Hi there,
Here is my situation, I would really appreciate any words of reassurance or advice.
I am 27 and have been sexually active without any problems for a decade.
Since I was 20 or so, I have been on the anti-depressant Paroxetine.
I broke up with my girlfriend of six years about 8 months ago. After that I had several casual sexual encounters without any problems.
I started going out with another girl in November last year. We're now official and I love and care for her very very much. We haven't had sex yet because she is a virgin, and I'm happy to wait.
I began worrying about random things obsessively in mid 2013. In November, I went to a GP and she changed my medication from Paroxetine to Sertraline. I re-took up smoking, and about a week later, I began having problems with my erections. Even on my own, my erections were much weaker, and I would masturbate without being fully hard. I now very rarely masturbate- sometimes for longer than 2 weeks, because of this. Sometimes when I am hard, my penis becomes flaccid, apparently for no reason.
I soon became very depressed and, thinking that the cause of my problems was the new medication or cigarettes, I stopped smoking and stopped taking the medication- so I was medication free. After several weeks without masturbating and several trips to the GP and remaining very depressed, with no improvement in the erection department, I was put back onto the Paroxetine at 20mg. My GP thought the issue was basically in my head due to anxiety.
I should note here that my girlfriend and I have had oral sex, and I was able to perform, though maybe not as strongly as I could before. We have also "dry-humped" several times, and each time I get pretty intense pain in my pubic area afterwards. I told this to my doctor but she didn't seem at all convinced that this was of relevance, although I never had this pain before with anybody else. I don't think that the pubic pain is serious, i.e. prostate cancer, as I don't think I have any other symptoms of that illness.
After a few weeks of being on the Paroxetine, my erections returned at almost 100% of what they had been previously- i.e. pretty strong. I was very happy for the week or so that the erections remained strong, but then they became week once again about 2 weeks ago, and I am again feeling depressed. I find that my libido is probably below what it was before this started, probably because the thought of sex automatically makes me think of my problem. That said, I am looking forward to having sex with my girlfriend- I just don't want my problem to mess it up. I think that maybe my issue could be to do with the fact that my gf is a virgin- I've never had sex with a virgin before. Alternatively, it could be a physical problem related to the pubic pain.
I have had my testosterone, blood sugar, thryroid etc checked, and all is normal. I don't drink, I have a reasonable amount of exercise and I don't smoke, although I do use an electric cigarette.
I love my girlfriend and I want to be able to satisfy her in every way I can. Please please help.
Thanks