Is it oversimplification, or is PFS/PSSD/PAS „just“ severe Anhedonia?

General Discussion
#1

As the topic is suggesting, And as we all know those 3 conditions has a Lot a lot in common…I have been reading a lot on the anhedonia community on reddit, and i find that almost every single symptoms of ours can be interpreted as severe form of anhedonia (including sexual anhedonia, and ending with complete numbing of senses like taste/smell senses)… Its as if our brain doesn’t get any more signals, or rather cant inerpret them anymore…
Anhedonia stays till this date very therapy resistent if at all treatable (exactly like PFS etc…)
All of these three diseases might lead through different mechanism to the end goal of developing severe Anhedonia which explains why all cause at the end the same symptoms.

Now why is it at all important to talk about if we cant be sure of anything…?
Actually i think it is very important becuz that might change the therapeutic approaches that we are trying. So instead of trying to „activate“ the AR etc…, lets just look for things that might treat Anhedonia in general and see if those Help…There is an interesting theory right now about the role of kappa receptors in Anhedonia…So maybe just maybe…
Im sorry for my scattered ideas, as i havent slept in two days… I will be very interested to know what you guys think?

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#2

I think some theories on anhedonia are that there is neuroinflammation and dysfunctions of dopaminergic pathways. Some saw success with NSI-189

#3

Can you share those succsess stories?

#4

If you look at the NoFap reddit community you will also see great overlap for those doing nofap who suffer through the “flatline”

ED
No libido
Depression
Anxiety
No morning wood (in some cases)

Of course this is temporary and in the long term, the faostronauts actually improve their mood and sexual functioning, but it’s noteworthy that the “flatline” is very close to PFS. Nofap affects dopamine pathway as well as androgens and possibly receptors.

" During this stage, you don’t have any interest in girls, porn, and masturbation simply because you have no Libido. You start to lose interest in everything and you feel disengaged all the time.

An experienced masturbator may get scared by this situation thinking that their Libido is permanently gone. But you need to understand that your Libido is not gone permanently and will come back after a certain amount of time."

#5

There are a lot of similarity and the point that got me to it, was that a lot of anhedonic ppl dont respond to alcohol (exactly like many of us, alcohol doesn’t make me in the least euphoric, just lethargisch and dumb), and many cant even taste food right, and everything is bland and not intresting (I have the exact same problem), libido is very low and orgasms are nothing.
Ofcourse our symptoms compared to them are more severe (While some have genital insenivitiy, mostly they dont have numb genitals) but at the end, they are the same symptoms but to a different degree of intensity.
Its as if all these conditions PFS/PAS/PSSD, Anhedonia share at the end the same end result/mechanism in the brain.
It will be very intresting if we can repeat the research that meclangi has done with the methylation of 5a r II on just anhedonic ppl that never took Finasteride. Maybe it is the culprit in someway or another of anhedonia.

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#6

I think the methylated 5ar2 is a good point, some studies point in the direction of neuroinflammation as cause of anhedonia, and the reason why they also have no libido anymore could be that the 5ar2 got silenced in the brain just like in us. There are studies showing inflammation could silence 5ar2 in prostata tissue, maybe this is also plausible in the brain?