Featuring Dr. Stacy Elliott, MD

Duration: 1 minute, 51 seconds

Well, premature ejaculation is very fast: ejaculation before you want it.

Delayed ejaculation is the opposite, where you can't ejaculate when you want it. And it's defined by going on for quite a long time with your sexual activity, and you may or may not even reach orgasm.

It's a lot less common than premature ejaculation but it's very distressing. And we usually see it in men who are older, or men who have had some sort of neurological injury.

It is much more difficult to manage than premature or rapid ejaculation, and you usually need to see some sort of sexual therapist. You should see a physician just to be sure there's nothing else going on that may cause that.

Men can also have sexual disinterest, it's not just a problem with women. And that means that they don't have the sexual drive, they don't see the world in a sexual way anymore, and it's quite distressing for them because they think as men this is what they should have.

And so what we can do about that is assess why that's going on. It's very important to see a physician, to be sure there's nothing physiological going on.

In other words, what are your testosterone levels? Do you have thyroid problems? Do you have depression? A very common reason for low sexual drive is depression. Is there some reversible thing that a physician can find to assist you with that?

But really, there's a sort of a biological component to it, and there's a motivational component to it. So the motivational part needs to be looked at too. Are you in a relationship that you enjoy? Are you attracted to your partner? Are you working too much and you just don't have any energy for this?

So it's a very complicated thing to assess, and you need to see someone who's capable of looking at both the medical end of it and the psychological end of it.

Presenter: Dr. Stacy Elliott, Psychiatrist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Psychiatrist