Chi's Member Story & Progress

General Discussion
#126

Update

I went on holiday for a week with my girlfriend. We had a fantastic time during which I had about 2 days complete full recovery. I marked both days with 100% for Mental, Physical, Sexual on my chart. First time in a while i felt that good! Strangely once again both days coincided with drinking a few glasses of alcohol the night before. I wish i understood this better. The remainder of the holiday i felt pretty good, somewhere near 80 - 90% in all aspects. It was AWESOME to shag my girlfriend with normal libido, first time ever it was this normal i think. I can’t wait for it to be back permanently in the future. Of course it was sunny, which has always helped me but it was the alcohol that triggered the recoveries as it has in the past and reported by others here. I didn’t really drink that much to be honest to trigger such an awesome few days. I’ll take it as a good sign.

In the time since my last post, I’ve been trying to get a bit stricter with myself and my regime. I’m also starting to get a bit more systematic about the things I am doing and putting in my body to combat the condition. I continue to make steady progress, but the progress isn’t straight, with devastating (but generally short lived) setbacks like today, after an awful thrown off sleep. One thing that has become increasingly apparent to me during this time and especially when tracking upwards trends is that my Cortisol production seems high. This could be as a result of taking GHB on a regular basis, but even when I am not taking it for approximately one week i still feel something is not right here which inevitably causes a bad nights sleep and then everything cascades downwards. I did some light research on this and the symptoms of Hypercortisolism seem to fit my current symptom complex very well. Do your own research, but I always wake up between 2-4am, at my worst i bruise easily; have thinner skin; lowered immunity; have weight gain in the trunk; thinning of the wrists; night time urination; moonface and others. I checked back at a serum Cortisol test i had done about a year ago and it was about 460 out of 100-500, so it was quite high then, but it was morning. Therefore, I have requested a night time saliva kit from my GP to get it properly tested before I take action. Most likely I will look at Phosphatidyl Serine should it be proven high. Interestingly Paul Walters took this while taking GHB.

I’m not sure if other people have this, but my body appears to be on a constant knife edge. My days fluctuate between the following:

Day A
(Usually following bad sleep)

  • Thin wrists
  • Thicker trunk (fat breast tissue, stomach, sides of abdomen)
  • Blurry Vision
  • Pulled up small testicles
  • No libido
  • Excessive sweating
  • Poor stress response and worsening mental symptoms
  • Some hair thinning around pubic region

Day B
(Usually following good sleep)

  • Normal wrists
  • Reduction of fat and normal masculine body
  • Clear vision
  • Normal testes
  • Some libido or decent libido
  • Normal sweating
  • Good stress response and mental symptoms
  • Evident hair thickening around the pubic region

The change from one to the other can be drastic - for e.g. 5 days ago I was 100% ‘Day B’, now I am 100% ‘Day A’. This constant switching between ‘Day A’ & ‘Day B’ has only come about since I first took GHB in Feb, during which I honestly believe I cured or corrected some form of brain GABA/GHB pathway problem. Before taking GHB for the first time I was on a roller coaster, now I am on a see-saw. The GHB still brings huge benefits when I manage to sleep well with it (5 hours straight is the best I can get), but it does not appear to be the right thing to completely knock my sleep back on track (8 hrs +). If I could find that other thing I need in conjunction with GHB (maybe lowering Cortisol), it could well be the sucker punch for my PFS. It’s definitely cornered, I just don’t have the winner just yet. Just for your info, on average I think i get about 3-4 hours decent sleep per night, the rest is restless or awake. This is my primary reason for suspecting Cortisol.

The sleep centre consultations continue in the background, but like Blunted I have moved on to sessions of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I know you know it’s bullshit, I know it’s bullshit, I told my GP it’s bullshit, I told my sleep centre Dr it’s bullshit and I told the Manager there it’s bullshit… BUT what can I do! I feel it’s something I have to go through to get it on my file, please them and progress to more drastic measures. I have explained that should the 5 week program be unsuccessful they will need to come up with alternative treatments, because i’m not going anywhere. To be honest though, since I have taken GHB, my life has been more chilled out and functional than it used to be, I am really using whatever they suggest as an aid while I pull out the heavy hitters… Think of their treatments as a Fiat Panda and mine as a Maserati.

I have concluded I don’t have an issue with androgens per se. I play competitive squash in 2 leagues, can go running, do weights and gain muscle. It just doesn’t feel like an androgen problem for me, but a difficult hormonal re-balancing act of some clearly very powerful hormones causing the aforementioned symptoms in ‘Day A’. The only thing I do know is the longer Day A’s continue, the higher fat build up i seem to get. It’s gradual, but evident to me. I’m not too concerned though, because days of feeling 100% or close to it, for which I have had probably over a dozen surrounded by many other similar but not quite so good days show to me it is possible to be normal again. I’m simply not being strict enough with my plans to get better, the sooner I do, the sooner i’ll be out of this mess. I just know it.

Anyway, i’m going to sign out for now. I hope you are all doing good! Praise to that guy who stood outside Merck HQ. What a hero.

Chi

#127

Some evidence that GHB can increase levels of neurosteroids in the brain
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12015204

Arrticle around Ehtanol (alcohol) and its ability to anhance neurosteroidogenesis in the brain. They also talk here about using finasteride to completely block synthesis after they raised it via ethanol
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/27/9905.full.pdf

For me, these articles are very important for our condition

a) GHB has improved my condition permanently, but I am not completely recovered yet
b) I have had numerous recoveries after drinking alcohol

#128

dude, what does your diet look like? also, are you taking vit D?

#129

Hah, well said!

#130

It’s much better than the average person, but I could and need to go MUCH further. I eat 3 times daily, plenty of nuts and various fruit in between, plenty of fresh fruit juices (Coconut, Orange etc). However, i do have the odd cake and drink alcohol probably once every 2 months. I drink plenty of water.

Any interesting dietary suggstions you may have are very welcome. Coming back from holiday after feeling so great, it’s clear I still have a way to go.

#131

Hey Chi,

How is your progress? Anything add to your treatment plan?

Thanks

#132

Hi. Yes, at the moment I am experimenting with these Chinese prostate herbs i bought from Chinamedcure website. They were extremely effective to start with - as in full recovery for 5 days - but it faded away. I’m adding them to my regime on a less frequent basis. I’ve also fine tuned some things in my diet. I’d say i’m somewhere near 75-80% recovered at any given point in time. Occasionally everything falls apart for a few days, but on average thats where i’m at. Still have some things lined up on the horizon to progress my recovery even further though. Will update if i hit on something significant.

#133

When you have these improvements has fallen hair??

Xyrem will cause addiction?

#134

Yes, thinning of hair when having recoveries or significant improvements. My hair is probably back to where it was before now, but i don’t study it nor care about hair anymore, so it’s hard to tell. I’m not taking Xyrem, but the GHB I have taken has not caused me any addiction, I haven’t taken it in a while

#135

Thanks for updating us!

Why did you stop using GHB? Did it loose its effect on you or is it a supply issue? You reported decent result with it if I remember correctly.

#136

Chi I really appreciate your positive approach against ED , at least some inspiration very well done with your recovery I am truly , genuenly happ for you, wish the same for everbody on this forum.

#137

Chi, would you mind describing the excessive sweating you experience on your bad days? My biggest symptom post-fin has been excessive localized hyperhidrosis from my feet and from the underside of my scrotum. The sweating occurs twenty-four hours a day and has persisted the entirety of the year and half since PFS symptoms set in. Very few others on the board have experienced excessive sweating issues, though, so I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts. Do you attribute the sweating to reduced androgen levels?

#138

Just thought i’d update because i actually have something to say again :slight_smile:

I’m doing good. While the trend has not been smooth, since January this year I see i’ve made tremendous progress (that’s when I took GHB for the first time coincidently). One thing I noticed about 1-2 months or so, is that my balls often returned to normal size again. Started off just occasionally, now it’s more like 80-95% of the time. It’s encouraging. Actually, a lot of symptoms that were once horrific are now very minor or have vanished completely. My vision for instance only goes bad for short intimitant periods now, and is usually post a heavy meal or after I have eaten something my body does not agree with. Some smaller symptoms like cuticle recession and excessive sweating when exercising seem to be gone. My worst symptoms, in a nut shell, are not feeling that refreshed from sleep, libido comes and goes (something inside me feels like it will be the last thing to fully return), I lack a bit of energy and balls tuck up more than normal. Wrists are still a bit thin and chest sometimes burns a bit, when the very minor gyno i have flares up. However, ALL of these symptoms have improved since 3 months ago, and 3 months before that etc. Trend is a clear positive.

I’m going to sign out now because spending time here definitely definitely impeeds recovery, but just wanted to give some of you some hope. At times, my case has been bad, but on average i’m sitting about 80-85% recovered now and still making progress…

Take care all (and never give up!)

Chi

#139

Thanks for the update Chi. Are you still doing hill sprints?

#140

Hi Chi,

are you still taking GHB?

#141

chi what does your typical climate look like versus from when you were on vacation? is there any other factors you can think of you did or DID NOT do (maybe you stopped GHB for a day or two and that could’ve caused a bounce back or something) on your vacation that had an impact on your bounce back recovery? i never really improve 100%… i always seem flat…

#142

Hello Everyone,

I want to keep this brief, but… I have almost fully recovered. Just some minor adjustments that I need to make over the next 3-6 months in order to be 100% in all areas. Will report back once I know for sure.

All the best
Chi

#143

you have actually recovered from penis curvature?

#144

there are options for this… there is some peyroines websiet that gives you many different types of vitamins and supplements to help treat it. the biggest is vitamin E because of its ability to hear scar tissue. although… watch your body if you take it… some may have a negative reaction to it for reasons outside of my understanding.

#145

Bryce, it’s not scar tissue. This is a giant misconception. I developed the penile bend over night from the crash. My dopler and others showed no significant contributory calcification that would cause this. In fact, one endo almost fell out of his chair when he heard something like this can occur overnight