Welcome to our community. Please fill in the following template as a way of introducing yourself, and helping others to understand your background and situation.
Where are you from (country)?
Spain
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?)
I heard about Propeciahelp because of our PSSD discord group. Some mebers there asked us to come contribute to the survey here.
What is your current age, height, weight?
I’m 31, 283, 85kg
What specific drug did you use (finasteride, dutasteride, saw palmetto, isotretinoin/Accutane, fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, leuprorelin, etc…)?
I was on citalopram for about 4 months, then mirtazapine for another 4, and then venlafaxine for half a year.
What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
I honestly can’t recall. I recently requested a medical records release from my old surgery and I’m waiting to receive all information.
What condition was being treated with the drug?
Low mood.
For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)?
In total about a year.
How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start the drug?
I was around 26 I think. I started in 2015.
How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
I was 27. I started weaning off in june 2016.
How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
I had read lots of stories about the horrific withdrawal symptoms with venlafaxine so I tapered off. Didn’t notice any withdrawal at all though.
How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects?
I think it was shortly after I started with venlafaxine, but I hardly had any sex drive back then because of the low mood so I didn’t notice the sexual problems straightaway.
What side effects did you experience that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
Asthenia, erectile dysfunction and low libido. A few months after discontinuing venlafaxine I also started suffering extreme fatigue.
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
[ ] Complete Impotence
[] Loss of Morning Erections
[X] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[X] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ ] Watery Ejaculate
[X] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability or Difficulty to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[X] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfulness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[X] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts
Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[X] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[X] Muscle Wastage
[X] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes
Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[X] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears)
[ ] Hearing loss
[X] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature
[ ] Other (please explain)
I don’t think I have other symptoms but I’ll specify here that some of what I checked is partly true. I completely lost morning wood for the longest time, and I recently regained it, but it’s only like half-mast. Same reason why I checked erectile dysfunction but not complete impotence.
What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
I have been on bupropion since February 2018 for my energy issues. When I first started taking it I was sleeping up to 16 hours a day.
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)?
I haven’t had any hormonal changes, as far as I know. Everything is correct, or even “perfect” on paper.
Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience?
Tell us your story, in your own words, about your usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
Just copying my thread in PSSDForum, which was written recently
Hey there community!
I’m James, a fellow fighter in this struggle life has thrown at us. I’m 31, I live in Spain, and I’m a teacher and PhD student. I don’t know what kind of structure I should follow for our introductions so I will simply start from the time I first noticed something a bit weird.
I come from a background of heavy exercising. Until my 20, I was a martial arts competitor. After quitting due to knee injuries, I took up weightlifting, sport where I also competed for a few years (I was nothing worth writing home about though). Before my 20s I never was a helluva stud like Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy but I loved sex. I had a girlfriend with whom I had sex everytime we could meet up, I had diamong-cutting erections, etc. I’m only mentioning these aspect from before I started struggling so that the fact that I didn’t have libido, fatigue, ED, low testosterone or anything is established.
When I was 20-21 I started feeling a lack of motivation for everything. Nowadays I believe it had to do with dopamine overstimulation, as it coincided with a time of my life where I started gaming heavily. My libido took a hit and I didn’t feel like having sex a lot, but I still had sex almost every time I met up with my girlfriend at the time, and had no erectile dysfunction. I had my doctors test some things and Testosterone, estradiol, and thyroid values came back well. After finishing my degree, I moved abroad to England to work and study. Weather compounded with my low mood ended up being something similar to depression, I guess, and after years of having doctors telling me to take antidepressants, I gave in. WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE.
I was started on Citalopram, frist 30, then 45, then 60mg if I recall correctly, for 4 months. I was after that prescribed Mirtazapine for another 4 or so, and Venlafaxine for my last 6. They tried different AD to see which worked best for me, I wasn’t taking all those 3 at once. Well, during that time my low mood subsided! WOOHOOOO! Only to be substituted by feeling like an empty shell. But the benefits don’t end there! My treatment didn’t only make me a zombie, but a limp-dicked zombie! WOOHOOO!
That’s when I first started researching antidepressants seriously and I found out about PSSD. If only I had read about this before I ever took them…
Anyway, I quit antidepressants 3 years ago, in June or July 2016, can’t recall. I can’t honestly recall if my ED was super bad before I quit, or if it got worse before, because even if I was living with my girlfriend at the time, we hadn’t had sex in months. I didn’t feel like having sex at all. After I quit, and I started feeling a bit more alive, I felt like looking around to have some fun (I’d broken up with my ex after 8 marvellous years due to those marvelous antidepressants). I didn’t feel horny at all. I didn’t even feel my dick! But I guess I was looking for some external validation. I wanted to feel desired, I guess.
About half a year after quitting those antidepressants I hooked up with a girl I had met and had a FWB thingy for a couple months. It was a mess. Sometimes I’d manage to get an erection, some others I wouldn’t even get a half chub. It was really unreliable. Thank God, this girl was as understanding as can be, which also helped a lot. Almost a year after quitting my antidepressants I met a girl I really liked, and we started going out. Since I was terrified of being a flop (no pun intended) on our first time, I started researching some different things. Given my background in weightlifting, I’ve always been interested in PEDs and their effects. In fact, I had toyed for years with the idea of using testosterone and other AAS, thinking it’d be the cure for my PSSD, but I never tried them. I did read about Bromelanotide, however, or PT-141, which ended up being a godsend. Not only did it give me really good boners, but also it made me kinda horny! I didn’t even remember what being horny felt like!
Sadly, it was about that time, when dating that girl, when I realised the other terrifying aspect of PSSD. I could get hard with drugs, we could have great sex, provided I planned a bit in advance (although as time passed I started performing better without the PT-141, something I attribute to perhaps improving a little, perhaps PT-141 changing me a little, and feeling more comfortable and relaxed with a steady partner). However, I couldn’t fall in love with her. For the life of me. I just couldn’t. I really liked her, I cared for her, I had feelings, but… It just wasn’t there. I couldn’t tip over, so to say. It’s like she couldn’t go from friend to something more. I was unable to love. This, of course, caused many a problem. It’s also about that time that I started feeling incredibly, incredibly fatigued. I started sleeping more and more, until I was sent to the sleep unit to be tested for apnoea when I was sleeping like 14-16 hours a day. No diagnosis. They told me my REM phase was super short, and sent me to the psych, who prescribed bupropion after I told him about my problems and I mentioned I wanted to give it a try (I’d read about many people with PSSD improving with buprpion).
Fast forward almost 2 years and here I am. My symptoms these days would be:
-Lack of motivation, though not as much as before. I’m researching something I love, and that helps me a lot.
-Lack of energy and strength: This really gets to me. Sports have always been important to me, and nowadays I can hardly exercise for half an hour before feeling like I just ran 10 marathons.
-Complete lack of libido. On the off time I feel like masturbating (which is more mental than physical, since I never feel that “physical need” or horniness), it takes me ages to get an erection, and it never is an actual erection, but more of a half chub. Oddly, and for some reason, my erection improves a lot right as I’m about to orgasm. Any neurotransmimitter or hormone released just before?
-As mentioned above, erectile dysfunction.
-Emotional numbness.
-Obsessive thoughts sometimes, similar to anxiety but not the same exactly.
-My genitals feel a bit like disconnected from my body. Before my antidepressants I could flex my PC muscles (like kegels) and I’d feel a hard ball right behind my testicles. Nowadays it feels like those muscles are super weak, or I can’t engage them, or whatever. It’s like my penis is but isn’t there. Likewise, when somebody touches me, masturbates me, gives me oral sex, etc, I can feel pleasure, but it feels kind of disconnected, almost like when you have been anaesthesised. I can feel somebody touching it, and I feel some pleasure, but there’s no reaction. There’s no tingly feeling.
-Really weak ejaculation: I never was Peter North, but I used to shoot. Now it’s more like when a toddler tries to spit and it simply dribbles down their chin