Crash & Insomnia after weight lifting? Exercise Intolerance?

Symptoms
#1

Hello,

About 6 years ago, I used Topical Fin & RU58841 on and off for about 4 months.

I’ve already made a member story and filled out the survey about a year ago, so I won’t go into too much detail about my past.

However, like others I suffered a hit to my libido that recovered about 70% after a few weeks of quitting cold turkey. However, over the years I’ve noticed an increase in my exercise tolerance.

Last Saturday, I engaged in sex with my girlfriend even though I felt like my sexual system was already under load and that I should let myself recover. The next day, I decided to try get back into some heavier weightlifting just because it used to make me feel so good, and I thought I could benefit from the hormonal effects as well.

I suffered a crash after that night and couldn’t sleep well. I’ve been doing nofap but my libido and my erections have been nearly non-existant.

I’ve also noticed a return & increase of some of my symptoms like arrhythmia, racing heart, etc. This is also made worse and turned into a vicious cycle by insomnia & anxiety.

Has anyone had similar experiences from too much sexual activity and/or weight lifting? Has anyone experienced a decrease in Exercise Tolerance? Also, the golden question… anyone had any luck increasing or recovering their ability to engage in intense workouts?

I see people here still talking about working out and lifting, which makes me worry if I managed to affect different pathways with the use of RU as well.

#2

We are aware of people who are both exercise intolerant and of those who report having had a down turn following sexual activity.

You may find that it’s best to listen to your body at least to some degree.

I personally didn’t do any kind of exercise for a year after crash and then gently reintroduced it. It didn’t seem (I haven’t exercised in a month) to cause me any of problems. I’m not sure it did a lot for me and being realistic, if it were possible to exercise this condition away, we would have more recoveries which were able to be duplicated.

It might be worth you trying to go easy on everything and if you have doubts play it cautiously. Obviously nobody has a definitive answer but I think that caution is less likely to lead to a worsened condition.

#3

I also crashed pretty hard after lifting weights, had trouble sleeping, had worsening of ed (no real ed at baseline), much worse depression, much worse anxiety, etc. This was a year and a half off after getting PFS, and I also used to lift 6 days a week prior to this so i thought it’d be good for me. Sadly that wasn’t the case. It’s been almost a year since then, I haven’t tried lifting since then and am honestly afraid to.

Have you reacted the same way to cardio?

#4

@borax

My reaction to cardio is somewhat different than weights. Although, In both cases, I generally have a significant reduction in stamina & capability. I can do about a fourth of what I was able to do.

For example, if i could do a total 20-30 sets of different exercises in a day’s workout, now I can do 6-8 with significant rest & recovery between each set (5-10 minutes).

I think I have a better reaction doing more isolated weights as opposed to full body weights. I have a feeling/theory that my Central Nervous System is not able to tolerate the stress of such heavy weights and triggers an anxiety reaction (which then fuels the insomnia).

My cardio experience is analogous to my workouts. I used to love doing sprints, but now whatever attempt I’ve done at cardio has been with more light cardio. Going a low speed for a sustained time. Pushing myself too much cardio wise (with exercises that should be safe for most people) I get red and my heart rate gets really high even with a 5 minute workout.

After the exercise, I feel like the immediate tiredness that follows after a workout (which normally ceases after 10-15 minutes) for me can last for an hour or two. This period can also be aggravated by the heightened anxiety.

I think I have a combination of my cardio system being reduced due to hormonal pathways, and also my CNS not being able to handle the added stress on my body which triggers anxiety. Combination of the two exacerbates each other and also induces further anxiety & insomnia thus also hurting the hormonal system.

@Greek Thank you for your words. That’s what I plan to do. I will be speaking to urologist this week, although my expectations are low. I just hope he doesn’t deny that Finasteride can have persistent sides, and we can move from there to do the standard tests.

#5

We have an information pack you can take with you if you need some backup.

It’s posted here somewhere, if you search you’ll find it, if you can’t I’ll dig it out for you later on, but please try for yourself first. :slight_smile:

#6

I haven’t tried working out since that one terrible experience, I believe I did a total of 24 sets. I’m not sure if it’s purely a CNS reaction as my genitals hurt and I got ED, but I do think it’s possible that a part of it (the mental effects) could be mediated by that.

#7

Did you manage to bounce back from the ED? Or has it become your new baseline?

I’m in the same position rn, since my initial crash 5 weeks ago I had recovered to a good baseline (only symptom was low libido, erections were at 95%-100% and I was still fully functional whenver needed). But anyway, I did a chest workout on Monday and instantly got hit with bad anxiety and since then I have been suffering from ED as well.

#8

I think I did. I definitely didn’t stay at that low for very long, bounced back, but got worse in the weeks following. I took quite a few meds relatively frequently during that crash because I felt horrible mentally, and I think that might’ve contributed to my worsening in the weeks after that, but I’m not entirely sure.

I don’t think it was the exercise that contributed to my misery post the initial period, and even if it was, I don’t think my experience was typical. Most people I’ve read about tend to go back to baseline after suffering a worsening from working out.

#9

@borax have you checked your hormone leveld after your post-workout suspected crash? Could it be thaz you got elevated T levels by workout that converted to high estrogens?

#10

I did not get my levels tested after that, no. I didn’t really see the point of it at the time, I just realized that lifting weights was something I probably needed to avoid.

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