I thought I’d share some healing progress. I have been logging my symptoms since I first experienced them about three years ago. It seems I’ve gone through waves, sometimes things feel devastating, but they recover over time and are replaced by other symptoms.
What has gone almost completely:
- Bunching/burning scrotum - this awful thing first started about a month after I quit and lasted 2 1/2 years ! Often felt like my scrotum was on fire. It has now been about 100 days since I had this problem and it is a MAJOR relief.
- Aching testicles - while not as bad as the bunching/burning, this was painful and also experiened once every few months, weeks of rock hard dead feeling testicles. It stopped around the same time. It was so bad I even had an ultrasound done but nothing showed up.
- “Tight” feeling penis - its hard to describe this, but I had a soreness, extremely unconfortable just under the glans and along the urethra all the way to my crotch. It felt like the thing was being compacted or stretched inwards and that someone had hit me there with a hammer. Anyway it took almost 3 years, but that disappeared a few months ago and it seems I’ve got my original flaccid length back and even a little extra. ED issues come and go (it can sometimes be difficult to maintain erections), but are not as frequent as they were and every now and then spontaneous erections have returned.
- Watery, colorless semen - about a year and a half after quitting, semen started to thicken again and is now quite thick and white. The wierd thing is that sperm count has been OK the whole time??
- Tingling/stinging/itching breasts and nipples - this started almost as soon as I quit. 3 years later and I’m only getting the ocassional sting in the nipples. I also had the ocassional puffiness. This has now gone too. My chest is looking much more normal than the first year when I had grown mini breasts.
- Lack of dreams - dreaming during sleep stopped almost immediately after quitting and it took a year and a half to get them back. I don’t dream anywhere near as much as I used to, but I get the ocasional sex dream which I take as a good sign.
- Feminine/emotional feelings - these got really intense at one stage for more than a few months. It was very foreign feeling and hard to describe, but I’m glad I no longer get overemotional.
What has helped? Well generally doctors have been completely useless and I refuse to take more drugs. I think diet has made the biggest difference, cutting out gluten, dairy and anything else difficult to digest. Taking supplements. Detoxing. Losing excess weight and keep exercising.
The new symptoms, including some remaining sexual sides that come and go, I hope will disappear like those did. But I’m not holding my breath because in many ways the neurological ones and problems in the gut are much worse and appear more sinister and chronic. Time will tell I suppose. I will post any progess there too.
