Hi all,
I recently discovered this forum and really appreciate your guys' sharing your journeys through this mess, especially @Quantum's treatment chart
https://poiscenter.com/forums/index.php?topic=2338.0.
If anyone has any links to any other methodical analysis like Quantum did on this chart please share.
I'm now going to share my own anecdotal individual experience in case it's helpful to someone else, adding one more data point to this collective clinical study.
Personal Profile: Currently early 40s, wife of 20 yrs, two children 9 and 4.
From my teens until my 30s I had to O every single night before sleep. Impossible not to. If my wife wasn't in the mood I had to do it myself or I would wake up with sexsomnia doing it to her while asleep. We had a very healthy sex life.
POIS rears its ugly head: When my first child was born I also had an operation for an inguinal hernia, causing discomfort during sex and premature ejaculation. Between my condition and my wife's we had a sexual disruption that we've never since recovered from. I think this is when I began to suffer from POIS although I don't make the connection between the symptoms and sexual activity yet.
POIS Presentation: I have no functional problems. I can rub one out whenever I want, but I have very, very low libido. I used to be turned on by girls on the street, or my imagination, but now I need physical stimulation even with porn for the most part. Middle age? Maybe.
That being said, I am sometimes more receptive to stimulation and sometimes I'm just not. When I 'force' the O (when I'm less spontaneously aroused), the subsequent symptoms are far, far worse.
I have been logging and rating my symptoms in a database for 5 years now. There is a direct correlation between how 'forced' an O was and symptoms severity.
Symptoms: - First 24 hours are the calm before the storm. Placid, content, slight heart on sleeve (prone to melancholic emotion). This terrible day is filled with both optimism and dread. Have I finally overcome this or am I about to fall off of a cliff?
- Symptoms start 24 hours after O, lasting 2-3 days
- Low energy. Very tired. Caffeine and sleep don't help. Naps and sleeping in often exacerbate my negative mood.
- Headache. Not responsive to analgesics.
- Brain fog. Can't concentrate, think, analyze, make decisions.
- Testy, anxious, depressed, quick to anger. Self-pitying and impatient with others, especially my wife and strangers on the street.
- Occasionally a second O will counteract the negative effects of the first.
I am currently scanning the forum for users with the same symptoms. I consider my brain fog and headaches to be consistent with POIS flu symptoms, even if they don't involve nose and throat, because at least as far as my head goes it's very similar to how I feel when I am sick.
I don't have the joint and muscle problems that are mentioned by some, but am also not athletic, although I do feel generally weak and lethargic and low energy.
Initial Theories: I made the connection of symptoms to orgasm several years after the symptoms began. The various theories I went through before discovering POIS were:
- Male post-partum depression
- I had just had a painful inguinal hernia surgery despite epidural and thought they might have hit a nerve during the procedure
- Desensitization due to porn
- Low testosterone
- Psychological reaction to wife's physical changes (and to her own negative reaction to her own body changes)
- Long-term use of omeprazole causing me to be unable to absorb B12 thereby affecting my dopamine and serotonin uptake or reuptake.
What followed were years of unhappiness and a cold matrimonial bed. Very cold. Almost cost me my marriage.
Countless joyless days. Surrounded by beauty but unable to appreciate it.
Failed treatments: - Tryptomax
- Zinc for Testosterone (stopped treatment after normal clinical T test)
- St. John's Wort
- Weed
- No fap
- Psychiatric treatment
- B12 supplements (twice daily for 1.5 yrs.)
- ,1g psylocybin microdosing/Stamets stack
I've anecdotically tried some polaramine, loratadine and ibuprofen for very short periods (a day or two) with no positive results.
Urologists told me it was psychiatric in nature. Psychiatrist dismissed the condition entirely.
After finding this forum a few weeks ago I started with the Niacin, as it nicely dovetailed with the Stamets stack for microdosing shrooms, but unfortunately, I didn't take it only prior to O but afterwards as well, 5 days/wk with the stack, and as a result I've had two very, very bad weeks.
Wish list: What I would absolutely love to find, apart from a prepack (am looking into Quantum's right now), would be something that could alleviate symptoms post-O. This would be a game changer in my life.
If any readers identify with the above, I would very much appreciate your sharing your treatment histories with me on this thread. I will continue to sift through this knowledge base and try treatments that seem to fit. I'll update here as my own journey continues.
Thank you all for your time and interest.
- Pontevin
