Depression and panic attacks - hormonal problems after having sex

Member Stories
#1

  1. Where are you from (country)? Iam from Germany

  2. How did you find this forum: Google - Depression Propecia, Finasterid, Finpecia

  3. What is your current age, height, weight? 32, 177cm, 68 kg

  4. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise? jogging, biking, swimming, workout, Yoga regularly

  5. What type of diet do you eat - I’m not a vegetarian, but I don´t eat al lot of meat…

  6. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)? Hairloss

  7. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)? 2Months

  8. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride? 32

  9. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit? 32

  10. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)? cold turkey

  11. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic? Finpecia - 1Mg Finasteride

  12. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)? 1mg a day

  13. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects? 2 Months

  14. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?

Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[ ] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ ] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[ ] Loss of Morning Erections
[ ] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[ ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ ] Watery Ejaculate
[x ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

Mental
[x ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[x ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ x] Confusion
[ x] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[x ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[x ] Slurring of Speech
[x ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[x ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[x ] Depression / Melancholy

Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[ ] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ ] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature

[ ] Other (please explain)

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug? I got antidepr. - Mirtazapin

  2. If you have pre or post-Finasteride bloodtests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug (pls post your test results in the “Blood Tests” section and link to them in your post)?

  3. Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?

  4. Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.

Here is my story. I suffer from hairloss since I was 18 years old. At the end of last year I had the idea to save the remaining hair… Because propecia is so expansive in Germany I ordered Finpecia from India. I never had any side effects from any other drug so I did´nt think something could happen. For 2 Months nothing happended. I had an amazing new years eve but two days later my mood went down without any recognizable reason. I had an depression before so I knew the symptoms… But that was strange because I was absolutely happy with my life at that moment. So my mood went down without any reason. I thought to visit my family which lives in another town could change my mood so I went there the next day. That was okay. My mood was shaky but it was okay. The next morning we had breakfest and after that i noticed something strange was going on in my body. I felt the urge to go outside so I went jogging because I knew this would change my state immediately. I started running but nothing changed. I felt an cold pulling/dragging in my hands which spread in my whole body. It was like I was covered by something dark and it came out of nothing. I had no depressive thoughts before. It was something out of my body which effected my mood and my thoughts. I couldn´t run anymore so I stopped and started to cry. I think this was a kind of a panic attack. I never experienced that in my life before. I went home and we went to a doctor who subscribed some goat weed. Next mornning same time same thing but only worse. I thought I was going crazy. We went to the hospital but the Dr. was an asshole and told me I should go to a neurologist. After some days and several attacks I got an antidepressant because everybody thought is was a psychological problem. Until now I had no idea that the finasteride could cause these attacks but I didn´t take the pills anymore because I was afraid of an interaction with the other drugs I got. I took the antidepressant and got bad side effects from that and I became a total wrack. Next day I went into the hospital became a room on a psychatry station. There I had therapy and was told to get rid of the antidepressant. I had 2 days where I felt ill but from that day on I recovered and felt better with every passing day. The therapy was´nt very intense and i couldnt figure out what was the cause for recovering but I didnt care as long as my mental state improved. After 1 Week I was released. They gave me a new antidepressant which helped to get to sleep and soon I felt as good as on new years eve.
On February 6th I lost the fear of the interaction with the antidepressant and took the finpecia this day and the next day again. And on the second day I had the same symptoms again. My mood went down immediately and I was where I´ve been before. Now I had an idea what the cause was. I searched the internet and I couldnt believe how many people suffer from this drug! The side effects were as strong as before but I knew I would recover because it happend before. I also found studys which said the psychological side effects would disapear between 1 and 3 weeks. I had 1,5 difficult weeks and then with everyday I felt more like myself.
The last pill I took 6 weeks ago but I am really fully recovered now? No. There is sometheing wrong with my hormons or with my testosterone. I have no shrinking problem or erectional problems. But some time after I had an orgasm I noticed my mood is going down and the next day I feel sick and tired. Same as today. The days before I felt really good - no sexual interaction but as soon I get sexual active I feel the dragging in my hands and my moods going down, I feel something is unballanced inside of me. I think I should vist the Dr. again.
Has anyone of you similar problems after having sex? Have you recovered? Any advices? Bougt zinc pills today and i´m taking vitamin d pills… What else can I do?

#2

I stopped taking Finasterid in Janurary 2011. Since then I have a massive problem after ejaculating. And this is no damn joke! I would like to know if anyone of you is experiencing the same and if you have any ideas what this could cause.

It doesn´t start directly after I have ejaculated, but on next day morning. At first I feel a coldness on my arms, legs and on my stomach. When I urinate I feel a cold burn in my urethra and testicles. All in all I have a real strange feeling in my complete body. Even when It´s warm I freeze very easily. But the worst about it is, that I am totally anxious and depressed and it is not easy to get a clear thought and I feel a pressure in my head what you would like to call brain fog I think. This state improves significantly 5 days after the ejaculation. My head gets clearer and the coldness disappears. It´s like an allergic reaction which my body recovers from in a few days. The worst thing I can do is to ejaculate 2 days after the last one. In this case my body and mind crashes totally.

I visited several doctors - a hormon specialist, urologist but nobody had any answers. Instead they give me the feeling I would be a Psycho. When I told my urologist about propecia and this site he got angry and defended this medication… They tested my sperm and found Pseudomonas but after taking the antibiotics for a week my state didnt improve. I take vitamins and Omgega3 supplements, I do workout, I do self help mental trainings and all of these things are helping but this sexual problem and the symptoms remain although I often thought I would have found a solution…

Do you have any ideas which could cause my problems and if yes, do you have any suggestions what i could do? I wrote a similar article a year ago but the moderator didnt put it online. Please dont erase it this time!

#3

I had very similar symptoms for awhile, and I do still, though they don’t seem quite as severe as several months back. I have to orgasm while actually feeling somewhat aroused. If I completely force it, I will feel very off for the next few days (lower body temp, brain in a funk, etc.) It’s very unpredictable for me though. I am trying to abstain more, and see what good it does me.

#4

The orgasm sets off chemical reactions and changes throughout the body. We don’t yet have an understanding of the full effects. One thing that we do know however is that dopamine is drastically lowered while prolactin is raised.

#5

Hey donkeyboy,

thank you for your post!

That´s really interesting what you wrote about forcing it. Since I crashed my libido isn´t the same as before though I didnt totally lost it. Since I have these problems I feel damn sick and want to get healthy again. And I want to get rid of these mental and body symptoms. I dont know how to explain it but I hope it comes across: Nowadays sexuality is more an indicator to check if I´m healthy again or not - it´s not much a matter of lust or a big desire… Until now I noticed a difference in the frequency. The more often I do it, the more worse the crash is going to be and the longer I need to recover. But I also noticed a difference when forcing it. For example: I know 7 days between orgasms is fine. My libido increases in those 7 days too. So then no crash will occur. If there are only 2 days between it, there is not a real desire to do it - but I think that should be possible if I want get back into a relationship… So that´s the standard I want to achieve… So when I force it I crash and need days to recover. That´s what happened some days ago… Is that what you meant with forcing it? If so lower body temp, brain in a funk etc. is exactly what I mean with crash… Did you read about similar expiriences on this site - because I didn´t…

#6

Hey Joe78,

I´m also from Germany. I think I have the same and short after sex Testo lowers a bit and Dopamin a lot. Serotonin raises. That seems to be a big Problem for many here…many have kinds of lil crashs after sex…

#7

Hey Brainbug and martinM!

thank you for your posts. Because everybody has different symptoms what do the guys mean with crashes? When does it start? Immediatly or some hours later? For example in your cases? Do you crash afterwards? What are your symptoms and how long does it take to recover?

I think I even noticed a shrinking afterwards - but even that recovers after some days. This is so damn weird, makes no sense and is so frustrating.

#8

propeciahelp.com/overview

Note timeline under "What is the Post-Finasteride Syndrome? "

#9

For me it has no clear pattern. Sometimes I just feel grea after!! Sometimes i feel like shit the nest day. I more and more thing there must be also a very big psychologial effect. For me stress makes all very bad. When I dont think of all this here, what is very very rare, my Penis looks sometimes very normal again.

#10

Hey Brainbug, I totally agree with what you´ve written. That´s exactly the information I´m looking for. This is is something I haven´t read about on this site.

So please Mew, your post doesnt help me at all. I know what peoplle mean by crashing after they quit taking the pill. I stopped taking the pill over 1 year ago and I still crash after being sexual active. I´m able to get an erection. I have days were I feel completely recovered. But the day after an orgasm this changes. Sometimes I feel a little bit strange and sometimes I fall very deep and need days to recover. I crash over and over again. My Penis is shrinking and then days later it´s the normal size again. This is like a recurring nightmare. And even taking long breaks didnt help… So thats my problem. That is what I wanted to know. Are you guys still crashingmonths or years after quitting and what are those crashes like?

#11

I have identical symptoms to Joe. Immediately after ejaculation I could feel a pressure in my head and brainfog setting in. Unfortunately, this got worse over time, and now the brain fog is always there without any periods of relief.

Joe, if you find anything out, please message me.

#12

Hi Molybedenu,

I found something that helps. I´m not experimenting for so long with that but since I use it my symptoms decreased a lot. I found a link in a post on propeciahelp.com from a member with similar symptoms like mine: poiscenter.com/forums/index.php. In this forum the desease is called the Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrom. As I said I have very similar symptoms like the guys on this forum. I don´t know if I have POIS or if the use of Finasterid caused the break out of this but I can relate to their problems.

So the guys on this forum found something that helps them alot. It is Niacin - a B-Vitamin. I tried a lot of supplements like zinc, vitamin c, pregnenolone, fish oil, etc - with those I felt no improvement. With a vitamin B Komplex I even noticed an increase of my symptoms, what is strange since niacin is a B Vitamin as well…

So there are different types of niacin. What you need is the type where you get a flush (15 min after taking it your skin will turn red and you´ll get a itchy feeling inside). Here are some links:

livestrong.com/article/39072-niacin-benefits-side-effects/

somalab.net/niacin-sex-flush.php

news.menshealth.com/the-vitamin-for-a-stronger-erection/2011/08/18/

So Niacin shall help against depression, anxiety, sleeping problems and shall improve potency.

So what the guys on the POIS Forum suggest is a little bit bizarre but it helps.

To get the flush you should do a little fastening before. Sometime after the peak of this flush you may have the orgasm. I get a little brainfog afterwards, but all the other symptoms decreased or faded. My sleep improved a lot. Sometimes I feel like my old self again.

I know this seems like a weired thing to do but when I think about what this damn Finasterid Poison did to me this is just another strange side to it. And as long as it helps and I feel this a way to get my old self back I would do anything for that…

So give it a try

#13

I just want to give an update about my situation and give some information about my past.

I think I started taking Propecia around 1998 or 1999 due to hairloss. I don’t know for how long I took it but I definitely had some breaks in that period because there were times were I ran out of money. I know that I quit the drug around beginning of 2001. Had lost my girlfriend, my job and my flat and couldn’t afford it anymore. This was the first time I experienced a depression in my life. These were hard times and I don’t want give this drug credit for everything that didn’t work out in my life – but there could be a connection. Then I didn’t think of any connection between this drug and the mental state. By the way – it stopped my hairloss and even let it regrow…

With time I recovered and at the end of 2001 I was okay again. Between 2001 and 2002 I took propecia again for 30 days but didn’t continue due to rising price of this drug. No problems during that period and after quitting as far as I can remember. So I was on and off this drug several times between 1998 and 2002.
2010 I thought lets give it a try again and I thought maybe now there is a cheaper alternative on the market and I found finpecia (1mg finasterid) and I ordered it. Until then I was a little naïve. I wasn’t aware that this would influence my hormones. I thought I was just taking a pill which would stop hair loss. Although it was obvious, I couldn’t see the connection between the insomnia that was beginning. I started the drug in November 2010 and in those days I couldn’t sleep for days. I had little prostate pain and began to notice signs of depression again. But I still could have good days also. I had a very good new years eve and then happened what I wrote in my first post.

So I stopped the drug, got some antidepressant, felt good for 3 weeks, could sleep very well due to this antidepressant and gave this damn finasterid a further try. By know it must have been the 6th or 7th time – damn fucking stupid me! So I am 3 weeks of the drug and taking 1 pill this and and another one the following day and I experienced a total crash. So now it was obvious what has caused the crash. I found this forum and found some information, that after quitting I should recover in 3 weeks as I experienced it some weeks before. But this time it didn’t happen. The first days after quitting again were horrible. I was in a total depressive, anxious state. Total brainfog, pressure in my head. This is very hard to describe – this was just a brainfuck and felt like bad trip I couldn’t get out of. My consciousness of the world was different also due to my mental state, maybe due to the pressure in my head or the blurring of my eyes – I really have no idea – maybe due to the antidepressant – this is also possible.
Anyway I didn’t recover this time. I hoped the time would heal or maybe any supplement . But nothing changed. And there was a connection between masturbation and my mental state. Everytime I did it I crashed again. I needed days to recover, to get a state that was at least bearable. So I tried to abstain and one time I had a period of 3 months of abstinence but this was also no solution. This didn’t improve my mental state. It just made me not crash. After 3 months I crashed again. So total abstinence didn’t help also.
I took a higher dosage of the antidepressant in May 2011 but this made me feel even worse so I quit that in August 2011 too and had to fight heavy withdrawal symptoms for weeks and months. In the months from February 2011 till the beginning of 2012 I just lived to survive. There were moments I wanted to die, I prayed to not to wake up the next morning. I wanted to die but didn’t want to kill myself because I have friends and family who love me and didn’t want to hurt them. On the other hand I wasn’t able to be good brother or friend because I wasn’t able to do anything. So I just tried to survive the day and the next, just to get better in time.

In December 2011 I noticed little improvements and this continued. I masturbated once in 2 or 3 weeks but still crashed every time. But my mental state some days after a crash improved. I started looking for answers again. So I posted something in April this year as you can see. I found Niacin on the POIS forum as you can read in a later post, which helped with my post ejaculation symptoms. And this was a total breakthrough for me. I didn’t crash anymore. I still could have very bad days but I didn’t crash! As described in the POIS Forum I only took Niacin before masturbation. And this worked really well.
Meanwhile I experimented some more with it. I tried to get a Niacin Flush every 2nd day and these days I take it every morning. I also eat licorice and drink licorice root tea regularly and I am making huge progresses. If taking finasterid messed up my androgens maybe Niacin regulates my estrogen and licorice my testosterone. I am not good at this science stuff… But what I notice is the improvement of my state. Maybe the detoxification effects of Niacin is helping. During a flush I can feel the improved blood flow and you get rid of the brainfog.

Since August I am making huge steps in the right direction. Anxiety and Brainfog are totally gone for days now. In May 2012 I still wasn’t in a good shape. But these days I feel almost totally recovered and I am starting being my old self again… I just wanted to share this.

PS:I posted further information about Niacin here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6750 )

#14

I just want to give another update. I just want to complete the whole story. This is going to be a little diffcult because I am not a native speaker. I want to update the story because I am feeling very good these days and I think I am on a very good way. I want to write down all the details of symptoms I had and what I tried to fight them. Some things I will write I have written in previous posts. Some other details you can read in the earlier post and in the Niacin thread. I also want to write down what else could have caused my condition. So maybe this helps someone who has similar symptoms.

The first crash was at the beginning of 2011. I stopped Finasterid, got an antidepressant which helped with my insomnia and I recovered the next days. Felt good for 3 weeks and crashed again after taking another 2 pills of finasterid.
During the crash in February 2011 my perception of world was disturbed. I was totally anxious and the world seemed unreal and really dark. Was not able to have any positive emotion and was barely able to concentrate on the simplest tasks. It is really hard to describe that. This condition lasted for a couple of weeks improved just a little bit over the following weeks. I just tried to survive those days and I hid in my flat. Beginning of March was slightly better. I thought I was recovering as I did after the first crash but it would need a little bit longer. But after every ejaculation my symptoms worsened again and the improvement was gone. I tried the broccoli treatment, Vitamin A/B complex, zinc, fish oil but nothing helped. Abstinence helped only to not crash again and only to a certain degree. I tried to live as healthy as possible I tried to make more sports but when I started running my legs started prickling that I had to stop and was forced to scratch. Maybe it was a kind of a blood flow problem. So I stopped doing any sports and the time would be the healer. In April I started to have heart pain. I took Aspirin for some days what helped also mentally a little bit. So the heart problems disappeared.
My perception of the world was still different than before. I think this is what people describe as blurring vision. It was like seeing the world through a filter. My doctor had noticed a different size of my pupils. He sent me to an eye specialist because he thought I would have the horner syndrome but the eye specialist didn’t find anything.
I was freezing a lot and had very low body temperatures around 35 C. With the help of the antidepressant I could easily get to sleep but woke up very early. The mornings were the worst. I felt a sickness in my stomach. Anxiety was worst in the morning. Up until the evening I felt better.
Since my condition didn’t improve until may 2011 I decided to take a higher dose of the antidepressant but this made me feel even worse. So I decided to taper of mirtazapin/remergil. Last dose I took in August 2011. One week later I had to fight heavy withdrawal symptoms. Tried to fight that with Lorazepam for a week in moments where I thought I couldn’t handle it anymore… My whole state since February 2011 till February/March 2012 was just miserable but it was also changing. The following months till December were horrible. I had all the sides I had before and I noticed some further things. I felt pretty weak. My arms and legs felt weak. I was exhausted very easy. I noticed 5 brown spots on the skin of my penis which looked like liver spots with a diameter of about 3-4mm. That looked pretty bad. In terms of shrinkage I have to say that I sometimes noticed a difference but then again It also seemed normal sometimes. But this was not my main problem…
It was hard to get to sleep. I woke up several times a night and couldn’t sleep longer than 6 am. I managed to sleep maybe 4 hours a night. When I had a very bad night I felt horrible the next day. It was not like I felt tired the whole day after a bad night, like everybody experiences it. I felt really really sick the next day and my mental problems were the worst. I couldn’t were shirts due to my sensitivity to coldness. In summer when It was warm outside and I was sitting in a room with an open window and just a slight breeze of wind would come into the room I would freeze and I had to put a jacket on.
I tried pregnenolon and 5htp. Both made me feel worse. I tried multivitamin and magnesium with no effect.

So December of 2011 I think the withdrawal symptoms were overcome. I had visited an urologist and an endocrinologist. I visited the endocrinologist 1 day after an ejaculation where I would experience the worst symptoms. He tested my hormones. He told me everything would be in range. I even would have pretty high testosterone. The urologist found pseudomonas in my sperm and prescribed an antibiotic – but this also improved none of my symptoms. I don’t know how many times I did blood tests this and the last years. Every result was that I am a healthy man. Every expert told me this would be a psychological problem. I also visited some psycho therapists because I was open to everything to get back to a normal state. So December and January I noticed a slow improvement. But when I had an orgasm I still crashed every time and I had horrible days in front of me. I just want to describe what happened. Directly after an ejaculation I felt good and relieved. But about 1 hour later I noticed the first symptoms. I felt coldness or a cold burning in my urethra, my glans, and balls. This increased after peeing. Then I started to feel a little bit dizzy in my head. After 2 hours I felt a cold burning in my stomach. The next body parts were my legs and arms. This was also like a cold burning under the skin. Also my legs started to feel very light. Then the brain fog kicked in. I describe it as a pressure in my head. In this state my head feels like a big balloon. I am emotionless, have problems to find words or to express a thought. In this state the blurring vision is the worst. I would have a night with bad sleep and would wake up with all the symptoms I described before and full of anxciety and feeling exhausted. In this brain fog state I felt a detachment of my body. I cannot describe that. This didn’t improve the next two days but then getting better the days after. I visited an internist in January who should check if I had diabetes because I thought this could also be root of my problems. But everything was fine. He also had no idea why I was experiencing a cold feeling in my stomach and I was so sensitive to coldness.
By the way I had stopped eating healthy. Since September 2011 my body forced me to drink up to 5 or 6 liter of water or tea a day. But I also needed a lot of sugar. I ate a lot of candies and chocolate although I was never I big eater of candy and chocolate before. That’s why I thought to have diabetes. All my symptoms led me to think if I don’t have PFS than it could be MS, Diabetes, thyroid problems, prostatitis, and of course any mental disease. No doctor found anything. The magnetic Imaging resonance and blood test´s didn’t show anything. Even psycho therapists and psychiatrist didn’t say I have a disease. Their diagnosis always was depressive episode.

Anyway since I thought I had visited every expert I could thought of, I knew that I was not going to get help that way. I decided to start searching the web again, reading this forum for example. I also wanted to make more sport again and started weight lifting for example. I still made very slow improvements. I noticed when I exaggerated doing workouts my brain fog worsened. The days after an ejaculation were same as bad as ever but the days after those bad days improved.
Mid May 2012 I tried Niacin for the first time. I had read that I had to take it half an hour before an orgasm. Coldness, brain fog and light legs symptoms kicked in 1 hour after but disappeared the hours later. I could sleep better and woke up in a better state than usual. I still had the physical and mental symptoms but in a decreased way. Pretty soon the cold burning in my stomach never occurred again. I wasn’t sensitive to coldness anymore although I still could experience the cold arms and legs afterwards. This improved.

The rest I already wrote in previous posts. In July I still could have days with total brain fog. The pressure in my head was mostly in the first third of my forehead. I still could experience the blurring vision and a feeling of detachment to my body. August was way better. Less bad days… With every day in September brain fog has got better up to no brain fog at all.
I raised the dosages and the frequency of intake of Niacin, not because the effect wore off. Instead I made improvements when raising dosage and frequency. But I have to admit that I need higher dosages to experience the Niacin flush. After reading a niacin book I don’t know if you have to experience the flush to have the benefits of Niacin. Maybe my condition would have improved the same way without the flush. Who knows. But I will keep forcing the flush.
In August I started drinking licorice tea and eating licorice candy regularly. I am taking Vitamin D 2000 a day since mid of September 2012 and started taking Vitamin B12 beginning of October.
Since the beginning of October I didn’t had the tiniest sign of brain fog. I still wake up several times a night but I can get to sleep easily again and I can sleep up to 8 hours. One week ago I had a bad night of sleep. Next day I just felt tired as in the past but I didn’t feel sick like it used to be for such a long time. Some weeks ago I managed to shave may penis area and I even noticed, that the brown spots disappeared completely – don’t know what it was. I masturbate between every 10or 14 days. I still experience a little bit of the coldness in arms and legs 1 hour later. But not for a very long time. I still can feel coldness in my balls and penis now and then. Regarding shrinkage I don’t know. Sometimes it appears very small but then It looks pretty normal. I often put a warm water bag between my legs when watching TV or surfing the web. So these are all the symptoms I am still experiencing now wjich isn’t much. I don’t know what would happen if I had a higher (normal) masturbation frequency but I am still too insecure to test that.
So what I want to say is I feel fantastic mentally and the physical symptoms are not hard to take. I hope to make further improvements and I hope they are permanent.

My story is a little bit complicated. And there are a lot of variables. I don’t know what symptom was caused by what medication or which disease. But I cannot exclude anything. I still believe Finasterid is the reason for that. But it also could be the antidepressant caused a lot of these symptoms although the doctors say this is one of the best tolerable medications and I had met people who had no sides at all while on the drug and after quitting. Because I benefited from Niacin that much I could have developed a kind of Pellagra but I had always had a healthy diet. But then again when I read about the pellagra symptoms I read a lot of what many in this forum experiencing:
“Early changes include fatigue, nervousness accompanied by anxiety and depression. weeks later gastrointestinal symptoms develop including indigestion, anorexia and constipation, loss of weight, weakness and vertigo. Symptoms are aggravated by acute stress such as severe exercise, surgery or infections, inflammatory state with glossitis, atrophy of the gastric mucosa and achlorhydria, infections and diarrhea, mental changes are severe and may be psychotic proportions, perceptual changes (hallucinations, disturbances of body image) and changes in mood are common. In the past these were diagnosed as toxic psychoses, if the disorientation and confusion were predominant, or, if these were lacking schizophrenia”
But then again why did I experience the symptoms in an increased way after an ejaculation. Anyway if you can relate to any of my symptoms you can try a similar treatment like I did.

1 Like
#15

i too feel like shit the day after i masturbate,i think most of us with pfs do,not that i ever get the urge to masturbate anymore,i only do it to see if anything has changed,if any sensativity or orgasm sensation has returned etc,i generally feel very fatigued the next day if i masturbate before bed,as for anti depressants i think exercise and good diet are far better than any med,i have tried a few lately including welbutrin and trazadone to try and give my sex drive a kick,for me they just seem to make things worse,i feel much better since i quit all that stuff to be honest,i threw a load in the bin the other day,my advice to anyone feeling like shite because of pfs is set yourself an exercise and diet regimen and stick to it,jogging,weights,even just walking for afew hours everyday,its something to focus your mind on and will make you feel much better in my opinion,my plan from now on is to try and stay as healthy as i can and just wait to see if the (pfs foundation) comes up with any answers,ive had enough for the time being of trying different meds etc…

#16

Hi Joe!

I’m glad you feel better. Thanks for your update und keep us updated!

Your English is fine enough btw. :wink:

#17

Today 2 years ago this nightmare began. Due to this symbolic date I want to write another update. I am still doing really well. I have further improvements in some areas. 3 Weeks ago I already felt really good but I still get some pieces to the puzzle that was missing, that I didn’t know I was missing – because after 2 years I forgot how it was like to feel normal. I still think I am not at 100% but I don´t think that the symptoms I still experiencing are a real health issue anymore. Directly after an ejaculation I don’t have any symptoms anymore. When waking up next morning I still feel good. Now and then I have a mild brainfog for an hour but it disappears again. So I wouldn’t call it a real issue if I have concentration problems for 1 hour on 1 or 2 days a week. I definitely can live with that. Now and then I have the cold feeling in my urethra. When I am exercising too hard I still can get a brainfog. I wake up 1 or 2 times in the night but I fall asleep immediately again and I sleep at least 7 hours every day. So this is also no issue anymore. These are all the symptoms I still have and this isn’t much and I will continue my regime and think that I will get rid of these few symptoms too.
In previous posts I wrote that I didn’t know if my dick shrunk but as I wrote before this wasn’t my biggest concern. Never had a porn cock anyway :slight_smile:. But it sometimes hung in its wrinkled skin and the glans appeared very small. This disappeared also. Girth and length are no problem anymore. Never had ED. This was okay for all the two years. I could always force an erection when I wanted to. My libido wasn’t good these 2 years but I think this was caused by my mental state and my overall being. Now I don’t have any libido problems. I don’t want to say that my regime is going to help everybody here. I just write down what I did to get better. I am just grateful to have found something that helped me that much.

My regime right now is
700mg Niacin on empty stomach in the morning (when considering that read the Niacin thread before)
1000 µg Vitamin D in the morning and in the evening (2000 a day…)
1000 µg B12 in the morning
Now and then licorice root tea

I am doing a little Yoga and when exercising I am working the abs instead of lifting weights.

I think for me it´s time to stop doing the things I did for the last 2 years. This whole thing controlled everything in my life for 2 years now. What a fucking waste of time. So I wanna try to live a normal life again. This also means that I don’t want to search this website every day anymore and from now on I don’t think that I will update this thread very often unless I will experience a relapse or I can say I am at 100% again. I am between 90% and 95% while taking these supplements and this is totally okay for me…

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#18

Joe,
Are you still doing fine with niacin? I’ve ordered 100 capsules x 500mg since my sides are pretty much like yours.

Thanks.

#19

As I wrote before I still feel very good. My Mid October state was already very good and it still improved until today…

#20

Since I want to be honest and I dont want to conceal a bad day I have to update again. Yesterday i masturbated the second time in 7 days and I had a kind of bad day today. My mood was unstable and I felt a bit depressed and anxious but I had no brainfog or a concentration problem like I used to have on such a day. So I had a day full of watching movies on my couch so that I was totally distracted. On such a day I need to calm down and try to avoid any stressful situation or thoughts… Physical symptoms were cold, light leggs, little bit of a coldness in my urethra and balls.
This bad day wasnt as bad as in my bad times - but this showed me that I am not where I hoped to be. It also shows that my regime helps me to get into a pretty good shape as long as I dont exaggerate masturbating what means more than once a week. Maybe this will improve in time but for now it´s still not possible to have normal sex life.