Published Aug 15, 2026 | 7:00 AM ⚊ Updated Aug 15, 2026 | 7:00 AM
A treatment aimed at improving one aspect of male health can have the opposite effect on sperm production.
Synopsis: Some Indian men with fertility concerns spend months or even years trying herbal remedies, fertility tonics, roadside treatments and online sexual-wellness products before consulting a specialist. Fertility experts explain how stigma, embarrassment and promises of quick cures delay diagnosis, while some treatments, including unsupervised testosterone, can potentially suppress sperm production.
Some men spend six months on a fertility tonic. Others try herbal remedies for a year or buy sexual-wellness medication online. By the time they reach a fertility specialist, some have spent much time trying remedies without undergoing the basic semen analysis that could have established whether they have a problem.
Dr Krishna Chaitanya, Clinical Embryologist at Oasis Fertility, Hyderabad, has seen men take that route repeatedly. Dr Thota Siddhartha, Consultant Urologist and Andrologist at Prashanth Hospitals, Chennai, noted several such men arrive at the hospital after months or years of treatment that produced a history of remedies, but not a diagnosis.
Dr Chaitanya termed such men as those seeking jadi booti treatments—herbal remedies and other products promoted for sexual and reproductive problems.
“Trust me, I don’t have the confidence of treating every disease,” he said. “And that guy can treat every damn disease on earth.” Patients, he said, could pay a relatively small amount, receive a remedy and leave believing they had found an answer.
Dr Siddhartha noticed the same pattern once these men eventually reached his clinic.
“Many men come to us only after trying different treatments for several months and sometimes even for years,” he said, describing herbal medicines, tonics and sexual-wellness products that had often been tried before even a basic semen analysis. “Some of them would have spent a lot of time and money on these treatments without even undertaking a basic semen analysis.”
He did not blame the men for making that choice. The larger problem, he said, was the combination of misinformation and stigma surrounding male infertility.
“We shouldn’t keep treating blindly. We need to find out why the man has a fertility problem in the first place,” he opined.
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Some of these treatments could appear to work because sexual-wellness problems could have a psychological component, Dr Chaitanya said.
A man who received reassurance from a practitioner and believed the remedy would help could experience greater confidence and improved sexual performance, creating the impression that the treatment itself had worked.
“This baba has counselled me, he’s given me this,” he said, describing the thought process. “And then they do it better, and they start believing that this actually works.” He characterised the mechanism as a placebo effect, driven by the patient’s belief and thought process.
But improved sexual confidence is not the same as treating infertility. A man may feel better sexually while an underlying sperm-production problem, hormonal disorder, obstruction or varicocele remains undiagnosed, particularly when no semen analysis or clinical evaluation has been done. Male infertility can have several causes, including problems with sperm production, hormonal disorders and obstruction of the reproductive tract.
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Dr Siddhartha’s patients sometimes arrived having taken testosterone on their own, believing it would improve their fertility or masculinity. But external testosterone can suppress the hormonal signals required for sperm production, meaning a treatment taken with the intention of improving male health can instead impair fertility.
“That’s actually an important misconception,” he said. “Testosterone is not a fertility treatment. In fact, taking external testosterone can suppress sperm production.” He advised men trying to have a child against taking testosterone or hormonal medication on their own.
Current clinical guidance has recognised that exogenous testosterone suppresses spermatogenesis and is not recommended as a treatment for men seeking fertility.
The distinction matters because the market around male sexual health often sells the idea that higher testosterone, sexual performance and fertility are interchangeable. They are not. A treatment aimed at improving one aspect of male health can have the opposite effect on sperm production.
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Dr Chaitanya was careful not to frame the issue as a contest between modern medicine and every form of traditional care. His objection was to treatment without proper evaluation and to practitioners who promised answers before establishing what was actually wrong.
“I’m not trying to say modern medicine is the best and everybody needs to come to a hospital,” he said. “Let’s not let the discussion go on that side.” His point was simpler: whatever treatment a patient chose, the underlying problem first needed to be established. “You’ve got to see a trained medical professional and evaluate. First understand your problem.”
Dr Siddhartha offered a practical test for separating medical care from unproven claims. “The red flag is when someone promises a guaranteed cure without even evaluating the patient,” he said. Patients should ask three questions before beginning treatment: “What is the diagnosis? What is the evidence behind this treatment? And who is prescribing it?”
The reluctance went beyond infertility. Dr Chaitanya said men often avoided seeking medical help for problems involving the testes, genital infections and other reproductive or sexual-health concerns because they were uncomfortable discussing them with a doctor.
“I don’t really think they are open to just walk to a doctor and say, look, I have a problem,” he said.
Dr Siddhartha traced that reluctance to embarrassment and the persistent belief that fertility was tied to masculinity and sexual performance. “I think the biggest issue is embarrassment,” he said. A man could have completely normal sexual function and still have a very low sperm count or no sperm in his semen, but many men did not realise the two were separate.
That embarrassment could make an anonymous purchase feel easier than a medical consultation. “It is psychologically easier for some men to go and buy a fertility tonic than to come and discuss infertility with the doctor,” Dr Siddhartha said.
The roadside tent now has a digital counterpart. Dr Chaitanya described a large online market catering to men seeking medication for sexual-wellness concerns, including people who might not otherwise consult a doctor. “You really look at the market of people accessing these medications online,” he said. “I think that’s a huge market out there.”
Dr Siddhartha said much of the marketing was built around manliness, sexual power, performance and virility rather than fertility itself. “The problem is that men start believing their ability to father a child is a reflection of their masculinity. It isn’t,” he said, adding that male infertility was a medical condition rather than a measure of how masculine a man was.
That distinction becomes particularly important online, where sexual performance products and fertility remedies can appear alongside one another. A man searching for help with one problem can therefore encounter claims about another without first establishing whether he has a fertility problem at all.
The delay was not confined to men who had tried roadside remedies.
Dr Chaitanya’s clinic had also run Janani Yatra, a rural outreach programme that took fertility education, gynaecological consultation and semen collection closer to communities that might otherwise struggle to reach specialist care. “We took a bus which would have a segment of educational videos, a gynaecologist consulting and also a semen collection room,” he said.
The programme encountered couples who had been married for a decade or more without seeking proper fertility testing. “We would see people married for 10, 14, 17 years and just because there’s a free medical camp they’ve just come,” Dr Chaitanya said.
For some couples, waiting had become a family precedent. Dr Chaitanya recalled one patient explaining that his mother had conceived only 10 or 15 years after marriage, and he therefore saw no reason to seek testing earlier. “So my mother also conceived after 10 or 15 years of her marriage, so I’m also waiting for that,” the patient told him.
Dr Chaitanya argued that the comparison failed to account for changes in lifestyle, stress and health conditions. “You want to use the same formula of your grandmother in 2026,” he said.
Dr Siddhartha had seen the same delay among patients arriving at his clinic. “I have seen patients who have spent one or two years and sometimes much longer trying different treatments before coming to a specialist,” he said. The initial evaluation, he added, was relatively straightforward and began with a semen analysis, after which the findings could guide further testing.
A varicocele, hormonal problem or obstruction may require specific treatment, but can remain undiagnosed while a man spends months or years trying different remedies. The longer the diagnosis is delayed, the longer the couple may remain without knowing what is actually preventing conception.
Dr Siddhartha offered simple advice. “Don’t treat the advertisement. Treat the facts,” he said. “Don’t feel embarrassed about getting evaluated. Male infertility is a medical condition, not a reflection of masculinity.”
The first step, he said, was to establish the underlying problem rather than spend months following a promise of a guaranteed cure. For men trying to have a child, the sooner the actual cause is identified, the sooner appropriate treatment can begin.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
