My girlfriend has had her sexual pleasure, libido, and ability to be penetrated completely taken from her as a result of being on this drug on and off for six years. The last round of treatment she took was roughly a year and a half ago.
My girlfriend, started taking accutane for severe cystic acne at the age of 14. So severe that her dermatologist called it the worst case they had ever come across. Due to it being such a severe case, she was initially on 80mg daily for 9 months at a time, as opposed to the traditional 5, and then for 6 months at a time the next two times. Being 14 and growing up in a sexually conservative household, she had never had sex or even masturbated prior to starting this drug. As she got older, the few times she attempted to masturbate she felt pain upon penetration which prompted her to stop. She has been a virgin up until she recently started dating me. We tried to have sex but were unable because as I tried to use my fingers, as well as have penetrative sex, it was immensely painful and brought her nearly to tears. Even softly rubbing or licking had no effect and her vagina was essentially unable to feel any sensation, the only sensation being extreme pain when penetrated.
This led us to spend hours figuring out why this was happening. We researched causes of chronic sexual pain and numbness and found little to nothing that was relevant. I asked her many questions about her medical history to try to seek out factors that could be attributed to this rare phenomenon that an otherwise healthy young woman would be experiencing.
She told me that she had cystic acne, which I had already knew about, and that the medicine she took caused her to have dry lips, mouth, and skin, as well as additional side effects of depression, bone pain, and fatigue. She then realized that her vagina also had trouble getting wet, potentially for the same reason. This led me to google “accutane sexual effects”. The results were few but what we did find was genuinely horrifying. Apparently there are hundreds of other people around the world that have reported having impotence, loss of feeling, and vaginal pain. Seeing posts on blogs and forums just like this one. One of the only things we found from anything close to a news outlet was this article in Elle magazine. https://www.elle.com.au/beauty/roaccutane-sex-life-19097
Unfortunately and to my amazement, many posts of people talking about this were shot down and dismissed as a conspiracy or a troll. I assure you, as I sit next to my girlfriend trying to process this horrifying revelation, that this is not a conspiracy and that I am witnessing firsthand what folks have said but have never been able to medically prove.
The posts and stories that we read in the next couple hours were spot on in describing what has happened to her, and no other reason comes close to being this accurate of a depiction of her situation.
We are not sure what we will do from here. We are making appointments with different medical professionals but since this is seemingly an extremely rare condition we don’t expect them to have any answers for us right away. Hopefully a medical professional will take this with the seriousness it deserves and put us in contact with someone who knows more about this. My girlfriend has never had an orgasm, only numbness and pain. This has robbed her of being able to experience the joys of sex and masturbation and all that comes with that aspect of her humanity. We are devastated to have stumbled on what surely is the cause of this, and I do not enjoy typing this post.
If there is anyone reading this that knows about this, can help us be in contact with somebody who does, or would like to ask further questions or details, please do not hesitate to message me. We are flabbergasted and beyond disbelief at this realization and need every resource available to us in order to figure out what can be done going forward. Message me on here. Any help or direction would be appreciated more than you know.