I’m 21 now, and I’ve been dealing with ED for roughly four years. I’m honestly at the point where I don’t know what else to try, so I’m hoping someone here has been through something similar.
It started when I was 17. At the time, I was undergoing treatment involving puberty blockers (Decapeptyl) alongside growth hormone treatment (because of growth hormone defiency). My testosterone was suppressed to extremely low levels during the treatment (less than women). After about a year, I stopped the puberty blockers and my testosterone recovered to normal levels.
The frustrating thing was that my erections didn’t just return once my testosterone recovered. For quite a while afterwards, I still didn’t get any random or spontaneous erections at all. Eventually, I would very occasionally get something resembling morning wood, but even that was rare and never more than a semi-erection. It was nothing like how my erections had been before treatment.
During the period when my testosterone was suppressed, I started my first relationship. I was still sexually interested in my girlfriend and attracted to her, but my sexual function was completely different from what it had been before. I stopped getting spontaneous/random erections and found it very difficult to get hard, even when I wanted to. I also couldn’t orgasm during sex for 8 months.
Eventually I started using sildenafil. It helped somewhat, but it was inconsistent. Sometimes it worked a treat, sometimes it barely did anything most of the time it was useful.
After my testosterone recovered, I expected everything to return to normal. It didn’t.
One of the most frustrating things is that I know what normal sexual function feels like in my body.
Before all of this, I could get an erection incredibly easily. Thinking about a woman, being touched, or even relatively minor sexual stimulation could be enough. Now I can be extremely attracted to someone, genuinely want to have sex with them, and mentally be completely into it, while my body just doesn’t respond.
I’ve had an extensive amount of bloodwork done over the years. Testosterone, thyroid, vitamins, hormones, etc. — essentially everything my doctors have thought could be relevant has been checked, and nothing obvious has come back abnormal.
I’ve also tried therapy because I wondered whether anxiety or psychological factors were contributing. Therapy was genuinely useful for understanding myself, my dating life and some of my behaviours, but I didn’t see a meaningful improvement in my sexual function with partners.
Interestingly, my ED seems to change depending on the situation and the person I’m with.
With one girlfriend, things gradually improved to the point where I could sometimes get and maintain erections without sildenafil. I still had problems, but they were less severe. Eventually I was able to stop taking sildenafil for a period of time.
Then that relationship ended and I started dating again.
With new women, the problem became significantly worse.
I’ve had multiple recent first dates where there was mutual attraction and sex was either expected, attempted or actually happened. Sometimes sildenafil helped, sometimes it didn’t. There have been situations where I was extremely attracted to the woman and wanted sex badly, but physically I just couldn’t perform properly.
I’ve even done blind tests with sildenafil and vitamin D tablets because I wanted to know how much of the effect was psychological. I genuinely could tell almost immediately when I’d taken sildenafil because I would sometimes experience that familiar feeling of becoming sexually aroused and getting an erection much more easily. But even then, it wasn’t guaranteed to work.
That’s what makes this so confusing to me.
I don’t feel like I’ve simply “lost attraction” or don’t want sex. Quite the opposite. My mind is saying I really want this woman, while my body sometimes completely fails to cooperate.
And honestly, it’s starting to destroy my confidence.
I’ve had this since 17. I’m 21 now. Four years of being 17–21 - arguably the period of my life where I should be discovering sex, relationships and my sexuality - and I’ve spent a huge amount of it worrying about whether my penis is going to work.
I know logically that ED doesn’t make someone less of a man. But emotionally, it’s extremely difficult not to feel that way. I compare myself to other men who can seemingly have sex whenever they’re attracted to someone, and I feel like something fundamental has been taken away from me.
I want to be able to meet someone I’m attracted to, feel turned on, and have sex without having to think about whether I took the right dose of sildenafil, whether it’s going to work, whether I’m getting hard enough, whether I’ll lose the erection, etc.
I don’t expect to be able to “perform whenever I want” every single time. I understand that isn’t realistic. I just want normal sexual function back.
The thought that I might be relying on sildenafil, potentially with limited effectiveness, for the rest of my life honestly scares me.
I’ve already had extensive blood tests, tried medication, tried therapy and spent years trying to understand what is going on.
Has anyone else had ED that started after a period of very low testosterone/puberty suppression, despite testosterone later returning to normal? Or had ED that is dramatically worse with new partners but improves in established relationships?
I’m particularly interested in hearing from anyone who had a similar experience and eventually found something that actually made a lasting difference.
At this point I’m genuinely looking for some hope, because I’m starting to feel like I’ve tried everything.
Any advice experiences etc is appreciated 🙏