My Saw Palmetto Nightmare

[Dysfunkion]

Where are you from (country)?

US

How did you find this forum (Google search – if so, what search terms? Via link from a forum or website – if so, what page? Other?)

Searching for PFS forums on Google.

What is your current age, height, weight?

31 , 5’ 9" , 132 pounds

What specific drug did you use (finasteride, dutasteride, saw palmetto, isotretinoin/Accutane, fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, leuprorelin, etc…)?

Saw Palmetto

What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?

500 mg every day SP

What condition was being treated with the drug?

I started because I wanted to try growing out my hair, should never have even tried.

For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)?

SP - a little over a month

Date when you started the drug?

SP - July of 2022

Date when you quit the drug?

Can’t specifically remember besides it wasn’t long after a month

Age when you quit?

30

How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?

Cold Turkey

How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects?

During the month of taking it, things continued downwards after that. Only connected the dots later.

What side effects did you experience that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?

Check the boxes that apply. You can save your post first, then interactively check/uncheck the boxes by clicking on them. If your symptoms change, please update your list.

Sexual
[ x] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ x] Erectile Dysfunction
[ x] Complete Impotence
[ x] Loss of Morning Erections
[ x] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[ x] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ x] Watery Ejaculate
[ x] Reduced Ejaculate
[ x] Inability or Difficulty to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

Mental
[ x] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ x] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ x] Confusion
[ x] Memory Loss / Forgetfulness
[ x] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ x] Slurring of Speech
[ x] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ x] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ x] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ x] Suicidal Thoughts

Physical
[ x] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ x] Testicular Pain
[ x] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[ x] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ x] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ x] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ x] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ x] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ x] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ x] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears)
[ ] Hearing loss
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ x] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature

[ ] Other (please explain)
x - dry mouth
x - dry burning eyes
x - burning brain
x - inner ear pressure

What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?

Numerous, I’ll explain the best I can the time line of what I’ve done since then but things around the crash are blurry.

If you have pre or post-drug blood tests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug (please post your test results in the “Blood Tests” section and link to them in your post)?

Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience?

I only learned about this condition in passing when I was considering supplements for growing out my hair, I had a high sex drive before this all happened and was quite hyperactive. A very physical outdoorsy person. I didn’t think such a thing was a huge risk for me and I only heard about it from saw palmetto. I also stumbled upon lions mane sickness which was surprising to me as I have been taking lions mane for a couple years now (and discontinued when this all got out of hand in a panic not knowing what was going on with me) which also likely caused an interaction with the saw palmetto. I was also on NAC 1000 mg every day as it helped with my anxiety levels but this may also likely have contributed. Recreationaly I was also a heavy kratom user (around 30 grams daily) and was also using HHC a couple times a day at the time both of which I also cold turkeyed in my panic over what was going on. So my situation has a lot more complexity at play here but it seems Saw Palmetto just broke the camels back.

Tell us your story, in your own words, about your usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.

Well like I said it was the end of June and I wanted to see how my hair would grow out and thought I might need a boost so I did some research and ordered saw palmetto. At the time my health wasn’t perfect and I have a history severe digestive issues, immune problems (I had what I believe was MCAS but wasn’t diagnosed, had multiple chemical sensitivity, and numerous food sensitivities that severely limited my diet). And thus begins the worst mistake of my life, when I was first started taking it I didn’t really notice anything at all. Slowly things started getting worse after maybe the first week, I was getting horrible fits of anxiety and sadness. I tacked it up to stress at the time even though technically I didn’t have too much to worry about, I’ve always been prone to anxiety but this was very out of character for me.

As this started to happen I noticed I was getting much more gas and bloating, I always had issues but I wasn’t eating anything different besides maybe fried chicken more than I should that Summer. I had more money, was living it up a bit more at the time and was also getting more take out more often as well as going to more shows and other outings so I also tacked that up to putting a bit too much stress on my digestive system. So I dialed back and ate better but this didn’t do anything and the emotional problems and digestive issues with it only got worse. There was nothing that could relieve any of it and things stayed like this for the rest of the month.

I noticed no change from saw palmetto at all with my hair so I dropped it shortly after the month was over. Things continued to go downhill though over the next month (this was the beginning of the big crash). I begin to become completely apathetic, I just for some reason couldn’t find the drive to do much of anything anymore but sleep and eat. The episodes of emotional agony began to get a lot darker and I developed a severe depression I haven’t experienced in my life. Nothing could pick me up anymore, all the coffee in the world would do nothing. Vaping HHC provided almost no more of a pick me up either I mind as well have been vaping water. I had never been so tired and lifeless in my life but I wasn’t prepared for how bad it would get.

As the next month progressed I began feeling dizzy in waves throughout the day, I could feel almost nothing emotionally, and then I noticed one of the most horrifying symptoms which was the sexual anhedonia. I wasn’t in a relationship at the time and one recently ended before this all happened but I was talking with someone online and in the shower I noticed when fantasizing I was unable to visualize anything and my genitals were almost completely non functional. I was thinking about them and could feel nothing, when I finally after insane amounts of stimulation was able to get it up in a very pathetic fashion the orgasm felt like nothing. I was beginning to get very worried at this point as something was clearly very wrong and it wasn’t in my head. Shortly after this horrifying discovery I had a camping trip which was the last week of the month lined up with my father we had planned that before all this happened I was excited about. I tried my best to enjoy it but had almost no energy and couldn’t eat much without this all worsening (I wasn’t aware of food worsening the condition at the time, had no idea what I was dealing with until looking this all up again after the fact as I scrambled around trying to figure out what was wrong with me).

This camping trip was the final nail in the coffin, on what would have been the second to last day we were out there as we were making food outside I felt so dreadful all around I had no choice but to utter the words “Dude I don’t feel so well” (my famous last words of this situation) in front of literal fresh made lobster we were cooking up and what would have been if I wasn’t like this an awesome night. I over the course of that day got weaker and we decided cause of my state of health to head home the next day. The next day I felt dead as if all color had drained from the world in between random bouts of anxiety, we had a couple places to go that morning but I couldn’t enjoy anything. I forced myself to attempt to enjoy a couple fresh baked bagels which I used to love before leaving but couldn’t feel anything from food anymore either.

The entire ride home I just cried and we tried to line me up a doctors appointment to try to find out what was wrong, they didn’t know about the saw palmetto or anything I was taking at the time but they did help me with medical stuff so we lined up some appointments and tests anyways. I already had no faith in medical as I’ve been in past medical struggles let down and left to self treat myself. No one understood and I was simply gaslighted often so I gave up. On the last day of the camping trip I dropped almost all my supplements save for the methyl b12, magnesium malate, taurine, niacinamide 500 mg, HHC, and NAC 1000 mg. (I was on those at the time + methyl-folate 1000 mcg, kratom, quercetin 500 mg, and the lions mane)

When I got home things over the next weeks began to get more hellish. I began to get burning in my legs, arms, face, head, and through my genitals in waves throughout the day in addition to everything else. These went on for around a week as I forced my way through life with all the energy I had left as I was still working at the time but I was in a state of near panic attack the entire time and could only get through each shift by the skin of my teeth. I was having kratom withdrawals from my high dose cold turkey compounding the situation and giving me insomnia too. Then one day I remember at night it felt like fireworks going off in my brain, horrible brain zaps all night long and every time I had them I felt even worse. It was late so I tried to sleep it off but my body was violently jerking in bed as they continued and I tried to force sleep.

The next days were the beginning of my long journey back to health. I almost couldn’t get up from my chair in my room, just moving from the bed to the chair was a struggle because I had no physical energy left. I was like a zombie. My body all over was nearly completely numb, I could pinch myself hard anywhere and feel almost nothing. It felt as if someone had killed me but left me in my body. My ability to feel anything but this subtle sense of impending doom and dread in the background was gone. I had complete sexual dysfunction and couldn’t even get aroused. If I tried to get aroused my genitals would literally get smaller and retract further, it was horrifying because I never seen such a thing in my life. As the days went on burning began to creep back in but this time it felt like just an area in my brain behind my forehead. Day in, day out waves of burning brain with horrible pressure in my head/ears and screaming mechanical sounding tinnitus. I lost all reactions to other things I typically reacted to MCAS wise though, my body just wasn’t responding to almost anything and I was stuck in this numb but burning anhedonic hell with no way out. This remained stable for months as I tried to work things out and as I went on I noticed my diet was also playing a big role so not only did I go through many dietary abjustments but I also played with many supplements too. I’ll make a post after this detailing what I did and the course of my recovery (I am not 100 percent recovered though, this isn’t c a complete recovery story. I’d say I’m around 80 percent - maybe 90 percent on a good day).

Currently I am still dealing with the tinnitus, a little of the pressure in my left ear, not all my libido is back yet but I can get hard with some stimulation as visually I can only get aroused enough to get a semi at most, morning wood is back but can be better or worse that seems to fluctuate a bit depending on my diet and state of my digestive system somehow, creativity is back, anhedonia is gone but still can’t really get a super energetic feeling like something is still being blocked a bit (I believe this has something to do with my cholinergic system though because I still can’t feel stimulants or nicotine very well but I regained the feelings at a baseline), skin sensitivity is 100 percent back. All in all I seem to be left dealing with some residual sexual dysfunction stemming from some overall energy problem in my body and something going on with my digestive system in this which was never good to begin with. My body isn’t as reactive to things as it should be anymore and I don’t really know what is wrong. I still have some of the neuropathy in my face and head but it’s more like an icy hot feeling in my facial nerves that appears to flare the most when my immune system is going a bit nuts.

I will later or tomorrow type up everything I did so far and keep this thread updated with anything else I have to offer. It’s a long story but I’ll try my best to keep it coherent as I largely just threw stuff at the wall and some things stuck eventually. Keep in mind because of my complex family dependence situation and lack of money I don’t really have access to lot of testing I can through doctors. I haven’t tested my hormones or luch else besides testing positive for lyme after this all happened in what my doctor thought might have been going on. Lyme herbals actually played a big role in my getting to where I am right now though strangely.

[LondonUK]

Thanks for posting and great to hear you have more than partially recovered. I’ll be interested in your next post detailing what’s helped you especially with your skin sensitivity returning as its one of the more rarer symptoms by the looks of it

[JimWildman]

@Dysfunkion @LondonUK

If you haven’t yet, I suggest you contact @Taw . He was afflicted by the saw and has mostly recovered!
I’m sure he’d love to help! Jim

[fendingofffear]

The waves of dizziness - my god, my friend. That is exactly how I experienced it - with waves of emotional blunting and the sudden sensation of my skull being stuffed full of cotton.

I hope you’ve got some peace from this since.

[Dysfunkion]

Sorry for the late reply here, I’ll have to type all that up tomorrow when I have the time to and a clearer head (I still have seemingly random waves of brain fatigue often, no triggers I can isolate this far out). Yeah it was very gradual and honestly a miracle. there was one trigger for it that kick started another stage of it though and it was from one of the lyme antibiotic herbals. I think some people have also had some positive experiences with antibiotics too if I remember reading around correctly. I won’t pretend to know why though, I’m just another person that frantically did everything they could with the money they had. I largely focused on what was going on with my guts though and didn’t mess with hormones because I felt that would just be too dangerous. Had a very close call with a peptide (learned the hard way, don’t play with this stuff, very dangerous if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing) I tried during this whole thing though but luckily I recovered and I don’t know if the single dose of it I had played any role in any positive rebound after though.

@JimWildman
I’ll keep it in mind and look into their posts thanks! Under the right or wrong for that matter conditions it can be just as bad. I thought I was safe as long as I just avoided fin but there are many ways down into this hell apparently. I didn’t even know before this it was possible to have what was taken away from me, taken away. I’ve been through a lot of health situations before and withdrawals before but nothing came close to what I experienced from this. A freaking hair loss supplement of all things was capable of this, you’d think I took actual poison (perhaps it is depending on how you see it) by the way things progressed.

[Taw]

Gracias por la shout-out @Jim (Yes, I did that intentionally because, reasons)

I never had hair loss. I always had a full head of thick hair and still do today. I did not take it for hair loss. I would not mind losing some hair actually. I had electrolysis hair removal for excessive facial hair around 11 years ago. Funny how hair removal is safer than hair preservation. Also funny how so many guys say they took (fill in the blank) for hair loss, yet none of them in the videos appear to have hair loss that I can see. Anyway, I took saw palm because I read it was “good for mens health”, can “help prevent prostate cancer”, etc. It probably does nothing for prostate cancer, and even if it does, it is not worth it. It comes from a palm tree as coconuts and medjool dates, but it tastes nothing like either. It tastes like rotten cheese dipped in tobacco juice, so it does taste like poison. I notice saw palm victims such as us are much quicker to attempt self therapy than the PSSD, PAS, PFS, and other drug victims. Not a surprise really, considering we self treated in the beginning when we used an over the counter product instead of a prescription drug. Those who go to the doctor for prescriptions are more likely to see a doctor again instead of self treat.

Percentages (%) are 1 of my biggest gripes. Really, what does it tell anyone if you say you are 10, 20, 30, 70, 80, 90 percent recovered? Nothing! I have no qualms about going into detail explicitly, even sexually. “We are grown men”, as @Erik says. A before, during, and after description is necessary to offer any understanding. All the arbitrary #s (numbers) do is lead to more questions, so I bypass that by answering the questions before they are asked.
PS: Nobody ask me for a percentage %, please. I will consider it spam for the aforementioned reasons and ignore it.

[Dysfunkion]

@Taw What do you think was the most helpful thing you did to recover? I was reading some of your posts and you used perwinkle at some point, can you go more into that? Yeah I get it with grading recovery based on percentages, was just lightly using it for where I felt at the time, I seem to simply be in a weird purgatory right now with this. Not quite recovered but not in the most horrible position anymore either. Some people said they saw some benefits upon eating asparagus but I had plenty today and literally felt nothing, just like I ate some vegetables.

Some very interesting points about my case

• the biggest improvements with me came from propolis and mk7 k2 (I lost methyl-b12 due to what SP did to my immune system too but K2 gave me it back, I can’t function without methyl-b12)

• increasing methyl-b12 to 2000 mcg from 1000 mcg gives me a lot of my reactivity and energy back but my neuropathy, ear ringing, and other aspects of the hyperactivity it brings become unbearable BUT it can’t seem to crash me.

• yohimbine which used to send my sex drive through the roof now has almost no effect there but doesn’t crash me (similar to the post you made on your reaction to maca)

• There was a point in my journey where coffee itself but not caffiene (which I could barely feel) after getting sensitized to it after a few days would actually make me more sedated while retaining the brightening of my senses it had which I kept drinking because without that life was unbearable. Being closer to recovered now it doesn’t do this anymore.

• I have tried adrenal cortex before directly but the only thing this did was make me horribly anxious and pace around a lot without actually giving me any body sensation or reactivity back. Very strange.

• I used to before this nonsense happened like you were very sexual without going into gross detail and I had a condition call POIS (post orgasmic illness syndrome) where I took quercetin to lower the issues with. When I took quercetin in my post saw palmetto condition when I was much earlier in recovery I had a horrible crash from it. Felt like it just dropped all connectivity in my brain and I went from feeling little to feeling nothing.

• I had a nearly complete isolated sexual window from tongkat BUT this crashed me in every single other way besides the arousal response which felt almost alien. How could you experience such arousal but feel nothing?

• I jump started most of my genital with massive improvements in skin sensation from a single dose of of osha root (extract capsules) which improved more on the next day which stuck with no further improvements over the next couple days on it. Otherwise it made me very lazy and didn’t eant to really move too much when I was on it but I always bounced back. That side affect is consistent with every dose.

The methyl-b12 and yohimbine point is the most curious to me, methyl-b12 is literally the only thing that can currently bring me out of this that I know of and like you what used to provide tons of sexual stimulation before simply doesn’t. I can feel what is wrong based on those 2 points but I don’t specifically know what is going on under the hood. Based on my b12 reaction it’s as if my neurotransmitters and possibly others things receptors are jacked up so high that I need the maximum tolerated dose for myself to get them to hit those receptors and make everything work again and that is only close to baseline. I am thinking about giving niacinamide 500 mg (can only find a single report where someone felt worse from it, no actual crash reports anywhere) a go again but currently I’m not sure and I don’t know what other options I have here. I feel like I exhausted almost everything.

[Dysfunkion]

Ok so on to what I did from what I can remember from the point where I had the brain zaps in bed and woke up numb.

My supplements I was on at the time of that were methyl-b12 1000 mcg, vitamin C about a gram every morning, niacinamide 500 mg, NAC 1000 mg, magnesium malate 100 mg, and I was still on the lions mane extract at 1 mL because I didn’t suspect it was also part of the issue yet.

The first month was generally me just not knowing what to do with myself or where to begin. I was doing a lot of research at the time and came across the topics of PFS and PSSD and took a look at what info was available in the communities. I didn’t have much else on me at the time to try and I couldn’t really think straight anyways so I simply waited some weeks and toughed some things out. During that time I checked in to the local mental health clinic largely just because I didn’t want to resist much of what my father thought would help and after the most painful intake I ever had, I was set up with a therapist, and had to see the psychiatrist a few times as required there, and luckily I was able to hold it together enough to not have meds forced on me and I was let go with my new therapist. She actually wasn’t bad and I’m still seeing them to this day. I tried to join a group there and there was even someone there with PSSD to my surprise. While finding someone I could relate to was wonderful, I was in such poor condition that I had to leave since my ability to socialize was almost completely shot. So largely I spent most of the time alone at home dying, in therapy, or dragging myself through each shift at work. Work at the time and for months after was horrible because of my sudden lack of social ability, the pain, and the anhedonia/brain fog. The first month out my speech slurring was also horrible but that luckily was one of the first things to fix itself with time.

The next month was my first attempts at trying to claw my way out of this nightmare. I first tried ashwaghanda and L-theanine. Ashwagandha was one of the worst supplement decisions I ever made because it first gave me a slight amount of energy followed by more waves of brain zaps and depressive attacks so it went into the trash in a couple doses. The next to try since some people found some relief with it was L-theanine which would be another horrible choice for me as after a single I almost couldn’t hold myself up properly and thought I was going to pass out. The anhedonia and numbness got even worse and I felt worse for nearly a week but bouncing back isn’t the word since there wasn’t much to bounce back to. The next thing I tried as I thought I might have some kind of mineral depletion was iodine drops, these actually did help a little bit in giving me back a little bit more baseline energy overall but ultimately didn’t do anything after a few doses so I dropped that too but after I did I didn’t notice any difference.The next thing I tried since I thought I needed to calm down my immune system as around the end of this month the burning brain waves began was stinging nettle which I at the time didn’t know could also be potentially very bad. Luckily it actually helped keep the burning brain down for a while but also made me more tired and dull. I didn’t like how I felt on it at all but at least it gave me some relief from a little of the nervous system going haywire thing. I stopped taking it after a couple weeks though because like I said I hated how I felt on it even more in some ways and my sexual functioning was also zero.

The next month I was pretty stumped on what to do next but I continued trying things. This was when I decided to drop the lions mane because I read about lions mane syndrome and how it could make things worse and how people have crashed from it. When I took it out I didn’t like how I felt at all because it was in the background giving me a lot more energy apparently. I also was drinking yerba mate in the morning and have been for months at that time instead of coffee as before I wanted to break away from coffee but ultimately after what happened next I came right back to it because I couldn’t handle this without it but had a weird experience with coffee I’ll go into. So the first thing I tried off the lions mane was tribulus (I tried a couple of these supposed T boosting herbs but this was the only time I played with these super adrogenic cures), I didn’t know what to expect and we actually had capsules where I worked so I bought some and tried one later that night. It gave me more energy for sure but in the worst way possible. I was just as dull mentally and emotionally with no change in my sensitivity or sexual functioning but I was extremely on edge and felt very rage-y in the background from what I could feel for some hours and couldn’t sleep that night. So that went in the trash in a single dose too. The next one I decided to try was Tongkat, so when I got I popped a capsule and this was the first sexual window I ever had. I was amazed, I could get it upand experience desire BUT there was a problem! I literally couldn’t feel anything else and it made me more depressed than I already felt. I felt even further away from myself on it, it killed some of the background anxiety I was feeling but it was replaced with nothing and amplified the depression and lethargy brutally. I looked up online about side effects and saw some people aying it could deplete iodine so I had some iodine drops the next day and bounced back a little instantly but not fully back to my previous still horrible baseline some days later. So that was out too. A week passes and I decide to try more things. I ordered L-arginine and L-citruline. When the L-arginine came in this also gave me a sexual window similar to tongkat but it was barely noticeable, I felt slightly better on it but a little off. I took it for a week but eventually stopped that too because it just wasn’t doing anything for me more and I didn’t wanna be taking some random supplement I wasn’t entirely sure on that wasn’t doing much for me for too long. The citruline came in and I tried it one night. This one one of the first strictly enery and mental windows I had but it didn’t last. I was far more social again and my physical ability ramped up greatly but it made me feel a lot more stiff and ramped up my insomnia. I stuck with it for some days butthese effects also dropped down to just about nothing again so I hopped off.

This is where time starts getting more blurry, I wasn’t keeping track and was just floating through the days I did so much during the next months that I can only try my best to put it in accurate chronological order.

So the next month I decided to ditch the yerba mate and give coffee a try again in desperation, I also decided to try honey tea in the morning too since I was also due to cutting the yerba mate craving something more tea like. I actually tried the honey tea first which was just simple tea with honey in it and something very interesting and weird happened. I instantly upon drinking the honey tea got a hyperactive wired energy but it was wrapped up under my near full body numbness that at the time has barely budged since I crashed. It felt like I had taken a hard stimulant but also made me extremely bloated and every time I had it this effect would lessen and then I’d crash even harder energy wise. So after some days again that was also out of the picture and I finally one afternoon incorporated coffee again. This time in a similar fashion but somewhat cleaner energy wise I got a boost that over the next days of over drinking it and being on cloud nine with my current coffee energy savior crashed me energy wise and became nothing special but I kept the coffee there since it made my senses slightly better and I was able to feel a little bit more overall with it. Just enough to ignite my will to live a little bit more which wasn’t a strong one at the time. After a couple weeks I decided to try lions mane again one morning thinking maybe it wasn’t the enemy and I might be able to go back. At the time my sexual functioning was nearly nonexistent, if I really tried I was able to get it up somewhat and masturbate but I had severe premature orgasm and almost nothing but some weird watery stuff came out. After I did it took many days to even get the slightest spark back to do so at the time I barely ever did, I was nearly asexual. So I take half a 1 mL and get a weird emotional window that after some hours went completely south and the fatigue got even worse along with the anhedonia. I had the slightest skin sensitivity back but after that dose back down it went and I lost all ability to even get an erection again. My stomach also got extremely bloated and it tooks days to go down again. I was defeated so probably a good week went by before I decided to try anything else which next was L-carnitine, this was interesting because it gave me a little physical energy and spark back emotionally but it was buried deep under the numbness of everything and my brains inability to really do much of anything at all. I stuck with it for a couple weeks as it was similar to the effect of the arginine without any hint of a sexual window save for at least gaining back the baseline ability to get an erection. I dropped it too and got slightly more anhedonic but was left with a tiny bit of barely noticeable progress. Shortly after this I’m estimating maybe a week or so I read about the possible involvement of the adrenals and I remember the sex drive I used to feel on yohimbine when I would use it a long time ago. So I ordered some Thorne adrenal cortex and yohimbine. One evening I try a small amount of the adrenal cortex and get a little more physical energy that makes me want to get up and move bit but a restless muted agitation that made me feel somewhat like I was on the border of a panic attack. After that I try a capsule of the yohimbine and my senses get somewhat brighter, some of the panic levels out and everything is slightly more enjoyable but not changed in sexual functioning or numbness immediately save for slightly more blood easily able to get to my dick. The next morning after this though when I was at work I had a slight life of the anhedonia musically and I felt more sensation of skin on my face but this faded after some hours and I didn’t make any progress at all and was dumped right back where I was before I tried the adrenal cortex.

After this I decided to after doing some more research support my mitochondria. I tried at first up my niacinamide to 1000 mg but the only thing this did was make me feel somewhat more speedy with no improvements in anything so back to 500 mg it went and I decided to try NAD+ itself (can’t specifically remember the dose) and got a lot more mental clarity with this stuff I wasn’t able to achieve before but got the same speedy feeling with no benefits in sexual functioning or sensation anywhere. It also upset my stomach and I couldn’t avoid it. I stopped using it and at this point wanted to see what would happen if I dropped the NAC as I dug more into that at the time and noticed people can get anhedonia from it. After stopping I felt slightly more sensation in the days after but my energy and anhedonia got even worse. It was so bad for a handful of days after cutting it out coold turkey that I felt like I weighed 500 pounds and lived in the twilight zone but I pushed through and eventually I started to come up again and in the bounce back I was at a better baseline which was mostly likely a bit less than a week after quitting. So great I have a tiny bit of overall progress but it’s not much to go off of. After this though I began to run into more issues, the burning brain began to get worse and the waves of it and heavy brain fog with it came back. It would get worse every time I would take my methyl-b12 in the morning now and just about every time I ate but sometimes would flare out of nowhere for no reason I could pin point during the day. It was one of the most persistent disabling symptoms I still had and it would come with the head and left ear pressure and terrible tinnitus. At the time I also had a concert I had tickets for and in this state stupidly decided to go that was in a casino so I had as this was happening an entire night of horribly mixed that even music making me even more deaf and playing a bunch of dirty slots all night which of course in the next days made everything worse temporarily but luckily there was a decent enough bounce back.

Now next I was really getting deep into the gut theory on all of this and at the time my diet was largely the same as it was when it crashed minus a lot of the junk food I was having. I was getting mapo tofu from the chinese place now and then and was having rice and veggies with soy sauce and tofu for dinner often loaded with peas usually to get those veggies in. Sometimes I would have soy sauce in it too. So I decided to start slowly changing that. I would no longer use any soy sauce in it which over the course of a couple weeks made a slight difference in how burny uppy my face felt but ultimately not much else. So I took out the tofu and again over another couple weeks felt slightly better but again not too much. I didn’t know what else to do next besides stop eating take out period so I did that and took to trying more supplements again. I also at this time also took out taurine since I wanted to eliminate another factor over the next week and upon doing that I felt a little more overall energy but nothing else. My sexual functioning at the time was still terrible and my dick was still almostly completely numb. I decided to try bile salts and got my hands on some tudca I believe at 500 mg and this was one of the first things that made a difference slightly permanently. My senses on it cleared up a little, I started to get my first morning woods with it, and I felt more clear headed but at the same time it made my stomach feel weird and gave me a slightly more depressed feeling I didn’t like I kept at it though for a couple weeks before dropping it as these benefits hit a wall anyways but after quitting that I had a little more overall sensitivity and mental clarity back. It wasn’t much but hey it was something finally. After quitting these morning woods got harder to come by and I lost a little of that clarity.

I decided to try some old mercury detox protocol too at the time after this out of desperation. I tried DMPS, DMSA, and ALA. Some rounds of DMSA and DMPS actually did help though very slightly and it was barely noticeable. After a while those rounds made me feel like garbage like usual too and my body couldn’t take much more of a beating. Though when I started on ALA something amazing happened, I had one of my first brain fog and anhedonia windows but it wasn’t repeatable and happened once every handful of 500 mg doses on round. So I really pushed it and drank coffee like a fiend while doing an entire month round with a small break in between. In the end the this would end up crashing me more energy wise and leaving me with more head pressure and ear ringing. I was crushed but wasn’t surprised at the outcome. I recovered somewhat energy wise and after all of that had barely made any progress if I could even call it that, I had a tiny amount of skin sensation back at most.

So not knowing what to do next I sat with myself for a couple more weeks pondering what I could do with my diet. I finally decided to start trying to eat more meat and dropped the methyl b12 along with the niacinamide cause I also wanted to see what would happen without that. I got much more tired but gained more clarity and some overall sensitivity and a slight bit more sexual functioning back that would get even worse during the waves of burning. After I did this these waves of burning lessened and then stopped but I was left feeling completely devoid of energy. I started adding half a beef steak to my rice and veggies as well as eating more seafood and adding chicken to the dish sometimes too but this would barely help energy wise and I never ate meat anyways because on it I get a lot more brain foggy, my digestive system hates it, and I get much more lethargic. The form and amount of b12 in all the meat I could eat just wasn’t enough and because of my reaction to meat itself but only land meat (I can eat seafood just fine) I felt like I was losing my mind. Back to plain spiced veggies and rice it was though sometimes I would add a little seafood to it since I was ok with that. I tried multiple forms of b12 but nothing but methyl would work but I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. I felt like I was trapped and at this point I sure I was gonna die like this. My nervous system, immune system, and mitochondria were shot, and I was just gonna keep declining. I couldn’t tolerate anything anymore with food and no one could help me. I went to the doctor a handful of times and got numerous tests but it would take a while to get my results back.

Another month passed with no progress at all, just the stagnant horror of being trapped in a body I barely recognize anymore. So I decided to look more into the gut since I had nothing left to do and came across k2 and D3. K2 is produced by the gut and I thought that maybe mine might need more of it. I decided to try D3 first though which was pretty risky as there has been crash reports from it… I took 5000 iu and had a very mixed reaction. I got much slower and more tired but I got more mental clarity and a little lift of the anhedonia which didn’t last as I didn’t continue taking it past a couple doses. At the time I was taking it I went out with someone family and ate a ton of terrible food making me feel even worse but I didn’t really care anyways since I mind as well try to enjoy something since nothing at the time was getting better and I felt completely hopeless.

What happened next was my single biggest turning point. One morning in the next week I deicided to head to the pharmacy and pick up some MK7 K2 as they had the supplement there. So I buy it and pop on on the way back and to my surprise I got a burst of clean energy and overall sensation, not a huge one but I felt pretty good for the first time in more months than I can remember. Some of my sensitivity on my skin but not really genitals got better, I was able to think more clearly and I was able to at a baseline level get aroused by thoughts. I was impressed so I kept taking it and these benefits stuck and got even better but hit a wall. I was now at a better baseline and could at least get an erection fully and visualize things as well as get more baseline arousal and my skin sensation was all around better. Nowhere near cured but better and I was satisfied. I stuck with it and didn’t do much else for a few more weeks. I eventually turned back to detox after noticing in the cabinet at home I had some fine activated charcoal so one morning thinking I might have more to clean up in my gut had a small amount heavily diluted in some water. This was another big turning point for me but it went back and forth. I had an extreme reaction. I felt all the nerves in my face and head light up with a familiar icy hot feeling and I got a lot more energy and more sensation all around but I felt like I was going to go mad. My hands and feet also became ice cold and my anxiety levels shot through the roof. But I persisted with this low dose high dilution charcoal for days till I couldn’t take any more and got off it. After this rampaged through my system I felt even better at a baseline not as much as the k2 but slightly better. Things just felt more natural and over the next weeks I would have some random days on charcoal but I didn’t get any further improvements as much as my extreme reaction to it lessened over it. I still have it now and then to this day. I finally because this also lifted my energy and appeared to help my immune system a bit too try my methyl-b12 again and it was a miracle! I was now about tolerate my methyl-b12 again at 1000 mcg for some reason without it making anything worse and making everything better! I finally had some ground to stand on here!

After this though I didn’t have any more ideas, I increased my magnesium dose once and it didn’t do anything. I thought maybe I had a lot of inflammation still in my body so in a shot in the dark which was a good one this time too I ordered propolis (the Now brand 15:1 extract) and took a capsule one morning. I suddenly after doing this felt even better and so I kept taking it and made a slight amount of progress that stuck with it. This was overall progress and nothing specific, sexually it wasn’t much though progress wise. I experienced no change in sensation down there and my lack of genital sensation and functioning was still one of the worst issues. The propolis also reduced some of the head pressure and ear pressure, the tinnitus got slightly better over a few weeks with it.

After this I really was out of ideas and felt like I was just in some kind of weird purgatory of sorts. When I was out to eat with my father one night he told me he finally got a call from the doctor and it was about me testing positive for Lyme disease. This began the next chapter of healing. It would be over a month before we would be able to go to the office and talk about it and my options. But I decided to reach more natural options I had since I didn’t like the idea of prescription antibiotics anyways. I ordered cistus incanus and osha root. Osha root was a lot more obscure and I only found it because of digging through reddit with a post linking to a video of someone talking about using it. There wasn’t many other reports on its use at all. So I got the cistus about a week later and had a brew of it and I felt a lot more clear headed and for a short time a bit more energetic and a bit less anhedonic. But I later that day felt very flu-y like I had something coming on and it only got worse. I definitely did, whatever this did it triggered a infection or even allowed my body to fight one that was there for a very long time because for the next week and then some my nose was completely clogged, my head pressure ridiculous, and overall I was just sick as hell. This was the first time I got sick in years like this actually. But as I came out of it I felt even better on the bounce back after a little over a week of it. I was exhausted but I decided to keep pushing anyways and had a couple more brews of cistus in the next week which didn’t trigger this sickness anymore but also made me a lot more tired and didn’t seem to benefit me anymore besides actually after this calming my immune system a bit. In between this I had a time where I had a bad reaction to adding green cabbage to my rice and veggies that introduced more facial burning hell again and having this cistus after this and dose of activated charcoal actually rescued me from an impending crash. The next week I decide to try the osha root, I honestly didn’t expect much and just shot it down one morning but something amazing happened in the first 10-15 minutes. I gained back a great amount of genital sensation and overall skin almost instantly! I was amazed but this stuff though it even helped me sexually get to a better baseline made me ultra tired and lazy all day when I was on it. I could tolerate very little physical exercise so the next 4 days of me on this stuff I largely spent laying back in my chair sitting around in between getting driven to the store where I could. My inflammation in my head also went down more as well as the ear pressure which also stuck. After recovering from the fatigue of the last dose on day 4 I on the bounce back was at an even better baseline. I over the next couple month would random alternate doses of these but I wouldn’t see any more improvements so fast forwarding a month and beyond I’m not currently using them.

So at my better baseline I just lived my life for what I could… I had basically all my skin sensation back, the anhedonia was much better though slightly present and I still needed more body reactivity. My sexual reactions were and still aren’t completely there yet. I can get aroused but visually it’s not very strong yet and I need some other stimulation but I can fully get things going and feel all kinds of emotions now too. I have some remaining neuropathy in my face but it feels more icy hot and isn’t entirely burning anymore or constant. I have morning wood most days and overall I can finally feel me again.

The final thing before this I tried a couple weeks back was an interesting theory on the forum here from way back called the “dolichol deprivation” theory. Without going all TLDR on it you just eat a massive amount of spinach raw every day for a month (I wouldn’t even last a full week, almost though!). So one morning I got the spinach and gave it a go. To my amazement sexually it did what it said it did, I was blown away. I even had the precum again heavily which I haven’t had since the crash heavily at all. Though this wouldn’t stick and sexually I would return to baseline when it stopped but after a few days bouncing back from doing this I now have more energy, even more overall skin reactivity to the environment including my genitals, and I feel more connected in my head somehow. It gave me a little more gas in my belly t deal with though but it’s not horrible. I think doing this just allowed my gut colony to grow in there much more quickly which could have contributed to the results I had here with this theory.

After this very recently in the past week I read about someone getting benefits from sorghum which turned out to be another great thing for me but I had a weird reaction to it. I ordered some flour and decided to make some tortillas out of it at the 3/4 cup measure of the flour and then some as I had to add a bit more to make the dough more firm. So I cooked them up quick and shoved them down my throat. They weren’t bad either and if I didn’t react weird to them I would have have them pretty often but shortly after I had a weird window of enjoying music more followed by a very tired out of it feeling that almost knocked me out. I didn’t like it and really hoped I didn’t screw myself up. The next day came and I felt a little better but still felt kind of odd, then after that day I felt fine again but this time I was even more reactive to my environment and could feel temperature on my skin even better. I’m still not all there yet I still have a little energy and sexual functioning to still gain back as the sexual part didn’t improve or get worse from this but I’m now at a baseline that is sitting just a under normal. I’m confident now though that I’m on my way to completely recovering.

If you read this far I’d like to thank you and I hope it helps someone out here, we’re all different though with this condition and I’m still being very careful to avoid foods that could crash me, for example I haven’t tried any Indian food with lots of curcumin since doing this and other spices outside of sea salt, dried sichuan pepper, and black garlic I use to cook with. I have no tried tofu again and don’t really plan to for a while either, the only soy I get is if I dip something in a little soy sauce or I go out to eat and something has teriyaki on it. I have read here on people of benefiting from asparagus too and I want to give that a go raw at 4-5 spears and see’s how I react as it appears no one though they haven’t permanently improved on it have found out something about their case specifically. I really hope it doesn’t negatively impact me but I can’t find any reports of regression from it either, at 4 spears though I can’t imagine based on what I’ve eaten in the past anything bad could happen. If I have any ideas or updates though I’ll post them under this topic. Wish everyone the best on their roads to recovery, if I could get back up from where I was then any of you could too!
I

[Dysfunkion]

Update from today - I’m feeling really anxiety ridden and claustrophobic lately, this hasn’t been a good week for me at all in terms of other life factors and I noticed that high prolonged stress makes everything with this far worse. The tinnitus and neuropathy all over are really flaring hard, I can usually tell when it’s so bad that I need to nearly isolate myself and do nothing for an entire day when the neuropathy is is able to be felt in my stomach and genitals somewhat wioh that familiar icy hot feeling. I don’t lose sensation or sexual functioning but it’s super uncomfortable. I wish my stress problems weren’t this bad but my sensory issues and being stuck with someone I do not want to be around in a tiny place I get almost no privacy in day in/day out do not mix well. They haven’t been at work all week. Usually I’m fine since when I’m here they’re usually not and when I’m not they’re usually here. I’ve been really holding back a meltdown all week and it’s now taking a physical toll on my health but thankfully it ends tomorrow but I feel like I’m gonna have to live very quietly for the next couple days at least.

Also going to the day after tomorrow try the L-hisitidine at 1000 mg and report how that goes. I found someone here who felt worse on it but didn’t seem to be anything I haven’t experienced before and it’s easier for me to bounce back now. Praying it at least makes my baseline somewhar closer to feeling normal. Getting really sick of having the diet coke of emotions and sensations.

[Dysfunkion]

This morning after my coffee I tried L-histidine 500 mg on it’s own. I don’t know what to make of this reaction so far. I got a little bit more of a cold like congested feeling in my head, a bit less excitement and drive up front, but my senses feel a bit brighter, libido went down with it somewhat but my sexual reactivity is in certain ways better BUT immediate reactivity to sensory stimulation is less.

After 1 orgasm I didn’t feel very satisfied and was still wanting more but again didn’t have that sharp excited feeling for it entirely that gives the spontaneous erections. So I had another after that to see what would happen. Normally after the second I’ll feel more awake but with almost no libido. After the second this time I had more of a POIS like immune response and felt more actual pleasure. Currently just in that post orgasm tiredness state and I’ll update this on how I feel later this evening and tomorrow. Definitely one of the weirdest reactions I ever had to a supplement.

[Dysfunkion]

This morning I decided to try niacinamide again at 500 mg. Strange results. It makes my senses brighter but I feel more anxiety in a certain way, just makes me feel off in a very uncomfortable way. Though it increases my sexual functioning all over including reactivity. On the other hand it also makes me very tired and winded especially as they day goes on. I just got out of work and though I am pretty horny for once it’s overshadowed by how tired and winded I feel on this supplement now so unfortunately I won’t be using it again. If the sexual benefits stick though that would be interesting. Don’t know why this stuff would make me this tired though, possibly some kind of GABA mechanism. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow and the next day, I might shoot my methyl-b12 dose up to 2000 mcg and deal with the other side effects because so far it’s the only thing that gives me my old energy back. I’m so sick of the marry go round.

Been thinking here tonight what could be causing the libido boost with this. I had full sensitivity before I took this and there was no changes but sexually. There wasn’t any increase in neuropathy or tinnitus (but how much quieter my mind got did make the tinnitus more noticeable). I became more reactive sexually but not really in other ways though that could be the sedation this had on me. The niacinamide despite making me feel real groggy and weird did this. I still have drive under it all. No actual anhedonia occurred. Taking adrenal cortex and yohimbine didn’t do this either. The level stimulation I’m feeling is independent of the libido rise. It may be due to some rise in other neurotransmitters as the rise in libido similar to this only occurs when I increase my methyl-b12 to 2000 mcg. The spinach dolichol theory I tried sexually turns something on but not like this and eating a bunch of asparagus at most the next leads leads to a slight rise in l base sexual functioning that’s barely noticeable. I still can’t get that much stimulation out of coffee but I’ll see how it feels tomorrow morning. I think narrowing down what is specifically causing this rise is definitely one of the keys in my situation.

---

UPDATE 4/26 - I think with the l-histidine I triggered some kind of chain reaction with the niacinamide. After I dosed 500 because yesterday I was also very horny and had a bit more energy as thankfully the side effects from the niacinamide dose started to die down. So I decided to try something. I had a couple orgasms as I noticed 2 orgasms changes the way my body regulates itself after the 2nd one. On l-hisitidine my reaction was more lethargic for much longer with a lot of brain fog (not totally abnormal I do have POIS so that’s something to consider here and did long before this), though this time the day after coming off the 500 mg niacinamide spike dose it was less pronounced and eve after a couple I was still pretty horny but quite tired of doing it and I didn’t want to mess up this 2 orgasm regulatory shift experiment on the l-histidine + niacinamide single dose experiment. Then later I was thinking about LTP and memory because of a topic I saw somewhere else (I’ll go into this next) and when my energy started rising again later after the post orgasm tiredness I made myself another mug of coffee and I was able to feel the stimulation more! I felt a bit too warm and tired in the background but the stimulation finally dominated it. I didn’t sleep very well though. When I woke up I had some breakfast and put on my normal morning coffee. To my surprise I now feel it more again though I’m not getting as much of a boost as I did last night. Then again I didn’t really sleep and was already kind of wired.

ON THE LTP THEORY - I was browsing around on the PSSD forums I found a recent topic about this and how it might play a role in what happened. It may a be a root trigger in PFS and PSSD cases. Basically the user said in a nutshell that the med altered something in a way where the body didn’t recognize the change as of foreign origin and it changed the LTP signalling cascade, when this happens at whatever dose it happens that for some reason these specific drugs are able to do like this then the results are persistent and can become increasingly dangerous. This could explain why cases under these umbrellas can vary this much and why some people no matter what just seem to get worse and worse with snowballing harmful changes. This chain reaction in PFS and PSSD (or related conditions) tends to go in a similar path that alters a ton of epigenetic or other biological switches whatever they may be each time but because everyone’s body is different what happens will always somewhat vary and some people may get very unique issues.

This is what I have been thinking for a long time but before seeing another post in the wild on it I didn’t know how to put it in words. I knew my improvements not only stemmed from doing things other time but short bursts or even a single dose (I call this a spike dose under this theory) that lead to further reactions that had unique properties when combined with trying something else under the spike dose chain reaction which lead to an improvement because the conditions initiated another body regulatory shift that altered the harmful LTP memory cascade to something more functional again. In this model the body is a like a rail way system where you need to redirect the train to where it needs to go again so it doesn’t keep crashing, a small switch here, a switch there after hitting this one quick as the train is coming through here, a switch without a change for a while here then another, ect-.

Any other thoughts on this model?

[Taw]

Hey there, brother. Sorry it has been around a week without a response yet. Not meaning to ignore you. Will respond fully as soon as I can.

[Dysfunkion]

It’s ok take your time, just doing my own thing with experiments here. Plus this is so individual, what helped you the most could easily be a horrible move for me and I’m the master of getting all the adverse reactions to supplements. Think I’m gonna generally keep things where they are for the next couple months and see how things roll out from here.

[Dysfunkion]

Just another update here. Decided to see what would happen if I had an extra mug of coffee in the evening since I can feel stimulants slightly better now. More energy and feeling overall brighter and my sexual responsiveness and drive does increase but my overall reflexes still aren’t all there in my body. If I increase my b12 I get closer to normal in that and this respect but I get horrible neurological symptoms that become intolerable. Makes me a bit more bloated though and I don’t like that. I’m going to for now keep drinking a mug of black coffee in the evening here anyways though because it’s the only way I can currently get my nervous system to be more online and functional more often.

I noticed after I ate a lot of food last night it was easier for me in bed to get wood in general and feel that background desire when dreaming. Before doing this a larger meal in general would make the wood worse, not entirely non-existent where I was but barely there. It’s as if my body somehow isn’t producing enough juice for the hormone and neurotransmitter systems in general. I am going to go on a couple day dinner fast here though because I need it, when my guts are clearer so is my head. Not really sure what to do next here besides just live my life, observe, and wait. Exhausted almost all supplements to try besides some B vitamins that are very risky for me mess around with alone or in a complex. I think what I’ll try to do starting today is replace the coffee with a 200 mg caffeine pill and see if it has the same effect on the condition to see if it’s actually just adding more caffeine helping or something in the compounds of coffee itself.

[Taw]

Must say, I am fond of your goliath posts. I thought I made goliath posts. It shall never be dull with you around.

For starters, many of you seem to want that 1 single thing that will make all the difference. I wish I could simply say just do or use this 1 thing and never do or use this 1 other thing and you will eventually be okay. Alas, I cannot.

Asparagus and other slimy textured veggies such as okra are ideal vegetbles in my experience. The mucilage content forms a gel sort of consistency when mixed with water. Burtyate-producing bacteria love this fiber. Asparagus and Tribulus contain protodioscin. I harvest wild tribulus that grows in my area when I see it growing. Unlike the supplements companies that use only 1 part, I harvest and use the entire plant, the roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit. Nothing is wasted. It is also fresh, not sprayed, and has no filler.
Wild tastes better. I won’t eat spinach or grapes from the stores now. I’m sure it is healthier too. Win win!

I am fond of propolis myself. I recommend you avoid propolis sourced from southeastern states such as Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas because saw palmetto grows in those states. If nectar, pollen, or resin was harvested by the bees from the trees to make honey, royal jelly, or propolis, then you risk exposing yourself to the toxic plant again. I assume all parts of the tree contain the toxin and not only the berries. Birds, insect, and animals appear to avoid the berries based off my observations. It is possible that any contamination is so dilute that it could act as a harmless vaccine, at least theoretically. I cannot travel more than 5 miles without encountering a saw palmetto tree. It feels as if they point and laugh at me. I would love to set up a residence for bees so I can collect my own honey, royal jelly, and propolis, but I’m scared of that stupid palm tree. Something to think about.

Vitamin K1, I do not notice anything. Vitamin K2 MK4 sometimes makes me feel weird for a minutes minutes or hours, then all is normal again. Vitamin K2 MK7 is another story. 2 days after, I feel fine, then for the next 3 or 4 days I feel awful in every aspect, then it returns to normal. I noticed that early on in my journey and it still happens today. Doesn’t matter whether it is 500 micrograms or 50 milligrams; the result is the same flat response.

I used all the B vitamins without issue, including the Cyano and Methyl forms of B12.

I used the actual bark of yohimbe. Not sure how much of the active yohimbine is in the bark though. It makes my heart beat very fast, a pulse around 225.

Coffee puts me to sleep, a paradoxical response I had my whole life. Black/green tea wakes me up. They both have caffeine, so it must be something else in the beans.

I am fond of consuming the organs such as the adrenal glands and liver. Most people only eat the muscle meat and the breast meat. It is a shame how breast meat is so easy to find whereas testicles and penis are so difficult to find. Us men need the testosterone; we don’t want too much estrogen. Men in this country wonder why they get gynecomastia while they feast on breast.

Funny you mention POIS (post orgasmic illness syndrome), considering the medical establishment suspects it is an autoimmune reaction. https://www.rarediseasesjournal.com/articles/postorgasmic-illness-syndrome-what-do-we-know-so-far.html Therefore, it makes perfect sense that our condition might be autoimmune as well. I an utterly disappointed the idea is mocked or ignored when I mention it.

Tongkat ali is so bitter that it makes the others on this list seem like sweet candy by comparison. There was a time I took 30 tongkat ali tablets a day for about a week. A month or so later, I had a full recovery that only lasted 3 or 4 days. This was around the 15 month mark. Anyway, I did not cheat by swallowing them whole. I chewed them up. It is basic, common logic that something chewed up will be more easily absorbed than something swallowed whole. Our stomachs do not have teeth. Snakes swallow their food whole; we are not snakes. I take a digestif bitter before each meal to increase saliva, which makes food taste better, and to increase stomach acid and digestive enzymes. Each day it will be something different from the following: calea zacatechichi, gentian, quassia, tongkat ali, wormwood. These are among the bitterest of the bitterest. I roll my eyes and shrug when people say asparagus, kale, maca, etc etc is bitter. They have no idea.

If (Fill in the blank) gave you a good or bad reaction and no longer does, then that suggests a shift of some sort occurred. If in state A yohimbe made you horny and stopped, then you are now in State B. Your condition changed in some capacity.

Not sure what a “brain zap” is, so I’m guessing I never had it.

Lions mane was among many things I tried to reverse my saw affliction. Never noticed anything, good or bad.

Stinging nettle and spurge nettle, the latter grows in my area, both make me feel bad. Chi said he used nettle tea, except he did not specify which. He had a lot of replies on his recovery post, both good and bad. There were those who attacked him out of envy that they themselves did not recover. Maybe if I got better from finasteride instead of saw palmetto, I might have had more attention. That is okay though, been too busy lately to keep up with replies regardless.

Ashwagandha helped me with anxiety and sleep. I read so many stories about people saying it gave them PSSD symptoms, so I was deterred from taking it further, even though I got no nocebo effects from the worry. St Johns Wort was another that helped with anxiety and depression; it too is said to act as an ssri. No side effects of any sort.

Some of the drug victims here and elsewhere talk about plants and other natural supplements as if they are inert and cannot help or hurt. Might as well be preaching to the choir when I say you and I know this the hard way.

It is a tad funny how most of these plants I talk about, most people in my everyday life never heard of and don’t know what I am talking about when I mention ashwagandha, maca, tongkat ali, yohimbe, etc. A large portion know about kava and kratom. Everyone is familiar with asparagus. Annoyingly, most people never heard of the herbs licorice and marshmallow and erroneously think of the candy instead.

Speaking of, kava and kratom are attacked by the regulatory agencies, and there is talk about banning them, whereas saw palm is talked about being approved as a drug. Do the math. If they ban a plant, partially ban it, talk about banning it, that makes my curiosity meter soar. Calea zacatchichi, blue lotus, sassafras, comfrey, are just some examples of such. Endangered plants such as false unicorn are especially interesting too. People pay $400 a pound for it, so it must have something to it. And who cares that it is marketed to women? If it works for women, it will for men too, considering saw palm works on women too. I have tried things most people here have never heard of. Imagine all the extinct plants that are no longer around to try. So when I read people say “everything has been tried”, I roll my eyes and shrug my shoulders. I get the frustration, but lets not be hyperbolic.

Another thing that makes me roll my eyes and shrug my shoulders is when a saw palm victim calls their condition “PFS”. Bros, thou never used finasteride. That makes as little sense as a finasteride sufferer calling their condition “post accutane syndrome” when they never used accutane.

[Dysfunkion]

Sorry it’s just what I do and I try to keep it as organized as I can. I don’t expect one single thing to make a huge difference. I know from experience thus far there’s not gonna be some magic pill. , it feels like with me over time various systems in my body just started coming back online one by one. Now I’m at a better baseline but still have work to do. Still being really careful with certain this but as I learn more about how my body reacts to things it gets easier and less scary.

I wish I could grow my own consistently, that’d also save a lot of money and I’m sick of my veggies having lovely notes of pesticides. I tried tribulus really early on and I don’t think I need to again, seemed to just make me really edgy and didn’t solve any of the issue. Asparagus in meals in probably slightly helping sexual functioning in the background but like I said it’s barely noticeable. What I’ve learned with time with this is that a lot went wrong with many different systems. Like the sexual responsiveness isn’t specifically the energy problem but is linked to it and the skin sensitivity issue was almost something else entirely going on. I gained back skin sensitivity and the ability to get goosebumps before much else. Currently sweating is a bit better too which I lost the ability to before.

Never thought of that, which do you recommend? I’m in the northeast and I don’t think I see any wild saw palmetto up here. See that’s also the thing, I’ve through my entire life used a ton of herbal supplements before but nothing has done anything like SP has done to me. It almost seems absurd, is there a specific toxin in the plant itself that is specifically capable of doing what happened to a lot of us to the body?

I’ve haven’t tried k1 one before but I don’t think I have any reason to so I’m not going to waste my money on it. I just jumped right into k2 My response to k2 has been stable and now I’m kind of afraid to go without it though having it all the time isn’t a huge burden as it’s not too expensive of an addition to the lineup I take every morning at 100 mcg. That reminds me of my reaction to methyl-folate though, any time I try to reintegrate it even at trace amounts my body freaks out but I think I’m fine with just methyl-b12 so it’s whatever and not taking it saves me money. I have all kind so funky reactions to individual B vitamins though, definitely have issues in that balance and definitely have before all this happened too.

I haven’t tried any under current conditions but yohimbine also does that to me, my heart rate will increase a bit but I won’t feel too much from it besides clammy and slightly more stimmy. Just another thing I’ve given up on but I don’t think anyone needs that stuff.

Coffee before all of this never put me to sleep but it’s always been somewhat relaxing, I might try black tea again this week and see if anything beneficial happens. It’s definitely a compound in the coffee plant itself and I’m trying to isolate specifically what it is because that’ll be really useful in dissecting specifically what is going on in my body. Right now with my 2 mugs of black coffee every morning I’m going to keep there and see how thing roll out over the next couple months then make another decision on where I want to go with my morning caffeine. I think a 200 mg caffeine pill and a couple mug of black tea might be better for me.

I was definitely susceptible to developing it and POIS to me from what I’ve experienced is definitely some kind of autoimmune problem. It’s also from digging around the net a much more rare condition than PFS. MY POIS started at some point in my teens and just got worse into my mid 20’s where it peaked. Quercetin back then was able to help a bit but I’ve crashed from quercetin under earlier PFS conditions which I forgot to type up before when my brain burning crap was really bad after a night of eating over at a family’s place. Like the L-theanine disaster it felt like all brain signalling just dropped and off into numb anhedonia oblivion I fell again. But that also in my case though points to something really abnormal that was caught in a loop in my immune system affecting my nervous system and other hormone/neurotransmitter systems. The immune system also works on mediator chain reactions where if a real destructive one isn’t stopped it will just keep perpetuating itself into infinity. I’m very sure that a lot of my progress with the lyme herbals was because I broke that chain and something in that mediator loop was also causing the numbness. On my POIS though that after I started crawling out of this began to occur again I don’t think I’ll eve get to the bottom of it entirely. It doesn’t seem like anyone else has either, some people have made great progress with it but like this what made that progress just doesn’t work for everyone.

Oh yeah Tongkat was among one of the grossest things I have ever tried and this is coming from someone who was both a heavy kratom and kava drinker before. I’m not willing to try it again though it made me feel very strange and made me severely depressed and lethargic despite sky rocketing the sexual functioning. Maybe I just had to get used to it but my gut tells me I was having an actual adverse reaction to it.

I used it earlier on because it kept my immune symptoms in check but yeah it also tanked my energy levels quickly and wasn’t doing anything else any good. I stopped using it because it was besides the slight benefits definitely bad news for this condition. I can’t call myself totally recovered yet, I’m better than even last time I posted but still kind of stuck here though I never knew amazing health. I’ve been chronically ill my entirely life with undiagnosed multisystem problems with my body and nervous system so there’s that too.

Yeah see with lions mane though I’ve taken it for a good couple years every morning at 1 mL of a liquid extract and it’s only helped my everything but after taking it out after my SP crash when I tried to reintegrate it I crashed again. Complete sexual dysfunction, more numbness, a burst of emotions and clarity at first but hours later even worse brain fog and anhedonia. I know my reaction there is also a key to what was going on but I’m not going back to find out because even this far out it seems to dangerous to do.

Well the only reason I have even before all of this happened tried so many and have such a vast mental library of information on them is because my life is just a saga of chronic illness and energy problems stemming from besides just mold exposure in an old place the wonderful effects of CPTSD and long term stress on the body’s systems. I remember really enjoying a tea with licorice in it that I haven’t tried post crash though eventually I will try it again since I enjoy it. Marshmallow root I’m assuming you mean was disgusting to me and made me really itchy, didn’t like the way it made me feel at all. Ashwaghanda previously was good for stopping high anxiety or at least leveling out the peak though I wouldn’t give it a go now because I just think it’s too risky for me. St.Johns Wort I’m not going to touch at all because that’s even higher risk, I don’t really have depression though. Normally my anxiety problems are my main issue and what is slowly killing me but that is largely PTSD triggers and there is no easy way to go about chipping away at that. They’re so strong that even at my most blunted emotionally and when I could barely feel any sort of reactive responses they broke through it slightly. Like my brain is just hardwired to live like I’m being hunted for sport at all times.

I have drank the most disgusting bottom shelf kratom and kava before from smoke shops out of convenience. Very sketchy stuff but I’ve quit kratom before and the withdrawals come nowhere close to the damage that this stupid little saw palmetto plant that is innocently pushed around as a hair loss prevention supplement has done to me. I to this day don’t know how it’s even possible that a single plant can be this bad for one. I normally never think like this but products containing the stuff need to be taken off the market because there is clearly something literally poison about it. What happened to me if you blocked out the name of what I took would look like the progression of someone slipped poison in a drink or something. I don’t recognize those other plants and false unicorn seems even more interesting. I have tried blue lotus before and had a horrible experience with it so I’m never touching it again. There are so many medicinal plants and mushrooms out there where there is practically no information on anyone trying in general where if you comb the entire internet you might find a few people at most who even used the stuff at all.

That too I need to start using PSPS and have it catch on so we can make these distinctions. Yes both things can cause the same umbrella of symptoms but there can be distinct divisions that are consistent in almost all cases despite circumstances when the crash occurred biologically. There are things that may be consistent in reaction both positive or negative in both each case. Like one I’m very conflicted on currently is trying milk thistle again, I want to help my liver out more and before this all happened milk thistle helped me feel generally a bit better but some a lot of cases here that were under the PFS umbrella have had issues with it though who knows if the conditions would be different in the PSPS or PAS cases. Until one of us tries it under our specific conditions the data will simply not be out there. That’s why it crucial everyone speaks up and is completely honest with what happened no matter how unique their experience was.