Loss of sexual urge in the brain (distinct from 'brain/goin connection' - has anyone ever got this back?

Symptoms
#1

Really interested in any thoughts on my loss of mental physical libido .

Has anyone ever succeeded in getting this back?

I mean the thing in your head that makes you want to masturbate etc, a bit like you feel thirsty or hungry. One of the few things that once gone for me never ever returned so far even briefly, which is why I fear there may be a permanent element to this. Like a total switch going off.

I still intellectually find people attractive, but I don’t feel the force in my head physically. Definitely if I do feel an urge it’s now purely via the groin as some others described.

I’ve read about people getting stuck in the sympathetic nervous system (flight or fight, ie hard to switch off mentally, no libido) as a reaction to using Finasteride and wonder if this has anything to do with it. This happened before Finasteride, just this time it never came back!

To be clear, I’m saying there are 4 issues, (1) loss of brain-groin link, (2) loss of sensation in groin, (3) intellectual attraction ie looking at someone and wanting to…, and (4) the actual physical feeling of urge to have sex etc in the brain. I lost the first two right away to a reasonable extent, (4) when feeling overwhelmed at work 6m later, and have never lost (3).

Topic taken from my welcome post last week, which I’m breaking up to stimulate (pun intended) further debate.

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#2

I really don’t want to simplify things at all…But i really and truly believe that all these things are practically the same…There are very very few times, where everything came back to me ( i literally felt horny like old times, full of lust to really F*** a woman, and be intimate with her), and all these things you are talking about came back as well)…Ofcourse everything went away a day or two later…My baseline is feeling like im paralyzed, numb, and without sensations…As if the neurons in my brains are not firing, or hypoactive (Or worse just dead)…Same as ppl after a stroke, they cant feel or have really high threshold to feel a skin area…
I have already posted a study on how citalopram can within minutes of taking it lead to a massiv hypoactivity in practically all brain area (SSRIs are known to raise the sensation threshold in the genital Area after 30 min of taking them)…I know we are Fin victims, but there is no evidence that SSRIs , and PFS have same cause, but in my mind, there are no doubt that these 2 things are connected (no Pun intended)

Summary
Serotonin functions as an essential neuromodulator that serves a multitude of roles, most prominently balancing mood [1]. Serotonergic challenge has been observed to reduce intrinsic functional connectivity in brain regions implicated in mood regulation [2–4]. However, the full scope of serotonergic action on functional connectivity in the hu- man brain has not been explored. Here, we show evidence that a single dose of a serotonin reuptake inhibitor dramati- cally alters functional connectivity throughout the whole brain in healthy subjects (n = 22). Our network-centrality analysis reveals a widespread decrease in connectivity in most cortical and subcortical areas. In the cerebellum and thalamus, however, we find localized increases. These rapid and brain-encompassing connectivity changes linked to acute serotonin transporter blockade suggest a key role for the serotonin transporter in the modulation of the func- tional macroscale connectome.
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(14)01037-9

#3

I know exactly what you mean. I do believe that this can be recovered.
Since I got PSSD, I’ve found it difficult to maintain a romantic relationship, and it has always come down to the absence of that desire making it too complicated.

I tried inositol for a few days (at a higher dose), and the sexual feelings that you describe returned for a while. I had intense sexual desire when I thought about women. This suggests that this can be recovered.

Unfortunately, inositol also turned my penis into a noodle, so I stopped taking it. I think this brief experiment may have caused nerve damage, as my muscles are atrophying.

#4

I had a fairly long lasting cold recently which saw those feelings come back very strongly, I wouldn’t consider it an irreversible thing at all.

#5

Unfortunately, i can completely connect with what you’re saying.

I have not had the animalistic urge to masturbate since 2016. Prior to that, I had this urge 2-6 times per day, especially on weekends. It was my Saturday ritual to wake up with my morning wood, watch P, rub one off, then immediately rub one off again. I could keep a rock hard erection for an hour.

Now I have to “force myself” to start masturbating. I’m trying to avoid P (porn) and think about girls in my head when I do masturbate, as I believe porn brings it’s own set of issues. But these thoughts are forced, not primal like old days

#6

Thanks for the interesting replies so far. It’s fascinating to read the few here that think it’s come back and SawP who is same as me.

As I say, I’ve had temporary alleviation of points (1)-(3) I’ve listed even if brief (including this week oddly for 2 days, more so than the last 6 months, but not clear as didn’t change much of what I was doing! It’s gone again now!), but not even a hint of this coming back since it went away a year ago which is odd as you’d think if the other things come back even for a day or two at times, this would too.

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#7

What you said about parasympathetic nervous system is true, but I think you meant “sympathetic” nervous system (parasympathetic initiates relaxation). I’m reading a book called Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, suggested by a forum member who recovered. It talks about the damage of being in constant sympathetic overdrive

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#8

If it details a way to switch out of it (I already do meditation etc) let me know.

You’re right. I’m correcting original post for clarity, thanks.

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#9

Without sexual desire romantic relationships are basically just having someone living in your flat. Even in the case of your best friend in the world, you don’t want them up in your business 24/7 eating your food, doing sometimes annoying things etc. The whole reason why romantic relationships work is that sexual attraction releases chemicals that make us get a kick out of being around people. Without that kick someone up in your business is basically like having a roommate that probably doesn’t even pay rent (due to outdated societal expectation that men support women even though women work just as much as men now).

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#10

Obviously your case may be different to mine but I’ve said that I can sometimes still feel it physically in my body but not physically as an urge in my head

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#11

Having crashed at the beginning of 2018, and experienced genital numbness, lack of orgasm sensation, difficulty getting anything close to a fully hard erection, complete cut off of the brain-genital connection and loss of libido, I can say that I am much better in all regards today than I was two years ago, although nowhere near where I was pre-PFS.

It now takes me significantly longer to get an erection, though I can generally get one (though this ebbs and flows and it is much harder when I am with a woman because I have my brain telling me I will fail). I have regained some libido, though it comes in waves. I have recovered a lot of sensitivity (my glans was just cold and without sensation, but now it feels good just to the touch). Orgasms now feel good, though not to the pre-PFS level. Though my brain’s connection to my penis is nothing like pre-PFS, there is something there.

What I continue to lack is semen volume, the afterglow after an orgasm (which would often make me want to nod off to sleep), that feeling of being totally spent and satisfied after ejaculating, that animalistic feeling of conquest when you get a girl back for sex for the first time (I have had sex with the assistance of viagra / cialis recently, because I don’t trust my own brain to be able to get or sustain an erection given the anxiety I have developed since PFS), though I do have waves of urges to masturbate, sometimes multiple times in a day, sometimes not at all.

So while I have nowhere near recovered that connection and those urges, I have seen improvement since crashing two years ago.

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#12

What have you done to improve to where you are?

#13

I have done water fasting, weights, gut dysbiosis diet, various things. I was previously active as @Jack82 but lost my email address I used to sign up after an extended break from the forum. I was then active as @WeCanBeatThis, and did the same again (I find that too much activity on this forum ends up making me feel worse so I use it for a bit and then try not to visit for a few months). Now that my brain is also working significantly better (though nothing like pre-PFS), I have finally had the foresight to write down the email and password I used for this account and keep it in a place where I can never misplace it, so it won’t happen again. I no longer have access to those accounts and have asked if they can be consolidated into this one. However, you can see my posts about the diet etc there.

I have played with various supplements, definitely seen sexual improvements from powdered maca (the capsules don’t seem to do much but maybe because the powder causes me to use a quite large quantity) as well as argenine. I have also used viagra and cialis, sometimes just to bring about full erections, so for some periods I would use it once a week for that.

However, I cannot say if/what has helped me improve sexually, I cannot pin it on any one thing, I do think time and just generally trying to be quite healthy have been critical, because I have noticed waves of improvements and then regressions, but the baseline seems to be creeping slowly in the right direction.

If you or anyone else reading this hasn’t used viagra or cialis to get the blood flowing down there, I do think it is helpful. A PFS-sceptic uro put me on daily viagra for 3 months. I didn’t do it for three months, but I did use the supply to get it working every now and then, despite not having a sexual partner. If choosing between the two, I find cialis is much better. A single dose is effective for me for 2 to 2.5 days as opposed to the few hours viagra is effective.

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#14

Post accutaner here. Recovered about 98-100 percent of my sexual functioning. Had the symptom you’re describing aswell.

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#15

Thanks. What did you do to recover it ?

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#16

Honestly, I think time/random chance was the biggest factor. I will add this; Some suppliments outright destroy my recovered libido/sexual functioning. I don’t know why this is but it seems to be the case. Seems I’m still sensitive to supplements.

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#17

The only way we are going to get this feeling back is by recruiting more PAS and PSSD victims to fill out the survey.

#18

Not true, stop making ultimatum/fear statements to try and get people to fill out the survey. Comes off as ungenuine.

#19

Are you saying that you think the last 15 years of sitting here googling terms like “low libido”, popping miscellaneous pills off label, herbs, and “lifting heavy” has been effective? More of that and we should be good?

#20

To be fair the point of this thread is to ask if it ever returned for anyone which seems to be yes for some and no for others. It’s not to discuss survey or whether supplements work.