or perhaps by causation that they were doing kegels before, which may or may not had an effect on their decision to undergo surgery.

Why would these men with ED/VL need to volunteer for a study on pelvic floor exercises if they were already doing it. I think it's quite a reach to suggest that

Personally this looks like the doctors are reporting a result that they want to report, if that makes any sense.

Either the men in the study improved their condition from baseline with these exercises or they didn't.

But it does say that the sample had proven venous leaks, which is interesting... I'd like to know the method and how it was proven. If it were doppler why wouldnt they disclose that fact? What if it was proven by examination/description of subjects? It doesnt say...

Again, the reference is an abstract.

Also it says that the workout was given a total of 5 times, or once every week for 5 weeks. I dont know any part/muscle of the human body that will show a large noticable difference in function after 5 sessions of exersice spread over 5 weeks, unless these doctors have developed a super pelvic floor training programme which heals venous leaks in 5 weeks = Absurd

Why is it "absurd"? As a avid weight trainer, some of the best training results I've had have been from training individual body parts intensely with more than a week's span of rest in between sessions. Also, nowhere in the study was there any indication of "healing" venous leaks- the exact words used were "a significant improvement was found following the training programme". This is a significant difference.

I dont mean to hate Big Al/Board, but there is no proof other than one measly paragraph and a little too much gray area in the material for this to be conclusive about the effect kegels have on venous leaks

It's quite easy to dismiss that one study as a "measly paragraph" if you're trying to make a case against it. This study isn't the only other literature out there on the subject (feel free to search). Again, either these men improved or they didn't- where's the gray area? Perhaps there was a psychological component to the improvement, but it's still a lot cheaper than surgery (and it further proves that surgery wasn't necessary in the first place).

I'm not sure how many studies you'd need to assure you, but there's more than enough evidence on these very forums of men that have had issues with ED trying these types of exercises with excellent results. The beautiful thing about this is that if one happens to be suffering from VL, they're free to try these exercises (or not). There's really nothing to lose- as opposed to the alternative.

Just note that no one here is going to try to force you to trust or believe anything. If you're of the type that needs sanctioning from a huge body of research from Universities, Medical Organizations, and the like before giving something like this a try, then the mostly anecdotal evidence on this forum is sure to fail to impress you.

[Pirate]

My compliments to all on a thoughtful exchange of ideas and views.

[Big Al]

This thread dovetails very nicely with this "Popular Page" report: Kegel Studies