Question: Dear doctor, I have written to you before regarding my unwanted erections during my sleep. It has been going on for 6 months now. I am not sure if it is due to stress or my back problems (disc herniation), or a combination. I will typically wake up every 1-2 hours and have to stand up to lose the erection before I sleep again. Lately I have been drinking some chinese medical herbs to alleviate stress and try to help sleeping matters. A couple of nights ago I woke up after one hour with erection, which is quite normal for me, but the next time I woke up was after as long as 4,5 hours, which hasn't happened before. And I do not know how long these erections last, if they last throughout my sleep or occur only shortly before I wake up. The erections are painless though, and this one felt no different. But the following evening during a small erection, when it died down I felt a discomfort on the underside of my penis, which I haven't encountered before. It feels like internal, and doesn't really feel like it is the urethra, so I wonder if it can be the corpus spongiosum and related to the prolonged erection I had the night before. Now more than 24 hours later I still feel this moderate pain, so I worry if I may have had an erection lasting about 4 hours during my sleep which has damaged the corpus spongiosum? I can still get erections though as of now. I don't have any unwanted erections during the daytime, only when I sleep. Please shed some light to this matter. Can painless erections also cause damage if they last long enough? Will such damage repair itself if only happened one or two nights? How can I check if anything is wrong? Through ultrasound? Thanks for your help.

Thank you for advice. I have only recently started the herbal medicines, so they are not the cause of my problems. Masturbation doesn't help. The only thing I have considered is eating less or no chocolate, since I eat quite much of it. But I am not overweight though. It is useful and interesting for me to read your answers. I struggle to find information about unwanted erection during sleep. Last time I saw my urologist, he said not to worry about it. But at the same time he told me damage to the penis starts to develop after 2 hours of erection, and since I am unfortunately anxious about health matters, it is difficult for me not to worry. Answers to some follow-up questions would be greatly appreciated. If I get 4 hours of sleep and wake up with an erection, is it highly unlikely the erection has been there the whole time? Is prolonged nighttime erections a known medical problem, in terms of tissue damage to the penis? Is there such a thing as nighttime priapism or would this only occur for patients with priapism who happen to fall asleep? I have felt some moderate burning on the underside of the penis and dull soreness at the tip of the underside of the penis, does that not come from the corpus spongiosum? I don't know how a symptom of pain from the corpus spongiosum would feel like, but I know from earlier that the more I worry about something, this anxiety itself can cause symptoms. Do you think these mild symptoms require a visit to the doctor? Are they most likely from the urethra? I don't have any difficulties or extra symptoms when urinating and I am not at risk of any STD. Thanks.