Should we Fap / No Fap

General Discussion
#1

I hope that lots of people will weigh in on this or be prepared to join in with some sort of experiment here. Is it better to abstain or not? Should weekly “maintenance” be a thing?

This article

focuses on testosterone, not all the components of ejaculate. But if lowering testosterone is undesirable, it supports that weekly ejaculations lead to a boost in testosterone and that 3 months of abstention will lead to reduced testosterone.

The article quotes from a study that says that testosterone increases to 145% of baseline 7 days after ejaculation but then starts to lower.

The article also says that another study found that after 3 weeks of abstention testosterone begins to rise and that 3 months of abstention leads to a lowering.

I’d be interested in people’s thoughts and experiences on this, perhaps those that are more or less active could change things up for a few weeks and see if they notice any effect.

I realise this is quite personal information but it could be helpful in steering recoveries in the right direction, it’s free and not difficult.

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Should we or shouldn't we masturbate?
#2

In my experience its best to do it every 2 or 3 days. I’ve found cutting out porn has also helped a lot with increasing libido. Its easy to get in a cycle where you keep testing yourself and end up over masturbating.

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#3

I appreciate your efforts with theorizing things like that but if you guys use the search button you will see that we already had those discussions. We are turning in circles at that point. In theory this should help to lower prolactine values but in reality not as much of a benefit. Maybe worth a try but nothing ground breaking. I am rather on the use it or lose it side so i mean you should at least fap every 2-3 days to avoid further damage to your penis.

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#4

i do it sparingly. 3 to 4 times per month. it’s hard to resist and i’m not the “grindr” kind of guy.

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#5

Hi, @Hope88, I appreciate your info and your sentiment, I can understand this might be irritating if you’ve already been through the process.

I only made the post as while I’m sure that the info is here, it feels to me as a relatively new user that so many topics are about 100 things and the info is scattered. For me, there’s also a bewildering amount of supplement talk (that seems to often use confusing abbreviations!) and also that lots of topics are full of posts by users that may or may not be active on here anymore.

For me, having an ongoing conversation where we can check in on each other and get support is incredibly important. Things are much better when you can reach out to someone who might know what your situation is like and who is actually going to reply. Having more interaction and engagement might actually be healthy for the rest of the forum too, which could mean more information available to everyone and more donations for the foundation.

I understand your reluctance to duplicate threads but having info from active users who you can ask follow up questions to, and having the information in one place makes things a lot easier for me. I also think one topic that is only about frequency of ejaculation could be a useful topic to have. I did search for ejaculation and found topics about a myriad of things.

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#6

@Greek I can also see your point of view. I was once like you were now and nothing is more depressing than an inactive forum. But you have to understand that from my point of view also, it looks to me like people still trying too hard to get over this problem by homebrewing alone and totaly forget that we have scientists on our side who are steadily trying to figure out what our cause of our problem might be. So they trying 10000 of protocols from dubious armchair scientists and forget to donate money to the pfs foundation. I see you are new member and maybe you can cure this by your own but some members trying protocols almost years without or maybe minor success. Some people say things like “you are negative” when you are actually just realistic. But what I said isn’t directed to you because you were just talking about masturbation frequency. It’s just the main thrust in many posts I read in this forum. Hopefully with the accutane and pssd guys we will get more scientists and money to finance bigger research projects. Best of luck to You @Greek :wink:

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#7

I get it, it’s ok.

I am 100% with you on the science and think everyone should be donating.

I also think that feeling as good as possible will help make things more bearable. I don’t think that eating broccoli and only having sex on Tuesdays is going to turn everything around but if doing those things means we have more energy and feel more positive then it’s worth talking about is my position.

Best of luck to you too. :wink:

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#8

I personally did not abstain when I first crashed and it didn’t seem to make a difference unless I had two ejaculations in a short span. After a subsequent crash though, I became more sensitive and now I ejaculate about once every 3-4 days, sometimes stretching it out to a week because orgasms usually induce depression in me. I alternate between sex and jacking off although it’s not as mechanical as it sounds, whenever my girlfriend and I get time, we fuck. If not, I jack off.

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#9

I’m an atypically bad case of this hell but since the 0.25 (yeh, really) that gave me pfs terribly I get more derealisation and anxiety, worse fatigue, and the constant pain i’m in worsens a while after sex. So that’s nice. I’m pretty much entirely switched off in that department physically and mentally anyway so that’s sadly the least of my concerns. Worth mentioning the prior six years I had weight loss, digestive problems and exercise intolerance from 2 pills (didnt know at the time), and no problems whatsoever mentally or sexually. Never made a difference then, so my personal feeling is like with many responses in PFS this varies depending on severity.

At the point of orgasm prolactin release is rapid and continues to rise for quite a while, which consequently increases androgen receptor expression. Therefore, I’d say if you’re a relatively bad case it’s safer to avoid. Otherwise see how you go.

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#10

Sorry to hear about your position, thanks for your strength.

Sorry to ask questions but is there somewhere that we have a glossary of terms? There are lots of things like “androgen receptor expression” which I just don’t know what it means or if it’s a good or bad thing for it to raise or lower.

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#11

Seems to worsen ability to focus and concentrate on tasks in the days after ejaculation. Emotional “blunting” / flatness and derealisation gets worse. Coldness in extremities worsens, in particular in my feet. Also get ringing in ears - tinnitus.

Unusual combos of symptoms. It is a whole body reaction.

Usually takes three to four days before “baseline” returns. Sometimes longer.

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#14

I don’t have sexual sides, so maybe my vote shouldn’t count, but faping makes me feel
better. For me it’s similar to before fin where it makes me feel relaxed.

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#15

I will feel worse for many days, even weeks. Since a few months, I have a hearing crash after each orgasm. It has happened three times now, about 24-48 hours after. Ears feel very full, tinnitus increases, and then a so far permanent hearing loss results. Orgasm now comes at the expense of some degree of permanent hearing loss, I would say about a total of around 30% so far. Makes my previous ED seem like a luxury problem…

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#16

Man, we need your 23andme results. Someone without sexual sides! Have you done such a test? Thx

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#17

Yes, I have already uploaded my raw data to Dropbox. Also, just for the record - I know we are not in the business of comparing sides, and I know everyone is struggling (some more than me), but I would gladly lose some sexual function to have my vision back and not be dizzy all the time :slight_smile:

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#18

Faping makes me feel better. After ejaculation I feel very good for some days.
Fap 3 times a week. The only problem is penile shrinkage in flaccid state.
However a good porn movie is just enough to excite me.

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#19

i tried it: more than 7 days it got me very aggressive, couldnt sleep at all.
daily is bad too, gives me a puffy face (prolactine?) ,worsens cognition ,depression and physical performance.
to me a 2,3 day rhythm seems best. sperm cells after 3 days get old and maybe this is a natural rhythm

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#20

Thanks for the replies, guys.

A picture is emerging.

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#21

I can tell you that your problem is curable. I had 30 symptoms and in all three categories. You would not like doing so.

Can you tell me shortly what exact symptoms you have and which ones got better?
What test results do you have?
What treatments / protocols have you done yet?

#22

Fapping makes me feel better too for some reason.