I saw a cream that supposedly stopped hair loss on TV in 1993. I was 21 years old. I ordered some by mail. I am not sure what the ingredients were as they weren’t listed on the packaging. I followed the instructions and applied to my scalp and left on for a couple of hours. After applying twice in as many days, I went to masturbate, and nothing, my penis just hung there. I stopped using the product immediately. After a week or so I regained erections (sort of), but my dick didn’t point to the sky anymore and my ejaculations had lost pressure. I stopped experiencing wet dreams and experienced only irregular morning erections. The fact that I was still a virgin at the time, made the whole ordeal even more terrifying. My erections became unreliable during masturbation, and because of my doubt and fear, when I did get a chance with a partner, no hope. I spiralled into a pit of despair, wondering if I would ever get better, and even whether I would ever experience love. I saw doctors, naturopaths, accupuncturists, you name it. They all said a topical cream wouldn’t cause these problems. They all tried me on this treatment and that treatment, with only ever temporary success. The doctor said my blood tests were fine. I was completely at a loss. I started drinking more alcohol, eating more crap, and stopped exercising. I blew out from 85kg to 110kg in no time, complete with man boobs. I was a mess, mentally and physically. I endured this cycle for nearly 5 years, and it nearly cost me my life.
Then I met a girl. She was kind, compassionate and patient. In fact, she had some of her own sexual hang ups. And while I was no super stud, she got me up and running (after alot of hit and miss). Whether I loved her, or the fact that she saved me, I don’t know, but after 6 months of dating I proposed. Our sex life was ok most of the time, but I would relapse from time to time, and I was rarely, if ever 100% confident of my ability to perform on any given occasion. We were blessed with the birth of 3 healthy children over the first few years of marriage. Life was pretty good.
However, there was always lurking this self doubt, and self loathing really, caused by my 5 years “lost at sea”. This manifested into depression, and eventually severe panic attacks, followed by clinical depression over the following years. I struggled to progress in my career, and my relationship with my wife was not great. I loved my kids more than life itself, but was finding myself being short and impatient with them, having difficulty controlling my temper at times. My sex life wained, and with my confidence being largely tied to my performance in the bedroom, dived to record low levels. I was in and out of psychologists offices, and on medication. I was trying to support a family, and I kept falling to pieces. This cycle went on for the next 18 years! With hindsight, I think that I was suffering from PTSD from the whole 21 to 26 years of age period I went through. I was still obsessed with it all those years later, believe it or not. It was during this time that I discovered this forum, and finally started to get some answers as to what might have been behind my downfall back in 1993.
The Turning Point - 7 months ago I had yet another mental health crisis. Enough was enough. I couldn’t continue with the band aid solutions that I had been relying upon to date. I needed to make real change. I quit my corporate job in sales. I quit the booze. I walked into the bush near my house and I sat on a rock! I took a very physical job delivering fruit and veg to restaurants. I reduced my stress, and started moving my body. I stopped poisoning myself with alcohol and rubbish food. I spent a lot of my free time going bush, and connecting with nature, I hiked with my shirt and shoes off, and soaked up the rays from the sun, and the earth between my toes! My depression lifted, I lost a truck load of weight, my man boobs have shrunk, and I have started looking & feeling like a man again. My erections have improved out of sight, and I wake with morning wood most days. No doctors, no pills, nothing but a bit of healing from Mother Nature!
Here is what I have learned after all these years:
- For me, whatever was in that Hairloss Cream all those years ago that triggered my symptoms, was not the sole cause, but rather the “straw that broke the camel’s back”
- There were a number of other contributing factors to my health problems, namely alcohol binge drinking, chronic stress, dietary factors eg. high estrogen in dairy, pesticides in food, sedentry lifestyle, absoption of xenoestrogens such as in BPA
- While I stopped using the Hairloss cream immediately, I didn’t stop any of the other things until 8 months ago, so improvement was only ever temporary
- Mine was a condition of imbalance. These imbalances were caused by all of the modern lifestyle factors that many of us fall victim to.
- Most importantly, when I cut away all the crap of my modern lifestyle, and took my body and mind back to nature, my balances corrected.
I appreciate that everybody on this forum are going through different journeys, but after all these years, I felt it was important for me to share mine.
