I sincerely hope you're all doing well (or as much as PSSD allows).
I would like to talk about a few things that were going through my head lately. It does not seem to be widely discussed before so I will try to bring it up so we can research in every direction and not miss anything.
My personal observation:
1.1)
Do you know what I find weird? How comes everyone is experiencing a different set of symptoms? Not only that, but also the fact that the severity of each symptom ranges from mild to severe for everyone.
One thing I can for sure is that all members...
...experience sexual symptoms, which includes:
* libido
* +/- anorgasmia
* +/- physical sexual symptoms (numbness, EQ, ED etc.)
...suffer some form of emotional bluntness or even anhedonia
Other members in addition also seem to suffer from (+/-):
insomnia, brain fog, short-/long term memory problems, physical symptoms(numbness, joint problems, muscle fatigue/wastage), blurry vision, light/-sound sensitivity, delusion, tinnitus, other mental issues(like schizoprenia, ocd, adhd etc.), DP/DR, fatigue, tiredness
and many, many other symptoms...
That's a huge range of symptoms. Pills that supposedly only interact with the reward system somehow also worsen our physical wellbeing. Fascinating.
1.2)
For some reason, we can't reliably reproduce the positive effects of all treatments that helped or even cured others. All 'cured'-cases involving taking a substance are n=1.
Some members heal naturally (over time) and get back to baseline.
Some are cured by taking the most bizarre substance (with no connection to our disease)
Some are cured by changing their lifestyle and diet.
Some improve on one substance, but taking it at later on doesn't provide the same benefits
Understandably that the community would lose hope.
1.3)
At the other end of the spectrum, people get devastating side effects from taking a substance to which they reacted normally before.
(Permanently) Crashing from supplements, medicine, food etc.
Their body reacts very badly to random substances (with no apparent link)
They are afraid to test new things out of fear making their current condition even worse.
1.4)
People doing androgen blood work are not very noteworthy and almost always in range.
1.5)
A huge majority if not all were hypersexual before PSSD.
1.6)
Some members of our community developed an autoimmune disease after getting PSSD. One of them is **(TRIGGER WARNING)** Meso.
AFAIK he could not explain why he got it. (Don't quote me.)
I've looked up the chat history of the PSSD Casual and Research server and saw that many other people developed an autoimmune disease after they got PSSD.
This is interesting.
Background
2.1)
I don't know why it never crossed my mind or if I ever tried to connect the dots but I just now realized that many people lived a fairly normal life before all of this. Unlike me.
A few things you need to know about me:
I'm male. Hypersexual since I was in the kindergarten - RIP 2016. Developed POIS around 12/13 years old. POIS stands for (Post-Orgasmic-Illness-Syndrome) and is an autoimmune disease.
As the name already implies, you get sick after you orgasm. The symptoms are similar to that of PSSD (listed in 1.1).
In particular:
* Mental fatigue (brain fog, speak impairment, short-/long term memory problems)
* Mental diseases (ADHD, schizophrenic, OCD-like symptoms)
* Emotional numbness (occasionally complete anhedonia)
* Irritability
* Physical fatigue (shortness of breath, getting exhausted real quick, muscle fatigue/wastage)
* Physical symptoms (dry skin/hair, thin hair, sweating real quick, joint problems)
* Blurry vision/worsening of vision
* Tiredness
* Light-/Noise sensitivity
* Sleeping issues (Sleeping at least 10 hours, up to 14 hours)
* DP/DR
* A few more...
All the symptoms vary in severity every time I get POIS. Sometimes my brain fog was severe but emotional wise I was moderate. Symptoms come and go. It was always a trade-off. I may get better in this area but get worse somewhere else. They last around 5 days, up to 7 days. Severity peaks around the third/fourth day and lessens over time.
These are very present symptoms I've noticed after orgasm. Not everyone who has POIS suffers exactly from the same symptoms (some have also other symptoms). But it's more or less what plagues us POIS sufferers. As you can tell it's as fucked as PSSD and shares many similarities.
My POIS was rather mild in the beginning and got severe over time.
2.2)
I was very smart, fit, and happy before I got POIS. I learned at an incredible speed, I never really got exhausted doing any kind of task, and I was constantly happy like a maniac. I must have been injected with cocaine at birth.
But yeah, I took it all for granted.
Took me a long time to understand what happened to me. It also didn't help that I was very hypersexual at a very young age.
2.3) Coping
To all the people going through a very hard time at the moment:
People asked me how I'm able to cope so well with PSSD. Considering that I suffered from similar symptoms for a long time before PSSD and the fact that I learned early on that life is cruel and unforgiving I had to take matters in my own hands.
Self-pitying myself led me nowhere. People don't give a fuck. Society doesn't give a fuck. "Fake it 'til you make it" is key here. People never assumed that I was depressive. Meanwhile, me hiding behind a mask. We have to play after their rules, simple as that.
Self-pitying myself 24/7, wishing it was back to normal meanwhile time passes by.
But at what point do I start living?
What did PSSD teach me? I had mild PSSD at the beginning and got very severe over time. I was completely disabled and bedridden. Pure hell.
Appreciate what you have, because it always can get worse.
And in short: I simply had a headstart and lots of time to adapt to my new environment.
2.4)
As you may have noticed from 2.1 sexual symptoms and insomnia are not included.
Both symptoms were the first symptoms I got at the beginning. Other symptoms share surprisingly huge similarities with PSSD. I never connected the dots that PSSD may lead to an autoimmune disease.
Connecting the dots
Lots of weird-ass shit happened after I got PSSD. There was a time I got severe stomach pain. It hurt so much I thought I was going to die. I went to my doctor and he treated me on the same day. Putting a cam up my arse and getting a probe of what my ass has to deliver. It showed that my gut was inflamed, they first suspected it was Morbus Crohn, in the end, it turned out that it wasn't. They did an anti-body test and it showed several anti-bodies throughout my body. High ANA were found. At the time I stayed abstinent from masturbating, very unlikely it being POIS.
Sometime last year or at the end of 2018 something strange happened. My POIS symptoms disappeared or were not as noticeable as it was before and so far I can't say for sure why. But since then my PSSD symptoms are a lot more severe. PSSD baseline is worse. Before that my baseline was at least still fluctuating +/- 25%.
My new PSSD baseline is just...well, shit. Almost nothing seemed to affect me anymore. Supplements, medicine, the buzz from working out. Something changed.
My body also changed in a weird way. Before that, I still managed to hit my limits in the gym, but now it's really hard. I get injured very quickly, muscle fatigue quicker. Wounds heal really, really bad. And from time to time get allergic to random substances.
I got allergic to viagra. Yeah...what the fuck. My body is completely out of whack at this point. I did an allergy test and I was positive in every category. I was allergic to everything. I was allergic to life...
A lot more happened but this wall of text is already long enough.
I personally think some kind of AD-induced autoimmune disease is the whole cause of this stupid ass disease.
I want to remind you of some of the findings I made when I had to deal with POIS:
- cold shower improves my mood for a period of time
green tea improves my states or a period of time
sports esp cardio improves my overall wellbeing
multiple orgasms in a short period of time leads to severe symptoms and longer duration
carbs/sugar worsened my state a lot
when I got the flu or any infection it got completely rid of my POIS symptoms
staying abstinent for a >2-3 weeks got rid of POIS symptoms entirely
** even masturbating didn't give me POIS after staying abstinent
*** I had to masturbate in a short period of time to reintroduce POIS
**** It probably means my body is overwhelmed with the inflammation
https://www.pssdforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3604
He mentioned that he got improvements from Clomid and Tamoxifen. It has improved all his sexual function and stabilized his mood. After his third attempt of doing it. Hm.
I also got improvements in some areas doing some trials, but they were gone after some time.
Most importantly, he later said that he suffered from Covid19 and it got rid of all his PSSD symptoms. That's huge. I was apparently the only one who cared and thought it was an important piece in this puzzle.
From my own experience and experiences I gathered in other autoimmune communities is that the body seems to be busy fighting off the infection and less inflammation occurs. I could unfortunately not find a scientific study for this. Maybe someone can help?
Covid19 infection lasts around 2 weeks. Maybe it has reduced the inflammation to the minimum to not cause further problems. My personal understanding is that inflammation can cause several health issues and Depression is up there with other mental issues. But at the same time depression and stress less also to inflammation.
It's a vicious circle.
I would assume that if we somehow manage to break this vicious circle we get back to normal. And without further stress-induced to the body it stays this way.
I don't think Clomid or Tamoxifen had a real impact on this but Covid19.
Next case:
Another cured case is "Bunny" by taking lithium. Lithium has anti-inflammatory effects but can under certain conditions also push pro-inflammatory effects.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4063502/
They are all my personal experiences with autoimmune diseases but I find these findings very promising and fitting.
Here is a study on how antidepressants(TCA, SSRI/SNRI), antiepileptic drugs, and antipsychotics can impact our immune system.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6509093/
Definition of depression:
"Typical symptoms of depression include depressive mood, anhedonia, sleep changes, psychomotor retardation, decreased appetite and libido, weight loss, feeling of worthlessness as well as suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, although not all of them must be present for the diagnosis of depression. To meet the criteria of a depressive episode (both according to ICD-10 and DSM-V), the symptoms should last for a minimum of 2 weeks for most of the day. These symptoms may be accompanied by anxiety and psychotic symptoms, such as delusions (most often of guilt or sin) and hallucinations "
"Depression as a syndrome is the body’s response to a variety of genetic, psychological, environmental and biological factors (Murawiec and Wierzbiński 2016). Nowadays attention is paid to the role of inflammation resulting from the activation of the immune system in the course of depression, especially in its drug-resistant form. "
My thoughts
We need to find a common pattern in order to treat everyone suffering from PSSD. Maybe we have to think more outside the box. An autoimmune disease could explain why everyone suffers from a different set of symptoms and to a different degree.
One member also claimed that he got a nerve damage in his penis. Which could be a result of neuropathy. Autoimmune disease can lead to this.
https://www.aarda.org/diseaseinfo/perip ... aresthesia)%2C%20or%20muscle%20weakness.
I would like to know your thoughts on this. A perspective change can't hurt.