Hello, I am an 18 year old boy and would like to share my POIS situation. I am a tennis player (I train everyday and play tournaments) and am going to go to university next year. I have both physical and mental symptoms after masturbating and nocturnal emissions that make it difficult to do things that I enjoy.
POIS seems like it started since my first orgasm. I remember after a few of my first times masturbating that I felt extremely weak and tired at tennis practice the next day. One day I actually threw up during tennis practice. This was when I was around 14 years old. From about 15 to 17 years old my symptoms got a lot worse, especially the mental ones. I started to connect these symptoms to masturbating. I didn?t feel guilty about masturbating but I did feel bad that I would masturbate even though I knew that I would have these symptoms and would feel horrible days later whether it be at tennis or not. Even after nocturnal emissions, I would feel strong physical symptoms that would impact my tennis performance or any exercise. I told my parents about my symptoms recently and am so glad I did. We then found out about POIS.
Symptoms:
- Muscle weakness which includes heart and lungs so I get very out of breath during tennis. I got out of breath very easily after masturbating or nocturnal emissions which was very unusual. My lungs would even hurt (which they never have before). Also, every muscle starts feeling sore while playing which never happened before. For one week at tennis practice, I remember almost not being able to stand because my shoulders and neck felt so sore. This happened quite often. Also, recently, I felt like it was difficult to stand and move while playing tennis because my legs felt so weak. I play piano and in POIS, my forearms get sore and tired while playing which never happens normally.
- Tingling pain in head. Hard to describe it but it feels like a flow of chemicals entering my head and it somewhat hurts. I know you can?t feel that but that?s how I describe it. It?s like a sharp pain, not very painful but sharp. Not like a headache.
- Occasionally back hurts.
- Once or twice throat hurt for many days after masturbating. Could be coincidence but seemed pretty related.
- Often times soft stool, somewhat like diarrhea, after both masturbating and nocturnal emissions.
- Extreme depression and hopelessness.
- No joy in doing anything. When I was younger, I would find joy and pleasure in almost anything, even looking out the window when on a road trip. In POIS, I feel like I have no emotions and feel nothing.
- Bad feeling. I can only describe it by saying that I feel much worse when in POIS than when I used to get sick as a kid. I could still think, be happy, and be creative when sick but not with the POIS symptoms. I feel like I am not here.
- Trouble thinking/remembering.
- Worse creativity. This is a very frustrating and bad symptom. This symptom makes me feel like I am thinking very linearly rather than branching out. As if it is harder to connect things with one another. This makes it hard to learn things.
- More floaters in eyes and worsened eyesight. I have noticed that around the ages of 16 and 17 when I was masturbating a lot, my eyesight worsened and started getting floaters which I never had before. My eyesight and floaters got better when I stopped masturbating. Many days of not masturbating and floaters almost completely go away and eyesight gets a lot better. But floaters appear very abundantly after nocturnal emissions.
My symptoms last around a week to 2 weeks however I don?t really know exactly since I have nocturnal emissions once a week because I am not masturbating anymore.
Around the ages of 17 to 18, I stopped masturbating completely in fear of the symptoms. During this time I saw my long distance eyesight improved and noticed less floaters. However, whenever I had a nocturnal emission, I got more floaters.
All of these symptoms apply to whenever I have a conscious orgasm or really any sexual stimulation. After a non-conscious orgasm ? nocturnal emissions ? the mental symptoms are not as bad, but I do feel like they get worse as the days go on, especially the cognitive ones. The physical symptoms are the same as if i masturbated.
In two instances, I woke up at night and had an erection. I then started to shiver and my body started to shake as if I was cold. I am never cold at night, if anything then hot. I was really shaking a lot. I might have been cold but about 10 minutes later I actually felt warm so it was weird that I went from shivering as if I was freezing to being warm.
I found that doing very intense running helps with at least the mental symptoms a lot. Sometimes the cognitive ones last for a while. I also do feel like the physical symptoms get a lot better after running. I would feel less tired after doing intense running before tennis than if I didn?t. My muscle weakness many times seems to go away. However, I feel like muscles in my legs for example feel weak until I do some sort of leg exercises.
These symptoms really made it hard to play tennis which I love so much as well as learning which I also love (mostly math/physics). I am going to study physics in university and am very excited. When not in POIS I feel ?normal? which to me means how I consciously felt when I was younger. So, I could think fine and remember things, and would feel clear and aware. In POIS and even after running to get rid of symptoms, I feel like I am not here, as if I am dreaming. I can interact, but I don?t ?feel? anything and find no joy in anything whereas when I was younger or when not in POIS I can have a great time even when I am bored. I would normally look forward to reading or learning but in POIS I feel like I?m not taking anything in. Luckily running makes my symptoms less intense.
