So just some background my relationship with POIS and general sexual disorders has been rocky. I developed POIS in puberty around the time my dsyphoria also began to sky rocket (transgender female but currently not on HRT due to circumstances, so take that into consideration in how things may work differently in my body. Untested for intersex conditions but I have generally feminine physical features mixed with masculine with some sexual differences in how things work down there). This would be a constant struggle my whole life and peaked in severity in my mid 20's to my later 20's, I am currently 31. A couple years back though I began trying to grow out my hair and started saw palmetto and was also on lions mane at the time to combat my lack of energy which likely kindled the crash saw palmetto caused over a month landing me with a PFS/PSSD presenting syndrome. Full body numbness, genital numbness, no sexuality, no emotions, no pleasure/reward, no hunger/thirst, crippling fatigue leaving me nearly chair bound for months, slurred speech, extreme head pressure, ect-. You get it, it was pretty textbook and very bad. BUT when this occured I had lost my POIS along with my reactions to almost anything else at all but this left me with nothing. A couple years down the line and slow progress after throwing everything I could at the wall I recovered. BUT the bad news is the POIS returned with a vengeance after trialing a ultra high dose vitamin C experiment which knocked things back online again completely but in a very chaotic, dysfunctional fashion. The crushing feeling of constant anxiety, adrenaline, mood swings, and physical discomfort. I was going to comment on the noradrenaline topic too at some point as I have a feeling it has to do with this.
Anyways on to the recent findings.
Current stack - 2000 mcg methyl-b12, 100 mcg K2, 2500 iu vegan D3, 1 capsule propolis, 2 grams vitamin C, 1 capsule Yucca Glauca root (all in the morning, yucca was the most recent addition). A couple mugs of black coffee (morning), a couple later (usually around 1-2 PM), a cup of plain cistus incanus tea (around 3 PM) followed by a cup of green tea (often right after the cistus)
Story - So after a disaster of fluctuating symptoms moving past my baseline of 2 grams of vitamin C daily where I found if I took another couple later at 3 PM I would get more energy and increased sensory clarity I decided to take it further and see what would happen if I took 2 more grams for a total of 6 grams in a day later at 9 PM. This gave me much more physical energy but the stimulation was so overwhelming that I felt like I was going to have a emotional mental breakdown and anxiety attack most hours of the day. This also caused horrific insomnia that didn't taper off much upon stopping essentially leaving me stuck in a high strung adrenaline overload state where I couldn't really do much of anything but go through the motions trying to minimize stress because I couldn't handle any of it at the time and the smallest thing that came up would make me feel like I was going to lose it. If I had an orgasm or got aroused it was a full blow POIS episode for the next 2-3 days with some taper off.
So I thought back while browsing one of the PSSD forums about people who felt better with hops. Desperate for any relief from this insanity I ordered the Biokoma one's on Amazon. And one night tried them. They were the first night ridiculously sedating but relieved me of all symptoms alone saved by a background of high anxiety that would amplify more in the aftermath of a night of making the hops tea but would leave me much more functional and handling things better. The next night I tried again and these effects with the sedation were less than the night before but I really liked what this was doing for me so I kept going. The next night after that I was clearly becoming sensitized to some effect of them but my reaction was more stable and I felt better with them then. The night after that I tried adding more (it was 2 tablespoons of dry flower at first, but I added 1 more) and there was ironically a more mild stimulating effect but I slept even better and on the rebound the next day I felt better. The days after a night of hops my senses were so much clearer, my brain worked better (I can read, enjoy things easier, socialize better with far less vocal dysfunction yet at times I was slower speaking under the hops afterglow), and my anxiety was greatly lessened and I could go outside without feeling like I was going to have a complete meltdown. It wasn't perfect like I said with the background anxiety and if I orgasmed I'd still be prone to POIS but a lessened symptom version. The typical symptoms would all ramp up but be somewhat less life ruining. The hops also increased my libido a fair bit and orgasms felt much better and full bodied.
There was another supplement after this that came into play where things clicked. The digestive issues wiith the POIS episode would be ridiculous still, in fact that hops made my guts even worse in some ways on their own. On the Pheonixrising forum I saw someone mentioned that Yucca helped them with their guts so in a shot in the dark I decided to give it a go. The first day I used it (1 capsule, Secrets of the Tribe brand Yucca Glauca root) I noticed an increase in baseline energy without stimulation and better social abilities and vocal control. It also immediately settled the gut issues. My libido also sky rocketed at some points in a somewhat uncomfortable fashion though not sure if that was just a residual effect overlap from the hops. The first day with it was the first day I got off the hops to see if there was any rebound/dependence that occured so that night I had none of those. The next day I took the Yucca again and the same thing occured but the benefits were more persistent with one downside where they made me feel a bit too amped up at times even though everything was more functional. If I orgasmed with just them I'd still get POIS but like the hops these symptoms were reduced. With the Yucca alone the reduction was more in brain inflammation feelings, spatial processing problems, and vocal dysfunction. That second night I decided to try the hops again and this time with the Yucca on top there was something somewhat different going on. I felt FAR more stable and could enjoy everything much better. The benefits of both together combined, the next day I felt much better. When I orgasmed under both of these which I repeated twice counting this morning to confirm what I thought was going on I noticed that on this combo with my current base stack I experience no POIS. A little tired after and might get a little nasal drip but that's it. I can also just keep going and the sex will be just as pleasurable but obviously I would simply keep getting more exhausted so I don't tend to do that as much as I want to on this stack.
Last night I tried a hops strain with much higher alpha acid (not sure what Biokoma brand AA content is but this one was clearly far higher) content of 10.6 percent. This was way too much and practically knocked me out leaving me dreaming while awake for hours until finally hitting the pillow and having ridiculous vivid dreams all night and waking up ravenously horny. Though the decent effects despite that level being way too sedating stuck like the lower but unknown AA content strain and the orgasm did nothing on the POIS front besides making me a bit too tired after orgasming yesterday too. The new strain I have coming in is 6 percent and I'll report back on how that goes or if I feel I need to go lower to 3/4/5 percent. Though I found most strains don't seem to go below 5 percent AA content and it's pretty tough to find anything below 4 percent.
Anyone have anything from their own experiences that might be useful in putting together what is going on here?
edit - Now to me it's clear POIS is a symptom of a much bigger cluster of dysfunction going on in my body that also as in recent years led something going wrong in an entirely different direction where I lost everything including POIS but regained it after almost like a seesaw that due to some genetic defects causes my production/conversion of many hormones/neurotransmitters to be completely unstable and getting stuck in loops. I remember from my story on the whole PFS/PSSD saga that I relentlessly attempted to resolve after I started getting dietary flucuations in my state and managing to integrate D3 again which was an adventure on it's involving rebounding off of calcifediol and then getting on the rice flour only additive vegan version at the dose I take today of 2500 iu that 2 types of fish when cooked gave me different positive modulations in my condition. Cooked salmon and tuna. Tuna was more energizing but cooked salmon rebounding eventually led to a great deal of progress after some weeks of having it in my dinner often. The other night I got some more energy from cooked tuna and today seeing that I'm a bit more sedated than usual due to having the hops with the too high alpha acid content and being tired from having another orgasm today with no traditional POIS symptoms besides a slight touch of an immune flare I'm going to try the tuna again tonight and see what happens. I'm also not going to have the hops tonight because I want to clear my system again from high AA hops residue first and then the next night I'll get back on the lower AA (yet unknown amount) hops from Biokoma. I also have a 6 percent strain and a 3.8 percent strain on the way to feel my way around what might be going on here. Will post updates when I have them.
