DR JEFF FOSTER is The Sun on Sunday’s new resident doctor and is here to help YOU.
Dr Jeff, 43, splits his time between working as a GP in Leamington Spa, Warks, and running his clinic, H3 Health, which is the first of its kind in the UK to look at hormonal issues for both men and women.
See h3health.co.uk and email at [email protected].
Q) I UNDERSTAND you’re an expert in the field of low testosterone.
I may have this as I can’t get a full erection and struggle to keep it.
I spoke to my doctor but got no help at all.
Who should I speak to? Can I get medication to rectify this?
D Nicholas, Nottingham
A) While a less full erection is often due to drop in testosterone levels, it is by no means the only cause of erectile dysfunction.
Symptoms of low testosterone are often multi-factorial and are more than just sex.
Men often feel more tired, irritable, less happy with the world and may even complain of brain fog, depression and a change in body shape.
The key is to work out if the erection problems are hormonal or due to something else.
This means speaking to your doctor.
Simply doing a testosterone test is not enough to confirm if the level is acceptable or not and many patients may actually have a low free testosterone, which is not the normal test you get from your GP.
If you think you might have low testosterone but the level from your doctor comes back as normal, you may need to see someone like me who specialises in men’s health.
Q) I’M going on a long-haul flight in October and will also be using various other forms of transport.
I suffer terribly from travel sickness and don’t want it to ruin my plans.
Could you recommend a good travel sickness medication?
Diane Riley, Lancashire
A) Travel sickness is generally due to the usual input we get from the balance centres in our ears and the visual input we get from our eyes not matching in our brain.
For example, we often feel more car sick when we read a book because our eyes tell us we are still and reading, but our balance centre tells us we are moving and bumping around in a car.
Easy things we can do to improve the sensation of travel sickness include looking at a fixed point in the distance, which is something our brains can process better.
In terms of motion sickness medications, the more effective ones work by blocking the input to the parts of the brain that control our balance centre.
By doing this, our brains are less confused and we don’t feel sick.
There are some very effective motion sickness medicines you can buy at your pharmacist, such as promethazine and cinnarizine.
The effectiveness of sticks or bands for motion sickness is far less proven and I would tend to avoid.
