{"id":26726,"date":"2026-08-16T21:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T21:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/?p=26726"},"modified":"2026-08-23T13:40:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T13:40:06","slug":"can-arvs-cause-weaker-erections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/26726","title":{"rendered":"Can ARVs cause weaker erections?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello and thanks for getting in touch<\/p>\n

Most people don’t find HIV meds affect their sexual health, especially modern drugs.<\/p>\n

However, you didn’t say which meds you are taking and whether this includes dolutegravir (one of the meds in TLD)<\/p>\n

If yes, then maybe this could be linked to ARVs. This is because a few years ago, this link to a small study in Uganda<\/a>, did include changes after switching to dolutegravir. This study only involved about 50 people but both men and women reported changes in their sexual health.<\/p>\n

Although I have not seen any follow up from this study or other studies that support the link with HIV meds, you might just be unlucky and have had a similar reaction.<\/p>\n

Have you spoken to your clinic? If yes, what did they say.<\/p>\n

Perhaps also show them the link to the study above.<\/p>\n

Sexual health is complicated and can be affected by many things. I wondered whether anything else in your life changed at the same time as you started ART? For example, changes in relationships, or work or housing or anything else linked to stress can affect sexual health too. Or if you were only recently diagnosed, whether coming to terms with HIV could also be a factor.<\/p>\n

This is discussed in more detail in this linked article:
\ni-base.info\/guides\/side\/sexual-health<\/a><\/p>\n

Sex can be such an important part of life that your clinic should help suggest different options also included in the article. This includes trying drugs like Viagra, in case this helps. Have you already tried this.<\/p>\n

If you still get strong erections when you are waking up in the morning, this shows that nothing has physically changed. and it might be related to worrying about HIV. If morning erections are weaker, then this could be because of a medical factor or a side effect.<\/p>\n

If things don’t get better, perhaps ask if you can change to a different ARV combination.<\/p>\n

This might only need to be for a short time. This is because if nothing improves after 2-4 weeks then something else is likely to be the cause – and you can go back on your current treatment again. If things get better though, then staying on the new combination will hopefully help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi there<\/p>\n

Is there any solution to fix my weak erection as it declined since I have been taking ARVs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,37,38,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-sexual-health","category-side-effects","category-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26726"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26741,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26726\/revisions\/26741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}