Hello World :-) Here's how I got better and how I got worse

[Determined-Mind]

I have been suffering from severe sexual dysfunction for over 12 years.

My worst symptom is sexual anhedonia - no feeling of pleasure with my sexual organs. I also have zero libido & feel no emotion of arousal.

I recovered last year (about 6 months ago) from my fatigue, anxiety and dysthymia. I took buspirone and dopa-mucuna at the same time for 3 months. When I stopped, my symptoms didn't flare up again and I've been stable for over 6 months.

I've been proactively looking for a solution to my sexual disorder for 12 years. When I first became aware of it, I was young and thought it would pass with time.

Then I did several years of therapy (EMDR, hypnosis). EMDR cured some of the post-traumatic stress symptoms I had, but unfortunately did nothing for my sexual anhedonia and libido.

With no results from the therapy or only minor results from "mindfulness" techniques, I decided to take medication.

Before medication, I was at 2/10 in terms of pleasure.

I had sensory improvements with 150mg of bupropion XL after just 3 days, +2/10 = 4/10.

Then I experienced a window of improvement to 6/10 with 300mg bupropion + 20mg buspirone (the buspirone was important here, as 300mg bupropion alone brought me down to my baseline: 2/10).

I had sensory loss with 150 mg bupropion + 100 mg flibanserin.

Since I stopped everything, I'm at 0/10 in terms of sexual pleasure. I also feel less pleasure with the rest of my body

Going back on bupropion didn't help. So I strongly suspect a problem with glutamate.

At the moment and over the next few months, I'm trying NAC, SWJ, etc.

To be continued!

Thanks for this forum!

[Jaxx]

Welcome to the forum!
Quite remarkable how buspirone helped your energy. To me it was the other way around; it didnt do much except better orgasm (no effect on libido however).

[Determined-Mind]

In fact, I didn't take the buspirone alone
Instead, the energy was supported by the plant mucuna pruriens (dopa mucuna from Now Foods).

A synergistic effect between the two. In my experience, buspirone (especially in combination with bupropion or mucuna) is slightly stimulating.

My partner has a chronic fatigue problem. He has a prescription for 450 mg of modafinil.

For the past few months, he has found that his energy is better (and stable) with :
Taken in the morning: 100 mg modafinil + 1 dopa mucuna + 1 muira puama
Midday: 1 dopa mucuna + 1 muira puama + 1 maca