Placebo.

[Liyyamurr]

While I haven't studied Waldinger's work extensively, I have read his first and latest paper and it has made me question some of our previous held beliefs about our "syndrome". First off, I would to congratulate him and all the others in the medical profession who have spent time and effort to document this condition. As Waldinger's research has shown, POIS is not easily understood and seems to either be related to autoimmune functions or something else. He corrects himself and says that this thing is not an allergy but rather an  autoimmune reaction related to a possible antigen from semen. When analyzing his first paper from 2002, it was discovered that some men in fact many( I don't have the exact number because my cheap phone can't download PDF's) men tested positive to a skin prick test yet experienced NO POIS SYMPTOMS. Also, it is established that semen is a natural skin irritant.Maybe this explains why some asymptomatic men test positive. Conversely, two or three men in Waldinger's initial study did not test positive on the skin prick test and were symptomatic. There was a separate study by a Chinese doctor which detailed a case where a man who did not register on the skin prick test was experiencing the "syndrome". The doctor concluded, that the symptoms were similar to opoid withdrawel (Maybe this is a more cultural approach). Anyway, I spent some time asking a few guys on the POIS Facebook site how effective desens has worked for them. There were at least two that responded. One a guy from Spain said he had been doing it for just over two years and suddenly stopped. He said that his first year he noticed about 50℅ improvement. At the start of the treatment from the second year, he noticed serious regression. In fact, he claimed to have stopped because, "it just stopped working." The other guy, I believe from a middle Eastern country had just started. He claimed to notice slight improvement but was always tired and lethargic. There was another case of guy who just said it stopped working after year 3 and he gave up. He did notice slight improvement though. I know I haven't posted links due to my storage space on iPhone lol, but everything that I have stated above is easy to find on the web including Waldinger's papers and the Chinese study. I'm beginning to have doubts (even though I  have NO evidence), that the Desens treatment based on Waldinger's work is not much more than a placebo. Yes, there are countless stories of Desens success withen our community. However, most of the cases I have heard about the treatment say that it eventually stops working and wears off. I have had a conversation with the guy from Spain and based on his testimony and the success rate of the others here( including Egordon) I just don't buy it. I myself have NOT undergone desens, but it seems rather costly and perhaps ineffective. There is no recorded 90-100℅ success rate that I know of. I know this is possibly going to offend some people reading this, but I'm not through with what I am about to say. I believed for a while that I suffered a serious illness and so I searched the web and found this site. Ever since then I have noticed the syndrome even more. Before I discovered POIS I noticed the symptoms were blurry. I wonder if this says anything about what we are experiencing? I will get back with you guys to tell you what I really think is behind the problem and no it's not Porn addiction or even over-masturbation.First, respond to what I have said. I think many are going to be surprised and possibly offended by what I think is going on. It's not hopeless and there is a cure.

[Liyyamurr]

When I was young, I was raised with a sense of purpose yet not really belonging. I was always scared of losing something or being ridiculed for being inferior because of a speech impediment. Yet I strived to be a perfectionist growing up. My father is a very particular man and when things aren't his way he will let the whole world know in a very subtle way. Being raised in a disfunctional divorced family , I was always noticing obstacles in my life. My father could get so ornery that I hated spending the weekends with him and I would get sick after every weekend visit.I began to become depressed and anxious at the same time realizing that I was never going to be perfect and yet having to deal with a crazy family. Anyways, I was fourteen when I had my first ejaculation. At the same time. It was an incredibly new experience that I first feared and then later embraced. Infact, I embraced it so much that I would do it up to three times daily and felt fine everyday. Problems began to increase in school as I was expected to do weekly Piano recitals and I hated having to do these things. At the same time I had a crush in high school and was immediately rejected. This was not the first time I was rejected by a girl by the way. But as each time went by I began to get more violent and aggressive about it. A few times crying and punching the wall. Not speaking to highly of myself I was always shy and nervous, but things got worse after the rejections. Im not unnactractive I'm just very friendly and pretty upfront with my intentions. These rejections would continue into college btw. Im 25 almost 26, and have never had a girl friend. Only one night stands throughout college. Anyways, the same year I began to notice any sign of POIS was my first year of college (2008). Before college I could masturbate every morning and feel ?myself" throughout the day. A few strange things happened to me this year that I believe pulled the trigger and set things into motion. First my I became self aware of my masturbation habits. For what ever reason, probably physiological I began to notice how often I ejaculated and got really sef conscious. I started to edge more and now I realize that when you edge and not cum you are only accumulating massive amounts of Dopamine and your brain isn't able to release other hormones like adesnonine and other opoid related neuro transmitters. I began to get worked up easily. When I did E I noticed the intense desire to eat at least four bowls of my favorite cereal with milk or other sweets. A bit odd. I also noticed an intense blush in my face afterwsrds. I was so sure everyone would notice that I just had sex.  One night after an intense edging session I noticed a feeling like I had to pee but I couldn't   the pain lasted for about two hours but eventually went away and I fell asleep. That same month, I began to notice IBS symptoms out of nowhere for the very first time. I was in chronic intestinal pain and was convinced more than once I had a hernia.Everytime I went to the doc, no hernia even with scans. While you may think, well this is normal for Poisers, I attribute two main causes to these physical symptoms. 1) Change in diet.2) environmental changes.My father had always been extremely religious and sex was something we never talked about or joked about. I only heard that Masturbators and fornicators are incuring the wrath of God ordeal from Religious people my father was exposed to. So in the midst of all this, I began to believe that the reason that I was loosing out on finding a girlfriend was that  masturbation is a big deal and it makes you unlucky. I actually bought into these ideas and started to believe that everytime I would E bad things would happen. Sure enough, bad things started to happen. I would loose my keys. Weird things began to happen and I  would wonder what the hell is going on. This never happened before. It was as if I started to buy in to this demonic and harmful idealogy and then I began to believe I was loosing something everytime I Ejaculated. I would feel a bit off in cognition and dark circles under my eyes. It would feel as if a part of me had just died. I discovered the Infamously false Dhat syndrome and bought into that cool aide too. So my brain would subconsciously remind itself that it needed to recover fast after every session. It would drain my body out of percieved shock when there was no need to. It would inevitably cause a faster depletion in serotonin and lead to further depression. Things slowly got worse but not all of a sudden. It was not until I realized that others were having the same problem that my symptoms significantly worsened. And then I discovered something called POIS and my symptoms began to explode and match the online description where as before the symptoms were light and only lasted a day. At the time, I didn't realize what was going on but my mind was going along with whatever it was being fed. That's why we have to guard our minds not out of paranoia but out of rationality and heaths sake.

[Quantum]

Hi Liyyamurr,

Waldinger himself has stopped using desensitization injections and have stopped using skin prick tests for POIS diagnostic, and also have confirmed that a have updated his view and he know sees that POIS is more complex than a simple allergy, so it cannot be diagnose and treated like an allergy, with skin prick tests and desens.  Auto-immune disorder are treated by blocking the antigen, or the pro-inflammatory agents implied in the immune reactions ( cytokines and others), or by controlling inflammation in general, directly or with medication that calms down the immune system.  Be sure that Waldinger is well aware of what you have shared, that is, that skin prick tests are postive or negative independent of having or not POIS symptoms, and that the limited experience up to date with desens didn't show much clear, consistent or neither convincing results.  I think this is part of why, now, he search for an antigen and for cytokines involved, in order to fight POIS with this new approach.

The psychosomatic part of POIS may be different from one member to the other .  For example, you say that finding the forum and reading about POIS made your symptoms worst.  I can testify that, in my case, when I have found the forum, my symptoms didn't change, and eventually,the information I have found on the forum helped me get more efficient relief.  So, it is not all white or all black.  However, I think that managing emotional reactions and having well adjusted thoughts and beliefs is always important, be it in POIS or in any other health disorder, and in life in general.  That is why meditation and yoga are an integrated part of my personal method for controlling my POIS symptoms.

[Liyyamurr]

Thanks Quantum for responding. I asked on the Desens: fact or fiction subtopic where both Egordon and Vandemolen get their Desens treatment from. The have not responded. It seems that I wasn't the only one who asked about it and yet the best those two could do was defend their treatment without giving any additional information to the rest of us. A bit odd, but  I hope that Waldinger can identify the antigen and somehow a pill or injection could be constructed to block the antigen before sexual activity. It could be costly and I would be willing to donate money to this study and development. Perhaps it's not as simple and nonetheless we could be waiting around for a bit. The odd thing in my personal experience was that I didn't notice any symptoms until I was 18. And it seems to have started after some intense edging and pain to the prostate.