Isotretanoin / Accutane

Don’t know if anyone else is on this, basically an acne medication. I am 19, been with my girlfriend for over a year. Our sex has always been amazing and I’ve never had problems. Ever since I’ve started this meditation I’ve had issues keeping an erection. Last night we got it going and I went down on her. I was very hard the whole time, Then when it came time to have sex I dropped like I fly and there was no way of me going back up. I’ve also noticed that I rarely wake up in the morning with an erection. I don’t think I have low libido as I still desire sex. However I just don’t get erections like I had before I started this medication.

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Yeah, I was on accutane last spring and summer. I only really saw the ED effects once I got a gf about 3 months into taking the medication. Couldn’t get any sort of erection some nights, and other nights I would feel like I was only 3/4s of the way there. If you look it up online, I believe there are some studies that suggest it can cause ED, but I tried bringing it up with my dermatologist and she got extremely defensive, claiming that there was no correlation(I’d assume for legal reasons). I ended up getting viagra prescribed to me by my doctor (at 18 years old lmao). That helped, but also made me feel super disconnected from my erections. Luckily I gained function back pretty quickly after going off the medication last summer, and my skin has also been a lot clearer ever since. I think you gotta just consider how important getting rid of your acne is to you, and decide whether it’s worth living with ED for a few months. Best of luck!

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From what I can find (using UpToDate - basically the most trusted and expansive resource used by medical practitioners) there is a very small risk of erectile/sexual dysfunction with use of systemic isotretinoin. I suppose a couple of things - there might be a relationship in time between the new medication and your erection issues, but not a relationship in cause. It would be worth exploring within yourself whether anything else has changed during this period of time. As the other user pointed out, it may also just be a temporary response which improves as your body adjusts to the medication. Psychological ED is by far and away the most common cause of erectile dysfunction in a man in your age group, so it’s worth doing some introspection as to whether that’s contributing. Also - even if there is a non-psychological cause, that in itself can cause anxiety and self consciousness around erections which contributes to the dilemma. The exercises here would likely benefit you regardless, and if you strongly believe that it’s the medication at the centre of things then it becomes a matter weighing up the benefits and adverse effects yourself to decide what is best for you.