So the only things you’ve done are edging, working out and eating healthy?
So, I stopped all the edging stuff when I crashed hard and my dick stopped working as I couldn’t edge anymore. I have worked out hard the entire time, even when the insomnia set in and I wasn’t sleeping for up to four days at a time, I still put in the exercise hard every day. I don’t know if I would recommend this in hindsight, but that’s what I did. I was in a bad way for the first five months and extremely bad for the 1.5 months leading up to my sudden recovery.
Now I want to be very clear that I have no idea if anything I’m doing currently helped me. I’m fact, I am doubtful that any of it did, I think that I may just be very lucky for whatever reason, however I did note the timing on three events that seemed to correlate with my recovery.
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High flax seed intake - So I was unknowingly eating a lot of flax seed leading up to my brutal crash. I read a bit that flax is potentially a 5ari, so I absolutely do not recommend this and I think it may have had to do something with my crash, but even though it crashed me, it did cause me to recover for one day before the crash. Prior to this there was very little change in my condition, so maybe this kicked something off?
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Carnivore diet - I experienced a full recovery on day 2 of carnivore diet which lasted 1 week initially. Again, doubtful this is the cause but timing is undeniable. I also started vitamin D supplement here, as well as the focus on meditation and stress reduction.
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Start of my probiotic - This is the one that worries me the most honestly. After the one week recovery from starting carnivore I crashed for two weeks. I then started my probiotic and started recovering again in day 2 of starting my probiotic. I have seen people have temporary recoveries from taking probiotics and am terrified this is the case for me. However, my recovery wasn’t sudden and linear after this point. It was gradual and filled with ups and downs as it still is. I am now at about 2 months after this point, which I hope is long enough now to rule out this being a temporary recovery from probiotic use.
I also want to note that I woke up feeling better today than I have the past two days which were not great (had a return of most all symptoms). I had stopped taking my melatonin supplement for a few days as I forgot to take it and still slept seemingly well. However, I noted the past few days of my crash I was extraordinarily tired throughout the day despite still getting the same amount of sleep I had been with the melatonin. I think my sleep was not as deep though, as I took the melatonin again last night and feel much more rested and feel better overall. I will continue to test this and see if it truly has an effect here.
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You can tell when I’m not feeling well if I’m spending more time on this forum. I’d like to start doing mini updates here as a matter of record so I can look back if I need to. I have been in a bit of a bad way for past 3 days reversing in all areas. This is similar to my last crash I mentioned but I would say a little less severe in all areas. Also, my recoveries always start with me feeling better in the evenings only, and I have not yet stopped feeling at least decent in the evenings although my mornings right now are shit.
My main indicator of how I’m feeling is my anhedonia. It’s the absolute worst symptom and it alone can make me feel better or shitty. I can feel good with no erections, but not without resolution of anhedonia. So my rating scale is this:
0 is 100% anhedonic suicidal mess. 5 is middle where I can’t really enjoy normal things yet but am not actively feeling tortured every second of my existence. 10 is normal. I wanted to define this so I can just give quick indicators of how I feel when I want.
My previous crash was potentially started after sex 2 times in 3 days, also first time traveling since PFS started potentially causing stress, also first time I had to cheat on my diet slightly due to travel and food availability. It was starting I believe on December 9 or 10 to the level of 3 or 4 in the mornings up to 5 in the evenings initially. It slowly got better until December 19th when I started pushing much higher to 8 in the evenings and then had great days from 20th until Jan 1.
My current crash started on Jan 1 and was to the level of 4-5 in the morning and so far at least a 6 in the evening. Started potentially due to sex multiple times within one week, stopping use of melatonin for 4 days, or cheating on my diet, or relaxing on exercise for whole holiday. It’s currently Jan 3 at around 5 PM and I am a 5, maybe approaching 6 now as my evening rise is starting.
If this mini-crash lasts less than 10 days I’ll call it progress. It already seems slightly less severe, I just sincerely hope that this is the bottom and I do not get any worse than this. Anything below a 5 is pretty much torture. It’s just varying levels of torture at that point.
Commonalities between the two crashes are the sex multiple times and cheating on the diet slightly. Considering that I cheated a little each day throughout upswing over the holidays without any change. My gut says I need to hold back on the orgasms for a bit. I’m gonna test it during this next upswing and try to abstain for the most part, or no more than once a week and see if I can avoid a crash.
Crash seems starting to recover again, after a week mostly at the level of 5 with little to no interest in anything I seem to have broken through a little this morning to a much more manageable state. I crashed significantly sexually again as well this time but both now seem to be recovering. Still nowhere as high as I’ve been for my last two updates, but Hopefully this is the start of my next upswing. I was having solid nocturnals for 2 months prior, but with this crash they stopped completely only to return today.
I obviously still have a long way to go, but if I hit my highs again on this upswing I will be very hopeful as recovery came slightly faster this time and was not as deep of a dip, at least mentally.
For those that have been dealing with situations worse than mine for years, I salute you. I don’t want anyone to think I’m complaining about my situation, even though it would be absolutely horrible for any normal person to experience. I am grateful for where I am, although I strive for more.
May we all recover someday.
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Tonight my libido surged to 100% and suddenly mentally I am around 80% and my anxiety has plummeted to near normal levels! I am doing pretty damn good tonight after having a not so great morning. Here’s to hoping it lasts.
Past two nights I have had sessions of 6 hours straight which is extremely good for me. Seems most recoveries are preceded by an improvement in sleep, even if only temporary.
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Glad to hear that man! It seems like a good sign.
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With my libido surging I couldn’t control myself and went and had some fun. Not sure it that was the cause but I had completely shit sleep for first time in a LONG time now and I woke up much lower. I do seem to have retained some improvements though both mentally and sexually.
I am confident I can get myself back to where I was last night. Hopefully tonight.
I have not been doing well since my last post, and since Jan 1 in general except for the one day my libido surged. That’s was both a good and bad day for me. My grandfather passed and due to COVID and my condition, I was unable to travel and see him for quite a long time before he passed. I finally recently was well enough to see him, Over Christmas and had planned to go but then he caught COVID and I was unable. Now he’s gone, and I never got to say goodbye in person partially due to this fucking disease and I hate it. Fuck finasteride. He was a great man and I love him. However, I made myself go to the funeral despite my downswing, and it ended up being a very good day for me all around. With surging libido and mental recovery throughout the day.
When I’m in my downswings, I can barely leave the house my anxiety is so bad. I would have never made the trip on my own, but my parents went with me so it was manageable. It was only about a 3 hour drive.
As mentioned, I orgasmed that night and immediately crashed back down the next morning and have been in that state until yesterday around mid-day when I recovered again. Whereas I have been around a 4 or 5 for the most part since Jan 1, Yesterday was about a 7 and today is an 8. I am currently in a state that if it were my baseline, I would forget that PFS even exists for the most part. I am still missing some things, but life is good currently tonight. My libido is up again all though nowhere near full force. My body odor is suddenly horrible. I am going to abstain this time and see if I avoid the crash.
From my recent logs I’ve potentially noticed three things.
- When I have late night meals or snacks, I sleep like shit.
- When I have an orgasm induced crash (or what I believe to be an orgasm crash), it takes about 1 week to recover.
- longer I wait to orgasm after recovering and more time between orgasms seems to reduce chance of crash.
My current plan is to see if I can make it a whole month until Valentine’s Day. If I have straight good days until then I may be on to something. I’ll have a good Valentine’s Day with my wife and see if I crash. If not, I’ll go 10 days, then 9, then 8, etc. and see how my body reacts. I can only hope I can control this through scheduled abstinence. If I crash before then, well shit. This is pretty much what I expect though. I think the timings of my crashes are coincidence, but only hope that it can be controlled this way.
Wish me luck! Good luck to everyone on continued improvements.
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This is a high-quality log you have written. I admire your posts.
I target the POIS symptoms (orgasm crash) using loratadine with some improvements. This was told to me by a doctor specialising in this area.
Have you experimented with relaxing your pelvic floor area? I got strong return in orgasm quality after this.
I have also observed that eating late at night is bad news. It wrecks sleep. You need to reduce your temperature to go asleep, in your core. If you eat food, blood flows to the area to enable digestion. This will prevent your core from cooling down enough for you to go into a good sleep. I had to move my main evening meal to between five and six o’clock.
Another factor that will ruin sleep is leaving exercise too late in the day. You will get pumped up from exercise. Doing it late in evening is not going to help your sleep.
Can I ask about your vit D use – are you using K2 at the same time? What was your decision making in this area – your thoughts and reasoning?
Hi,
I didn’t even know that this POIS is a thing, interesting that you are able to treat it with that. Thanks for the advice. I’d it is proven that this is what I have through self-experimentation, I may try that.
I take only vitamin D3 drops, no K. I have no thoughts at all behind this. I just happened to have D3 drops from when my kids were little and started using them and thought I saw improvement, so I stuck with it. I started using just because I notice I have always felt better when outside in the sun and it started to get cold outside so I could go out less.
For past 3 days I have felt better each morning than the last, and past 3 nights I’ve experienced the same even better upswing. Last night is where I want my baseline to be as I work towards full recovery. 8/10. I can get there. Hopefully tonight will be the same or even better! I don’t want to celebrate to early but it seems I’m potentially in another upswing finally. I am going to really focus on sticking with my routine to try not and lose this. At least then if it does go away, I’ll know it’s likely nothing I’m doing.
I am going to take your advice and try to target my sleep a bit more. I again did not sleep that well last night and while I didn’t eat late night snacks like before my dinner was late, around 7:30 - 8:00. I will try eating earlier to see if I can improve my sleep. Around 6PM. Thanks for the tips.
Anytime. I experimented a little with vitamin D. Used tablets, which increased anxiety heavily. Used some high-quality product, so I cannot blame lack of quality.
The best for me has been natural sunlight, which is very good for improving libido. The problem is is wintertime.
I will try some experimenting with liquid vitamin D3. That will be a new one for me. A problem is that some people say your arteries can become clogged and the K2 stops this. This seems to be why there are products combining the two. I read someone was train wreck’d on here by K2, so I am being careful.
I have found that getting repeated good nights of sleep really helps out my libido and orgasm quality. One or two times when I had a reversal, it was because I didn’t sleep for some reason.
There is some study somewhere about the anti-histamine / loratadine situation for POIS symptoms. Can’t seem to locate it right now. There is some interesting chat on here:
I’m not an expert but I think the anti-histamine to avoid are the anti-cholinergic ones. Those are linked with Alzheimer’s. The sedative ones are probably bad news too. Like I say, not an expert though.
I have issues with libido, but have not really had any problems anymore with orgasm quality. Although in all fairness, I have only tested it when I feel really good. I no longer obsess with testing it and have no desire to at all when I’m in my downswings.
My sleep has been improving as of late, I’m hoping with that will bring even more improvements if I can somehow make it consistently the best I can. At my best now I can get sessions of about 6 hours with 1+ additional hours after.
This is a useful list of advice from a doctor knowledgable in the area. I never tried theanine and can’t remember why that is. Never tried Apigenin, or glycine, or GABA. This because I’m very cautious after getting burned by isotretinoin. I like to be minimal on meds and supplements.
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Dude, when you are talking about potato in your diet, you mean these?
Those are a low carbohydrate.
These are a high carbohydrate. Bad news:
I currently eat no potatoes and zero or minimal carbs. I currently eat meat, dairy, fat, and some vegetables only. No potatoes, but they were the ones you showed when I did, the “good” ones.
I tried glycine and L-theanine for sleep. I thought I had some initial improvement with Glycine, but benefits waned and nothing was ever consistently replicated with any supplements other than the minimal that I’m on now. Which is:
- Vitamin D 2000 IU
- MCT oil
- 0.5 mg remFresh melatonin
- KetoVitals electrolyte drink powder
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Hey @Henchman21
Thanks for all the updates. When you get a chance, would you mind using the new self-reporting form to report your improvements on the four substances you’ve listed above?
It might be helpful for those interested to get an overview of your results using a standardised form.
Thanks,
Mitch
Hi, I have no definitive results to share using the form. Just a general list of what I’m currently using. If I do have some results that would benefit from using the form I will.
So, everyone else I want to note that yesterday was one of the best days of my life (pre or post PFS). It snowed here and was the first time my kids are able to enjoy snow and it was so much fun. I haven’t laughed like I did in so long. To know how bad a state I was in June through October last year, I’m glad I was able to stick around and experience this day. I want more days like this in my future and will push forward in hopes of this.
I had hoped to keep my current streak of good days alive but unfortunately this morning I am crashed much lower with significant anxiety. I still have the chance for evening upswing as I’ve had past 3 days, but we’ll see. I am hopeful for another streak such as I saw in November/December sometime soon.
I’ve had some return of libido past few days, but It’s gone now. I’m still going to abstain regardless and follow this through to see if it has any affect on my ability to stay in a mostly “good day” phase.
Stay with it everyone.
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Hit a sudden surge to 90+% recovered today. Expecting a crash, hoping for stability. Wish me luck.
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