It’s great to hear from you, you were one of the first people to talk to me when I was experiencing the madness in the beginning.
I keep up with your story on here and am always rooting for positive updates.
Hoping everyone here the best of health and improvement as time marches on
I’m just glad you’re still here man, months ago that did not seem like a given for you. Now you can be the one to reach out and help others through the toughest spots.
After about a week I started coming down from my recent peak slowly. Last 3 days I believe I’m hitting the bottom. I’m experiencing wildly fluctuating symptoms:
Thankfully mental state otherwise seems good enough for now.
I’m sure this will pass over in time, and you’ll start to progress up again.
I hope you get better
It’s seriously distressing to see people who are recovered come back to this hell, myself included
I was so happy and now I just want to die
I’m so sorry you’re going through this man. You beat it once, so hopefully you can improve again.
I was right about my last post, that was my bottom and I’m doing much better now. Hot and cold flashes are gone, mental state is much improved, and sleep is much better. Other symptoms are better but still remain in some capacity for now.
End of month update, ~47 months post-fin. Very mixed bag this month. I’m still experiencing wild fluctuations, but my baseline and peaks have been higher and more stable. I had very bad days this month, but also 4-5 days where emotional affect of music returned, which is the most post-fin. Also, at baseline my enjoyment of music is better, where I can almost feel it. I generally enjoy music now, whereas for the longest while I could take it or leave it. My sleep has been up and down, but overall better. I slept 8 hours straight last night for first time in a while and overslept for work. I also hunger more to read and consume more difficult content. I’ve been learning how to play multiple board games (50+ page manuals) and enjoying it. I’ve been picking up multiple novels also. Overall a positive and hopeful month despite the dips. Things I’m still experiencing include:
Wow! You’re recovering too? How long did it take?
Tonight I’m having my first significant “crash” of the month and figured it was a good time to post my end of month update. This is the big 4 year update, ~48 months post fin. I have come such a long way in the past 4 years, my life each year since has been unrecognizable from the year before. My life this year has been generally good despite the crashes mixed in.
Today, leading up to this crash I sensed something was coming on. I was having weird feelings and clicking noises in my ear, my muscles were twitching, and I felt VERY good mentally. I was EXTREMELY tired this evening and went to sleep around 8PM when I normally don’t go to sleep until around 12-1AM. I woke up around 2 hours later feeling wired and anxious. I don’t feel terrible, just not great and know that I won’t be able to sleep until this passes.
Despite this crash though, this month has been great. With last month being very mixed, this was marked improvement. I had improvements in just about every category. Better sleep, improved libido, mental state, and very little fluctuation until today. Some of the main improvements I noted are as follows:
Overall a great month, best post-fin, I’m hoping the rebound off this crash is quick and I can continue to build on this success into a more permanent recovery.
Just for record keeping:
So primary rebound from the worst of the crash was quick, maybe 12-24 hours only. I’m still not up to where I was before the crash and dont really expect to be, when the progress is slower and less swingy then the eventual next crash is also less severe and improvements more permanent with a higher baseline.
Main improvement I’ve noticed. I really have a hunger for reading now. Pre-fin I was a readaholic and that has somewhat returned. Brain fog is significantly lifted, I can think super clearly now. Didn’t even realize I couldn’t before.
Main things that still need to improve back up to where I was: sleep is not as great. 7-8 hours is now more like 6. Before I had deep sleep, when my family would get ready in the morning it would not bother me, I’d sleep straight through. Now it wakes me up constantly. My mood and general drive to do other hobbies besides reading has waned. The brain fog being lifted though makes me want to be productive otherwise.
Hair loss seems to have ramped up again, not sure if it’s my imagination but it’s coming out in the shower quite a bit when I wash my hair.
49 months post-fin. This month has been another mixed bag. My mental symptoms really seem decoupled now. Whereas I used to always experience depression, anxiety, anhedonia, akathisia and other symptoms together. I now seem to be able to experience them separately. I have been getting hit lately primarily with some depression, but nothing major.
I’m experiencing occasional anxiety, brain burning, muscle twitching, joint stiffness, joint pain, and sleep disruptions. I’m in an up and down phase currently, but the up was VERY up. Highest libido I’ve had since college for a few days, had a stretch of 1.5 weeks with extremely good sleep. My worst days of sleep were like 6 hours in 1.5 hour segments. I had maybe 2 of those.
I am also experiencing some other symptoms that I have not experienced in quite some time. These happened before my crash (while taking fin) but before I knew what was going on. My lips feel very dry and irritated around the edges and I have sever acne or bumps on back of my neck. When this was happening originally, I thought it was a mango allergy or other, and was also experiencing very itchy hands and dry skin between fingers. I’m not experiencing that now. I am experiencing not being able to get that last bit of urine out, which I also had during this time period. Fucking weird.
More record keeping. Since beginning of this month I have been in a significant crash. Brain burning has been very significant, with mild akathisia and depression. Sleep disruptions have been significant as well, although I have been able to get some sleep. Worst night was maybe 4 hours of low quality sleep. Muscle twitches and hot flashes have also been present, but are mild. I feel the pull of paranoia as well, but have been able to keep that one at bay, which has not really been possible with previous significant crashes, so maybe that’s progress?
No big rebounds this time, although I am fluctuating up and back very slowly. Again, just hopeful that slower rebound and recovery leads to more permanent improvement.
End of month, had one more “crash” a few days back. Haven’t been doing bad, but not great either. Just a very mediocre month, since the crash though I’ve slowly been doing better and am not ever so slightly on the positive side of things.
Brain burning has been present a lot, so something is going on. Body odor has been present and very bad, sleep has been pretty good. Seems like 6.5 is my minimum now except for crashes which drops it to like 4-5. Sometimes I can get up to 7 or 8. I’ve been exercising a lot again, feels good and I look forward to my daily run.
Main symptoms this month are mild anxiety, lack of interest in certain things, low drive/aggression, and low libido.
Does the brain burning correlate to any blurry vision or dizziness type feelings?
It used to correlate heavily to a lightheaded/dizzy type feeling, but not lately. I have had vision issues as well, but I have not correlated it to anything, but it’s possible. I haven’t had the vision issues in a while though.
This is going to be the rest of our lives guys. Nightmarish fluctuations until death, YIPPIE!!
While I’m not doing the best right now, I don’t believe that is the case for everyone, or for myself. I’ve seen enough consistent improvement that I believe things will level out. It just takes a long damn time. I could be wrong, but still hopeful that feeling just slightly shitty for a long time here will lead to feeling good for an even longer time.
I’m sorry you’re going through what you’re going through though. I can only hope you see some improvements too.
Mid-month update. The essentially 3-month long stretch of brain burning, anxiety, and mild depression seems to be coming to an end maybe. Finally felt better and better these past few days and sleep is improving again. Hope it sticks.
51 months post fin:
After months of brain burning and anxiety, I’m very slowly feeling better. I haven’t had the brain burning since my last post although the anxiety is in and out, but much lower than it’s been. I’ve been having vision issues in and out as well, and I’ve developed some large bumps on the back of my neck which I experienced very early on (while taking fin) that I didn’t really remember until it came back today. Libido is up and down, but is present more often than not. Sleep is still not great, up and down, but I did get 8 hours straight last night which is the best sleep I’ve had in a while. So overall this month was again a mixed bag with positive outlook for next month as I seem to be on a very slow upswing.
Any suggestions on getting rid of the brain burning. I have the same. Almost feels like you’ve been out in the sun too long if that makes sense. Like sun poisoning.