It’s two years since the development of my PAS(well, most of the first year I was on Roaccutane). Despite of many fluctuations of my symptoms and some brief temporary recoveries my current condition is still resembling the one when I was taking increased dose of Roa. To certain extent I’m better mentally now, but considering the appearance of the obvious physical changes I’d say the overall situation got worse.
I’m losing my hope that I can get better with time as there’s no positive dynamics. The last time I felt sexual arousal in front of a girl was 2.5 months ago, the last time I had a proper erection was more than half a year ago. I remember how much excitement I had from just holding hands or kissing on a date and now I feel pretty much dead. The memories of how sweet the romance and sex used to be seem so distant. And it’s just 2 years. It’s hard to imagine 5 years like this or even more.
It feels like I’m constantly under some drugs, that make my feelings numb and my mind kinda foggy. It’s hard to maintain concentration for a long time and I’m sleepy throughout the day despite of my restored sleeping cycle. I simply get up not feeling rested enough. That’s really embarassing.
I decided to make a list of my current positive and negative changes.
Positive:
- No more overwhelming anxiety. The level of anxiety I used to have was clearly unnaturally high. I believe the improvement came either from improving sleep cycle, or simply with time.
- Less insomnia
- I still can perform on a base level. It gives me hope that when I conquer my focus, I’ll be able to achieve my goals, albeit slower than I want.
- No observable muscle wastage. Working out every day is yielding results. I have visible abs now and could be doing men’s underwear commercials , if not the goddamn acne.
- My sexuality isn’t completely lost. Some time ago I started to lose all interest in girls and any sexual activity. It was so severe that got me scared. Fortunately, it stopped at some point.
- Severe PE, I was suffering from at some stage, hasn’t returned.
- My acne is slowly healing. Although the skin condition is still far from acceptable.
- I still have overall young appearance, although my face tends to look exhausted and a bit swollen.
Negative:
- Severe genital numbness is not going away or getting weaker. Almost no sexual pleasure, weak or non-existent orgasm.
- Lack of normal erection. The tip is always more-or-less soft, no matter how hard the shaft is. Decrease in girth. Erection in the root is somehow weaker than in the shaft. Also, very often I just can’t feel it at all and have to literally look to see if I have erection or not.
- Obvious penile curvature to the left, increased amount of wrinkled skin and veins
- Disrupted brain-genitals connection. Somehow I still can get erection from erotic imagery, but it happens almost bypassing my consciousness and feels kinda random.
- Some sort of prostate issues. Pain-like or discomfort sensations. Significantly reduced(almost zero) pre-ejaculate amount, and thick, jelly-like semen.
- Extremely dry skin(especially hands and face) which is not healing at all. I used to have very soft and youthful hand skin(softer than many girls have). Now my hands look weird. They didn’t lose all youthfulness completely, but got covered in creases and cracks, feel tight and dried-out. Nothing has helped so far.
- Acne all over my torso. Somehow my face is the least affected area, and most people don’t understand why I feel so defective. It’s exactly the same condition that made me try increased dose of isotretinoin. Only God knows how I regret about that stupid decision.
- Weird feeling of tension in my head, usually accompanied by brain-fog. It’s getting in the way of various tasks that require my cognitive abilities. I don’t remember when I first noticed it, but seems to be quite recent.
- Blunted emotions. Sometimes I experience flashes of extreme sadness when I feel like about to cry. Somehow I think it’s even a good sign I’m not completely numb.
- I don’t feel sexual satisfaction. Despite all this shit I still have some sort of needs(more on psychological level) and they just won’t get satisfied. It’s just another factor to put on a strain on my already tired mind.
The treatments suggested by my derm and urologist appear to be ineffective.
I don’t want to put up with the situation as I can’t imagine living as a zombie-like being. I need to search for any sensible treatment options.
P.S.
The horrific news about the war left me utterly devastated. It took several days to return to more-or-less functioning state from apathy and obsessive doomscrolling. And still I feel completely lost. Not only because of the shocking nature of war and the fact that I have relatives in Ukraine. The moment I first heard the news, I immediately realized all my plans were completely ruined. My life, as I imagined it to be, won’t be the same and the current perspective seems pretty grim. Basically, I lost my job and have close to zero chance to find the job I desire now.
I can’t say I fully recovered from the previous blow, when I realized my PAS is to stay with me for an indefinite period and I might be doomed to not have a family or just a girlfriend. And now my future is destroyed and there’re many tough challenges ahead.