I’m rebooting and my erections are painful.

We are not doctors, so please seek medical advice. Painful erections can be related to all kinds of causes. 

A few guys have reported this symptom during rebooting:

I was having copulatory ED. I am currently over 60 days into my recent stretch of no PMO, and I feel better than ever. I’ve been waking up from time to time with partial erections, and even get a few semis out in public while riding the subway and things like that (though these are less common).

What has happened to me a few times, is that I’ll wake up with a full on erection that is actually a little bit painful. I hadn’t heard of anything like this before in anyone else’s experiences. Is this common? Is my body not so used to full on erections that the ones I’m getting are hurting a little? Will this go away? Could I have damaged my penis from years of unhealthy prone masturbation? The pain is quite bearable. It’s the unusualness of erection pains that I’m most worried about.

These days my best erections though seem to be the ones that hurt a little bit. They are the only ones I’m getting where I feel the penis is fully erect enough for sex.

Here are other accounts:

First guy: Anyone experienced painful nocturnal erection? I’ll notice as I’m sleeping / half asleep / wake up to it. It never happens during the day. It’s been happening over the last 1.5 months. Doesn’t usually come on with any erotic dreams or thoughts (but may) and when it does there’ll be no sexual feeling either. To make it go down I have to distract myself. It feels different to a normal nighttime erection as it’s less engorged (feels and looks narrower), it’s as hard as stone but the glans is soft/limp – like blood wants to keep pumping.

But if there’s any contraction, it’ll hurt all up and down the shaft. It could be me worrying about it too much but the veins look a little more dark and prominent than usual. Whle watching porn I did have partial-erection ejaculations, and I never really had nighttime erections. Just seems like overkill engorgement with the glans still soft. Just didn’t feel normal.

Second guy: I think I kind of have the symptom of slight pain from erections. It’s nothing bad, but I think it has someting to do with the fact that I noticed that my penis seems bigger now.

Third guy: I’ve thought so much about sex today, I feel pain in my penis. It’s like there is energy down there but no erection comes from it. It’s in my dick. Like a sharp pain, kind of like gas. Maybe more blood is going into areas it hasn’t been in awhile….I don’t know.

Third guy: I completed 2 weeks yesterday, the first week was difficult (especially first few days). As the second week progressed things got a lot easier and i had very little fantasy. In the last day or so fantasies have come up strongly again. I noticed a strange pain on the left side of my penis. Morning erections have improved maybe 30% since the lowest point. Not a lot, but it’s been quite rapid over the last 2 days or so (which co-incides with the days i’ve had more fantasies).

On of these guys figured out his problem, and advised another guy as follows:

Unreleased pressure from arousal shouldn’t be painful unless there’s some level of pelvic floor dysfunction. Sexual supression, too frequent or perhaps too intense an ejaculation can cause your pelvic floor muscles to tighten too much putting too much pressure on genitals, impinging blood flow and causing aches and pains. I’d go to the doctor and get a check up though. He can do an ultrasound and examination. There are more serious conditions like scarring, damaged or blocked blood vessels like in priapism, but I wouldn’t think that to be the case. Mine has been as a result of tight pelvic floor muscles.

Another guy, two weeks in:

When I do get an erection throughout the day, sometimes, it is a lot harder in the middle of my penis than before. It actually hurts when it goes that hard. Before, I’d get an erection, and it’d feel hard, but in the middle of the fleshy bit, it would still feel ‘soft’ (difficult to explain). Now it’s rock solid and it hurts.

One guy’s solution:

Today i had a long ride in a car. I’m at my day 9 and from 5am to 8-9am I had a really strong erection, i don’t know what kept my di*k that hard but i know it’s really painful. However I’ve found something that killed my erection. Flex your arms muscle the harder you can the better and then focus on resuming mentally a movie you watched (for example). And it worked. The pain just went away!

Here’s a good book/site about pelvic floor pain: Headache in the Pelvis. See the following medical thread as well. Pains can also be related to prostate infection (rapid treatment advised!), unaccustomed fuller erections (as you recover), vigorous masturbation, strenuous exercise, dehydration, and referral from another part of the body. Read this thread for details.