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Cause Of Peyronie's Disease

Some form of penis injury or trauma is considered the most common cause of Peyronie's disease (PD). However, no one seems to know for sure what causes Peyronie's or why some men get it but not others.

This affects both the prevention and treatment of the disease, i.e. if you don't know what causes the problem, how can you prevent it or solve it?

Most agree it is unlikely you could have done (or not done) something to prevent getting the disease.

What Causes Peyronie's Disease?

Even though the cause of Peyronie's disease is not known for sure, there are various possible and likely causes.

Penis Injury

Peyronie's can be described as wound healing disorder. The most likely cause of Peyronie's disease is therefore some kind of trauma or injury to the penis.

The penis injury could be significant one-off incident, e.g. sport accident, extremely vigorous sexual activity or invasive penile procedure like prostatectomy. This is likely to be the case when the disease develops rapidly.

Peyronie's disease can also be caused by number of minor penis injury / traumas to the penis, e.g. through normal sexual intercourse over time.

Fore example, men suffering from erectile dysfunction, but able to penetrate, are more likely to have penis buckling incidents as the penis may not be sufficiently rigid.

Low Testosterone And Peyronie's Disease

Testosterone has been shown to influence wound healing and recent studies have suggested a significant relationship between low Testosterone and Peyronie's disease, i.e. low testosterone level may be contributing cause for Peyronie's disease.

This Peyronie's Testosterone Study Opens in new window symbol showed 74.4% of Peyronie's patients to have low testosterone level. The severity of the penis curvature was significantly greater for men with testosterone deficiency and for men with low free testosterone.

Further studies are required to confirm this relationship but many doctors, including Dr. Mohit Khera, now recommend men with Peyronie's to have their testosterone level tested and treated if low.

Identifying and correcting the testosterone level early on might prevent the penis curvature to become greatly severe for some men.

Medication And Peyronie's Disease

Number of medications list Peyronie's disease as possible side effects, including all beta-blockers, i.e. used to treat heart conditions and high blood pressure.

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Commonly used beta-blockers include Acebutolol (Sectral), Atenolol (Tenormin), Bisoprolol (Cardicor, Emcor, Zebeta), Metoprolol (Betaloc, Lopresor), Nadolol (Corgard), Nebivolol (Nebilet) and Propranolol (Inderal).

Other medications that list Peyronie's disease as possible side effects include Interferon (used to treat multiple sclerosis) and Dilantin (anti-seizure medicine).

It is though important to keep things in perspective. The likelihood of developing Peyronie's disease from taking above medicines is considered very low, if existing at all. Further studies are needed into this field.

However, if you need to take any of above medication you might want to raise your concerns with your doctor.

Other Possible Peyronie's Causes

Peyronie's is more common in some families so there might be a genetic link.

One Family Study Opens in new window symbol showed that pedigree analysis of three families suggested that the Peyronie's syndrome is male limited, autosomal dominant trait, i.e. you only need the abnormal gene from one parent to inherit the disease.

Furthermore, there seems to be link between Peyronie's disease and other genetic disorders, like some connective tissue disorder. Around 30% of Peyronie's sufferers also have hardened tissue in other parts of the body, mainly in the palm (Dupuytren’s contracture) or foot (Ledderhose's disease).

There is also an indication that Peyronie's may have a vascular cause, i.e. more men with Peyronie's seem to be affected by high blood pressure (hypertension) and hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis). Diabetes is also considered possible risk factor.

Some other possible causes have been raised but have not been shown (at least not yet) to be likely cause of Peyronie's disease.

For example, prospective study (2011) into the relationship between penile fracture and Peyronie's disease showed that Penile Fracture Opens in new window symbol did not induce the development of Peyronie's disease.

The bottom line is that whatever the cause of Peyronie's disease is... it is highly unlikely that you could have done, or not done, anything to prevent getting it.

What matters now is that you got it. So what you are going to do about it?

Hello, I'm Birgir

This website is based on my experience of Peyronie's disease

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