Most men with spinal cord injury experience some type of erectile dysfunction – difficulty getting or sustaining an erection or inability to achieve full erection – that makes sexual intercourse difficult. Sometimes, erectile function improves over time as spontaneous recovery occurs.In men with injuries at a higher level of the spinal cord, reflexogenic erections can result from sexual or nonsexual stimulation to the genital area or penis. These erections are not necessarily related to sexual arousal, but with practice, couples can sometimes learn stimulation techniques to make these erections last long enough to have satisfactory intercourse. A satisfying sexual relationship may be possible whether you have reflexogenic erections, partial erections, or none at all. But many men and their partners want to have intercourse and may wish to use a treatment technique to create or sustain an erection firm enough for this purpose. Several options now exist, including vacuum devices, injections, medications, and penile implants.A vacuum device, or pump, is a simple tube that fits over the penis and creates an erection as air is pumped out of the tube and blood is drawn into the penis. A ring is then inserted over the base of the penis to maintain the erection by keeping the blood in the penis. After intercourse, the ring is removed and the erection dissipates. (Some people use a penis ring alone to maintain erections that occur naturally. Your urologist can tell you if this method is safe for you and can advise you on how long to use it, what size ring to use, and so forth.) The vacuum devices are generally safe, effective, and inexpensive.
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“For the families who have a retarded child with epilepsy, or with cerebral palsy and epilepsy, or a child with some other combination of multiple handicaps, then you may have to define success and failure differently. We often are faced with families with a severely-damaged child who also has seizures. They come to us before they really recognize how damaged the child is and how limited that child will be. The parents will focus on the seizures and the medication and overlook the other underlying problems.”Parents like this will need a lot of support over a long period of time. You can’t just tell them right off, ‘Hey, your child is never going to walk or talk or do anything.’ It is important to give them hope. Everyone needs to maintain some hope. But you have to help them to become realistic, gradually to come to terms with the child’s problems and to accept them. Realistic acceptance, coupled with hope, is the goal I set for these parents.”You have to help them to see and appreciate the small successes every child achieves. These little successes—smiling, responding, turning over, making a sound—may be minimal achievements to you, but they are major achievements to the parent who has waited for them so long. Parents’ reactions to severely-handicapped children like these often will depend on ethnic background and on the social context in which they were raised. There is also a lot of individual variation. It is amazing the reserves of strength that reside deep in many people.”I don’t know how I would respond if I were thrust into the situation that faces many of these parents. And I don’t think anyone knows how he will respond until he actually has to face it. But, somehow, virtually all of them do respond in a positive fashion. Somehow, virtually all of them learn to cope.”What they require most of all is support. They need to realize that they aren’t the only ones who have faced a tragedy. They need support from husband or wife, from grandparents, and from friends. The counselor can be a major source of that support but must also help in finding other community and family sources. I try to make sure that the grandparents are educated about the epilepsy and about the child’s other problems; if grandparents do not understand, they can be very destructive instead of supportive of the family.*232\308\8*

What would happen if you ate no cholesterol at all? Since you have no need for any outside source, your liver and other tissues would simply produce what they needed anyway. However, unless you’re a strict vegetarian you might want to include some animal foods (including nonfat dairy foods) in your meals, because they’re an important source of vitamins D and B12, which are not found in vegetable foods. Also, many of us have developed a taste for such foods, and they add flavor and palatability to our dishes. (If you’re a strict vegetarian, alternate sources of B12 include supplements and some fortified breakfast cereals; vitamin D you can get from the sun.)It’s not hard to ensure that you’re consuming fairly safe levels of cholesterol – just follow the Pritikin Lifetime Eating Plan. And if your serum cholesterol level is too high, you’ve got the best possible chance of lowering it through diet alone simply by enjoying the delicious and versatile menus we offer. Our studies have shown that after three weeks at a Pritikin Longevity Center, the average participant experiences a drop in serum cholesterol of 25 percent. Those who had a beginning cholesterol level in excess of 265 mg/dl had an average drop of 31 percent. This means that on the average, people cut their risk of heart disease by 50 percent; those with a beginning cholesterol level over 265 mg/dl cut their risk by 60 percent or more! Most people whose cholesterol levels are too high and who then adopt the Pritikin program will find a much bigger drop in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol than they could ever hope to achieve with the National Cholesterol Education Program/American Heart Association diet.*14/345/5*