Hi everyone. I am relatively new to this forum. I am so grateful to have found this forum. I get the sense that we are here to support each other, and everyone seems very respectful and caring.
I am not sure in which thread this post is most appropriate. I guess I'll with a little backdrop about myself and my situation. I am 22 years old, and this condition has severely hampered my life. I didn't really firmly make the connection between orgasm and my symptoms until about a year ago. I always attributed the way I felt to other factors. This past year and the second half of 2018 have been a challenging time for me. I should note that I am also dealing with treating a chronic Lyme infection with a good LLMD, and I think the Lyme infection most likely has a part to play in this whole picture.
I first felt something was not right after sexual release when I was around 17-18 year old in high school. I was an athletic, intelligent kid, and still like to think of myself as one. Motivated, cheerful, outgoing; a talented varsity soccer player. I did well in school. I was driven, studious. One day I masturbated the afternoon before a soccer game that night. Immediately i felt strange and not right afterwards. I felt confused, lost my sense of surrounding, felt panicky. I could barely stand, i felt dizzy. I could not go to my game that night. I had to call in sick. It was quite embarrassing, but I knew something was wrong. Going to the game would be a mistake. I told everyone that I had a stomach flu. For about 4-5 days felt pretty much the same. Fluish, achy, dizzy, confused. I stayed in my bed for this time, not leaving the house. I had this constant internal feeling of anxiety which I had never felt before. I did not feel like myself; it was very strange. After about a week, I started to slowly feel better, thank god. About two weeks later, I almost felt okay again. A couple months later, I had another orgasm. Same thing. I felt like a completely different person for a week. Sickly, pale skin, irritated, lashing out at family members, strange thoughts. My jaw hurt and my teeth were hurting. I could not stand to be around anybody. I would not wish the way i felt on anybody. i honestly felt a little scared. I was not sure what was happening to me. Since this time when I realized something was not right, ever since then, I began abstaining from anything sexual. No masturbation, no pursuing relationships with girls, no interest in dating, tried to keep all sexual thoughts away. For the next four years, I would keep this inside of me, staying away from sex, relationships, etc... I did not tell anyone, because I did not feel comfortable. It was embarrassing for me. I was practically celibate, except for the nocturnal emissions I would have every other month or so. I felt ill after these two, but not as bad as masturbation. Whenever I abstained, after a few weeks I would feel fine. As several months passed, I was feeling consistently great. This was the only way I could feel normal, and enjoy life. My cognitive abilities were great. I felt smart and capable, social, had many friends, childish energy. I felt like me. The only thing that would interrupt this feeling was the occasional nocturnal emission.
In early May of 2018, while at university, I crashed very hard one day. I had been feeling quite ill, fatigued, malaise, and some other problems for about month or so before this. Then one night I had a nocturnal emission. I woke up feeling like I was going to pass out from the light headedness, and could barely stand without getting dizzy. I had final exams the next week, and barely made it through. I had such bad brain fog, I could not remember anything I studied. I somehow passed the exams, but it was such a struggle. Now, I had felt bad after orgasm many times before, so in my head, I knew something was up. But this NE seemed to be the final nail in the coffin it felt like. All my health issues seemed to get worse over the next month; every painful symptom amplified x 10. I decided it was time to share this with a doctor, as well as my parents. I could no longer hold this in, no matter how much shame it seemed to cause me internally. My primary doctor didn't have a direct answer at first. He thought the symptoms I described were related to the lyme i had, etc... I had read about POIS online in 2018. All of the symptoms matched with me.
Fast forward to now. I am still dealing with this monster of an illness. I finally saw a urologist recently. She said yes, I most definitely have POIS. She gave me some advice on possible remedies, but said there is still a lot of unknown and no definitive answer. I told her how bad I feel from this shit. I told her everything, how I, an attractive young man, had backed off from all relationships with girls because of this issue. I knew that whatever happened, it was no worth it to have a sexual release and feel so terrible. I an going for a follow up appt. soon, and hope to make some more progress.
I have been abstaining, like i mentioned above, for a very long time now, but still suffer from nocturnal emissions. They mess me up for about a week. This week is hell. I feel so bad some days, such bad depression, brain fog, pain, that it it is so hard for me sometimes. I am not a weak person, and never want to appear so in front of my family, as they have done everything for me. I feel guilty for having this condition sometimes. It is hard, im not going to lie. I see my friends having good lives, successful in their studies, getting good jobs, having nice relationships with girls, and here I am having having to suffer for a period of time after every sexual release. These days, I feel it is getting worse. It takes me 4-5 days for the physical symptoms to slowly go away, but even longer for the psychological symptoms to reside. My mind feels messed up and crazy for about two weeks, and i have anxiety and depression that I never have otherwise. After about 2-3 weeks, I finally feel that my mind is getting back to normal. Life is good again. How it should be. I still feel my doctor doesn't believe me when I tell him how i feel from one release. It is making me angry. This year, I am on a mission to fixing my health in all ways. I owe it to myself to resolve these problems. This POIS has caused me to do bad on exams I wouldn't have otherwise. my grades suffer from this. My whole life feel its falling apart for two or so weeks.
I am not sure why exactly i am posting this. I guess im just looking for tips on how you guys combat this.
