POIS caused by nofap

[dopamine]

I fapped for many years with mild cognitive symptoms (tiredness, brainfog, mild depression which all went away with sleep). Recently I decided to do a 90 day nofap reboot hardmode (complete abstinence) and then relapsed after 90 days to PMO

After this relapse I felt muscle aches, headaches, strong brain fog, strong depression. I was literally bedridden and wanted to sleep the symptoms away. This lead me to research POIS

Is what I experienced POIS? I'm too afraid to test it again to find out?
So just wondering how come I was OK all that time before, and only after a period of abstinence that these symptoms came on?

[dopamine]

Heres my full story


I started fapping around 14 without porn, then graduated to bikini/lingerie pics, then around 15 to movie sex scenes, and then to hard core porn at around 17. I'm currently 24

The escalation in material to get aroused I would think meant that my brain had downregulated receptors (from what I've read on the nofap reddit page), therefore I required harder stuff to get off

So from 17 till 19 i watched it on and off (1X to 2X a week) for a those 2 years with some breaks of a few 2-3 weeks in between. At that time I had stumbled upon the nofap forums on reddit but did not take their symptoms seriously. I attempted nofap but that effort was half hearted and just experimental at best.

At around 20, i started PMO (porn masturbation orgasm) twice a week with no breaks. Forgot about nofap and disregarded it entirely, thinking it was pseudoscience.

At 21, I started PMO once everday. At 22 this escalated to 2-3X a day for the whole year, same for at age 23 I was PMO 2-3X a day, edging (masturbating without O) for 2-3 hours before O.

[dopamine]

At this point the brainfog and memory problems started becoming really apparent to me. These were the symptoms that I realised I had soon after going back on the nofap forums and reading their symptoms which I used to be sceptical of

- derealisation (detached from surroundings)
- poor working short term memory
- brain fog
- mild depression
- inability to formulate sentence, tongue tied/aphasia
- social withdrawal
- orgasmic anhedonia (no pleasure upon O)

So just to recap last year (23 yo) I was PMO 2X a day everyday, not because I was horny and had sexual urges, but just for the dopamine rush at watching endless scenes and finding the 'perfect scene' to O at. Yet not having a pleasure sensation upon O (orgasmic anhedonia). So at this point I had brainfog, mild depression, poor working memory. Yet I didn't connect it exactly to PMO at the time, and didn't even realise I had those symptoms at the time. It had just gradually come on with escalating frequency of PMO, it was that subtle like a frog not realising that it was being boiled alive as the heat is gradually turned higher

[dopamine]

At the end of last year I failed a year of uni, and decided to do nofap hard mode (no P, M or O at all). 1-2 weeks in the withdrawal symptoms set in (I didn't know it at the time but turns out these were withdrawal symptoms). I experienced racing anxious thoughts about everything going wrong in my life, fear of dying, had severe chest tightness and shortness of breath, fatigue/lethargy. These soon subsided after around 7 weeks after deciding to quit

I wanted to do the 90 day reboot challenge, hard mode, and actually got up to day 92 when I relapsed. My relapse was caused by peeking, searching up pornstars on youtube just to check out how they looked like a few days before (day 85-88), which ultimately led to relapse. The relapse was 3 consecutive days of fapping to hardcore porn 1X each of those days

Immediately afterwards on the day after my first day of relapse I experienced a bit of brainfog, words were hard to formulate in my mind, my thought processes felt clouded and obstructed. Due to the chaser effect I fapped the next day and the day after (hence 3 consecutive days). This is where it gets terrible

Right after the 3rd fap (3rd day of that relapse period) I felt extreme weakness in my limbs (hands + feet), headache, strong depression, brainfog, headache, inability to communicate. I was literally bedridden that day, the symptoms came on soon after the fap and I went to bed at 2pm that day to rest since I was so fatigued and couldn't function, woke up at 6pm to go dinner with friends while barely functioning (zombie like state, depression). I went to bed at 9pm that day hoping that everything would go away. Never had I had these symptoms before, it scared the hell out of me. Like I explained before above, I've been fapping on-off 2-3 until it escalated the past 3 years, never had I had these weakness and severe depression like until now, all I had were the memory issues, brain fog, mild depression.

This lead me to searching up POIS and wondering if chronic overfapping followed by reboot and relapse caused these symptoms? After that debilitating episode, I've been scared off fapping and been on hardmode again hoping that whatever neuroplasticity damage caused by those years of 2-3X fapping everyday can be healed to some degree.

During this 2nd reboot I started experiencing weird symptoms which I think could be possible withdrawal symptoms (caused just after 3 consecutive days of 1X fap?)
- twitching in muscles when trying to go to sleep
- transient brain fog
- burping, gas, bloatedness constantly (this went on from day 7 till probably day 44)
- transient depression/anxiety

[julius]

I quickly went through your posts. I can say that (almost) all POIS’ers experience the symptoms you mentioned. But not everyone who experiences these symptoms necessarily has POIS. The diagnosis Waldinger proposed can be read on the following page under the “Five preliminary criteria” section:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5001999/

An important property of the POIS state following orgasm/ejaculation can be easily distinguished from the non-POIS state. In most cases the cognitive symptoms are quite severe and go together with physical symptoms (pain in the muscles, headache, etc). The property  that the symptoms disappear spontaneously is also very typical. Your case does not show this clearly. Furthermore, most POIS’ers get ill after a nocturnal emission or a wet dream.  Since you mentioned nothing about this, I assume that you don’t get ill after having these. so I think that you have to be cautious with jumping to conclusions.

Know that excessive masturbation can be bad for everyone. Most people that join NoFap state that they do not feel well after masturbation and experience the symptoms you mentioned to a certain extent (due excessive masturbation).

Also know that each case of POIS different. POIS differs from person to person. It may differ in terms of severity, duration, nature of symptoms and also sensitivity. In some cases even slight sexual arousal is enough to trigger some symptoms of POIS. In other cases only having an orgasm by masturbation or sex triggers POIS.

If I had to make a judgement of your case, I would say that it’s no POIS at all or just a mild case of POIS. I do believe that there exists a grey zone between  the “POIS zone” and the “healthy zone”. And some people develop POIS on a later age. I am not saying this to scare you, but it is possible.

Your choice for abstaining from any sexual activity for a while makes sense to me. If you are going to engage in sexual activity, try not to overdo things and try to “listen” to your body. If you experience a significant change after the first orgasm/ejaculation you probably have POIS. If not, then you should not worry too much I guess.

[dopamine]

I have rarely got nocturnal emissions/wet dreams because of years of fapping. Probably can only count <5 in my life (im 24 atm), after which I was fine the day after. And during my earlier 90 day reboot period I haven't got a wet dream at all, so can't say for sure if POIS symptoms come on then

[dopamine]

An important property of the POIS state following orgasm/ejaculation can be easily distinguished from the non-POIS state. In most cases the cognitive symptoms are quite severe and go together with physical symptoms (pain in the muscles, headache, etc). The property  that the symptoms disappear spontaneously is also very typical. Your case does not show this clearly.

Yes, I would say I got severe cognitive symptoms (brain fog, inability to concentrate) this episode with physical symptoms (muscle weakness, aches, headache, fatigue, lethargy)

The symptoms went on for around a week +, gradually disappeared after which I gradually developed anxiety symptoms (muscle tension, muscle twitching, chest tightness, feeling that I was unable to take a full breath) for around 6 weeks which has abated only recently

Furthermore, most POIS’ers get ill after a nocturnal emission or a wet dream.  Since you mentioned nothing about this, I assume that you don’t get ill after having these. so I think that you have to be cautious with jumping to conclusions.

I rarely got wetdreams/nocturnal emissions in the past due to frequent PMO, probably can only count <5 in my life of which I was fine the day after

[julius]

I have had POIS since the very first orgasm I had. Abstinence never made my POIS worse. I abstained for periods of 10 months in the past and POIS didn’t become worse because of it. At this moment, I have been abstaining for weeks and I feel good. If I have an orgasm POIS will be just worse as always. Some members here state that abstaining improves their symptoms, as you know. I can’t recall reading a story that’s similar to yours.

Whatever it is what you are having, I don’t think it’s caused by abstinence. Finding out whether you have POIS is actually not the difficult part of this thing. You will know for sure sooner or later. I wish you the best.

[Hopeoneday]

Hi dopameine, try manage your compulzions and adictions related to pmo, after some time test your self for symptomes.