What does your testicular pain feel like? Can you be specific? Does it go away when you jerk off?
Sorry to be so explicit, just trying to gather some info…
well i dont have it anymore but yh it went away when i jerked off i had it for the first week after quiting and my balls starting hanging very low, then for 2 months after that i felt pressure there and my balls still hang very low
L-Arganine is in a protein powder I take. I am crediting it in combination with exercise in reducing shrinkage. The penis is much fuller when I take the supplement.
I’m going to find some straight L-Arganine and take it after working out to try and isolate the effect. I do notice an overall positive difference when I take the supplement in size and strength. But it only works after I work out, I don’t think it’s getting taken into the muscles unless the heart is pumping and I’m hungry.
On the note of porn, every orgasm we have taxes testosterone. I don’t think porn itself is the problem but the consistent over-masturbation that reduces the amount of available testosterone in the body. You use up all you have and you’re constantly on empty. This is why I feel so much better when I only do it once every 2/3 days (days I don’t work out hard).
I have been trying to quit porn over the last couple months and my dependence on porn for sexual arousal may indeed be more extreme than others on this site. I would watch porn and masturbate maybe 3 times a day since I was like 12 years old. Initially, the porn made me super horny and I could not stop fantasizing about every girl who walked by. However, by the time I turned 23, my years of porn abuse had finally caught up with me and I had trained my sexual cravings to be satisfied by extreme types of porn, and had consequently lost my sex drive around real women.
It is extremely difficult for me to quit porn and I’ve even joined a program now for help so I can just get passed this once and for all. I never knew I did not have the discipline required to quit porn because I had never thought it was a problem until I finally figured out what was causing my low sex drive.
I have been using it as a means of easy escape from boredom, loneliness, stress, etc. I can easily get aroused by porn and masturbate to orgasm with it. The variety of porn, its graphic nature, and the fact that you can specically search out ANY type of porn that you want is the reason porn can begin to hijack your sex drive and distort your natural fantasies about women. You will begin watching porn that initially disgusted you, but now turns you on. The dopamine rush of excitement you used to get in your brain from softcore porn now requires more graphic material to get the same dopamine rush. You have to quit porn completely so that your dopamine in your brain come back to normal levels.
Do a search on porn addiction and you will find out if this is the cause of your own problems.
How is your sperm quality? Is it as thick and white as before? Does it burst out farer?
Very interesting…Ive also been watching porn since I was in 6th grade, first started looking at pictures and then as speed of internet grew moved on to videos. I do not think i could even jack off to a picture…
Never had any sides while on propecia but when my supply was like 6-7 days late I started noticing trouble maintaining an errection.
Hopefully within 2 weeks Im better, we will see…I stil can get an errection but its wasnt hard enough to enter a girl this weekend, thats when i started looking on the internet and found this site…
Idk if to get back on it (since I never had sides while on it) or to let my body adjust to not being on it and hope I level out…
Going to try to not watch porn
I eventually discovered my problems were actually due to abusing online porn and becoming sexually desensitized from viewing it so excessively. Try to rule out porn addiction before you pursue propecia.
worried,
I think your kidding yourself.
This is your post below. Viewing porn online and masturbating would not cause you to lose morning erections and lose your sex drive for 4 months.
By posting this, your only adding to the group of doctors out there that believe the sexual problems are in our minds. In other words your spewing ignorance.
It also wouldn’t cause extreme brain fog, fatigue, muscle twitches, panic attacks and extreme anxiety, cognitive difficulties, emotional numbness, physical changes to the penis, low testosterone, etc, etc, etc.
A ridiculous statement indeed.
I have a porn addiction and it causes you to lose your sex drive towards real women and can cause eventual sexual dysfunction after many years of abuse. We are not built to keep viewing constant sexual material and maintain an arousal to it after so many times of viewing it. If you abused it as much as I did, your sexual arousal becomes completely blunted. Just do some internet research. I’ve confirmed it for myself. Your problem may not be the same, but I blamed propecia for 3 years until I figured out my own problem.
I’m not here to spew ignorance. I was in the same position as everyone else on this site for 3 years. I was in a state of anger and confusion over what was causing my libido issue. I’m not here to tell everyone that they have a porn addiction, but rather I am trying to let people know that it MAY be an issue for them as it was for me. I have been trying to stop watching porn for 1.5 years now, and I just can’t quit. I become aroused by really graphic porn but not by real women anymore. And the porn that I watch has become increasingly more graphic to maintain the same arousal state. Naked bodies just don’t do it for me anymore since I’m so desensitized. It needs to be hardcore. This is a sign of a porn issue. But I mistaked it for propecia since I didn’t think porn could ever cause problems.
Just do a simple experiment to see if porn is an issue for you. Try cutting the porn completely for several months. If you have a problem staying away from porn or you feel that you must keep using it to “test” your libido/erections, then you may have an issue, like I did. Try searching about porn and sexual/erectile dysfunction in forums like at Medhelp.org and people have the same symptoms that we have.
I don’t want to go so far as to say it causes brain fog, but it might. When you watch porn, you get a dopamine surge of excitement in the brain. If you do this often enough, you need more graphic porn content to get the same dopamine increase. At some point, you feel depressed because porn is so overstimulating that everyday life becomes mundane, hence depression. I didn’t believe any of this until I tested it for myself. I suggest you do the same. Here is an article about dopamine and sex/porn.
reuniting.info/science/sex_in_the_brain
I still think propecia is a dangerous drug. You are messing with your hormones by using it. That is never a good idea.
Good luck.
Worried,
This feeling of the sexual tank running on empty doesn’t just come from abusing porn. If anything frequent viewing of porn and ejaculation should build up a NEED to ejaculate. Do you remember what that was like? I used to watch porn and masturbate multiple times a day, sometimes as many as 5 or 6 times. Watching more didn’t make my penis flaccid. On the contrary, it created the need to continue doing it more and more if I didn’t.
Our bodies are designed to need to ejaculate at least daily. We are constantly building sperm with the design of getting it out with preference inside a mate. If you skip porn for a couple days as a normal adult male this should be more than enough to create the urge.
The constant building of pressure and need to release the sperm is gone. At most this should only take a few days to replenish, not a few months.
I agree that watching porn does run what’s left of the tank down, but it seems that watching porn is the cause of ED is a bit extreme. Our dicks know what to do with a woman, they know how to react. Women are the ones that need the brain connection, we just need them to show up to get hard. Or we used to before fin starved our bodies of what we need to do exactly that.
This feeling of being run down is exactly what many of us are experiencing. And many of my friends who watch porn, many who may be classified as being addicted, do not have this problem. The more they see it the more they want…
Martin,
Yes, you are right that the more you watch porn, the more you want to keep watching. It is highly addictive. But what happens is that you eventually become desensitized to softcore porn and move to hardcore porn. Have you noticed this in your own porn watching habits? After watching so much, you condition and train your mind to get a “fix” of porn and that satisfies your libido. Eventually, your normal sex drive will begin to wane as your mind finds sexual content less and less exciting. It causes a dopamine rush in your brain, and you need more hardcore content to get the same rush. Eventually, sex begins to get boring as your brain gets desensitized. Do some searching on the internet and you will find that people have identical symptoms.
Porn is by no means a psychological issue. It is a physiological issue. You are conditioning your brain to orgasm to graphic images that are readily accessible. Porn was not readily accesible 50 years ago like it is now on the internet. Thats why so many young men these days are finding they need to use viagara and confused as to why.
I have been watching porn multiple times a day, like you. I used to ejaculate like 5-6 times a day. This is completely abnormal. We are absolutely not designed to ejaculate that much on a daily basis. Humans did not have porn to watch daily 100 years ago. Our brains are not designed to be viewing this much sexual content at the click of a mouse button. Online porn has only recently become available to this extent in the last 10-15 years. From what you are telling me, you are in the exact same boat as I am and I suggest you try quitting porn.
Just try quitting porn. What do you have to lose? Why do you watch it anyway? If I were you and had a sexual dysfunction issue (which I do), I would not discount anything in order to get better ASAP. If the idea of quitting porn makes you feel uncomfortable/scared, this is a huge sign of porn addiction.
Just try it. Do your own RESEARCH and come up with your own conclusions. You will find out soon enough for yourself if this is an issue for you. As for your friends, they may or may not get problems depending on how much they use porn. It is very addictive and my guess is that after several years of abuse, they will have issues and be wondering why. My porn use was out of control. Watching it for hours a day and ejaculating multiple times a day are completley abnormal and compulsive activities.
Good luck guys.
worried, glad you found the source of your issues, even if not Fin-related.
However I have to agree with Martin and the others on this one – while abstaining from porn may be a good idea to give the mind and body a break once in awhile, doing so should generally lead to a buildup in desire/urge to engage in sexual behaviour in healthy young adults; for many sufferers here who took and since quit Finasteride, unfortunately this is no longer the case due to complete loss of libido from the drug.
Additionally, “porn addiction” is not the cause of penile/scrotal shrinkage, genital numbness, muscle atrophy, twitches, depression/anxiety, impotence etc, not to mention the common pattern of drop in Testosterone/LH/FSH to hypogonadal levls so many men have experienced post-Fin. The majority of these symptoms have been documented and scientifically linked to androgen deprivation in general, and 5AR2/androgen/neurosteroid inhibition via Finasteride.
All told, while abstaining is a nice idea and something to “try” to see if you get a build up of libido post-Fin, this is NOT the root cause of the Post-Finasteride Syndrome. If it were as easy as abstaining from porn, every one of us would be cured 100% and this site wouldn’t need to exist.
Anyway, enjoy your life – be glad you have found your particular issue, and have been able to solve it. I wish you well.
Worried,
I looked at your blood results. They do not look like a normal young healthy man’s blood. However, you are certainly entitled to your own opinion. Good luck, I hope abstaining from masturbation can reverse your problems.
Worried,
I have tried to stop porn. In fact I don’t watch it at all now because if I do it builds up the desire to have an orgasm and this desire is limited/wasted.
But pre-fin I had access to a lot of porn. I even had the depraved sex shops of the deepest, darkest corners of Germany. After you’ve been to this extreme and feel like a drug addict masturbating to porn you carry around in your backpack in public bathrooms because you can’t keep a hard on down the internet isn’t such a crazy place. Or sneaking into your (now ex) girlfriend’s friend’s bedroom to fondle her panties while they unkowingly sip coffee in the next room. Been there, done that…
This problem never creeped up there. In fact it got worse the more I did it.
As Mew said, now I’ve got a shrunken, shriveled, very light penis, sexual exhaustion, belly fat that I shouldn’t have, among so many other shitty little nagging problems that life has become difficult. Stopping porn hasn’t gotten me back to normal. Though I really wish it had…
I think this supposed porn addiction can be linked to the fact that orgasm after Finasteride is not the same. It does not satisfy your brain. In a person who has a tendency for compulsive behavior (even if never manifested before) this could arise. I highly doubt you had this or could manifest this prior to propecia. It is like your brain keep asking for that reward and you keep trying to achieve it.
I had terrible sexual disfunction for 5 months after taking 2 pills.
I don’t look at porn.
So Worried, are you telling us that you are completely recovered from your sexual side effects? Is your libido fully restored?
There is a physical reason why this could happen from exessive ejaculation. When you ejaculate you excrete a large amount of zinc from your body. If you do this 5 times a day over a period of months or years, then you may well end up with low testosterone, as zinc is responsible for 30% of your testosterone production and also prostate health as well as about 300 other different actions in your body.
I think there are two separate issues here:
Young men getting addicted to online porn and then preferring “that” to dealing with the hassles and “work” of dealing with real women is an issue. Shagging women and losing zinc (or whatever else you deplete yourself of) is about as natural as it gets. PRE-FIN I could go all night and into the next day ejaculating a dozen, two dozen, three dozen times in a week. We got hungry as hell, and it was probably the bodies way of trying to replenish minerals, but screwing and jerking off does not cause this androgen deprivation we are all experiencing. This idea that you are going to “conserve your juices” is something from the 1800’s.
Some women councilor or holly roller minister has planted this “porn addiction” seed in your mind.
I do agree that all our sexy billboards, and movies and los vegas shows have turned alot of people into “watchers” rather than “doers” when it comes to sex, but there is no medical damage.
Very interesting…
I’ve been reading a lot about porn-induced ED lately. There’s a pretty big NO FAP movement on a couple of sites I frequent.
Some background
youtu.be/zif0_60b3WU
Skeptical hippos… don’t get your panties in a bunch. I think this is interesting stuff… I’ve always felt like I watched too much porn. And my own personal disaster began with an agressive fap session while watching… you guessed it… porn. I’m willing to explore this further.
Thanks for sharing worried… hope you’re still continuing to improve.