Author Topic: serotonin  (Read 11467 times)

asdfdoc

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serotonin
« on: November 18, 2012, 11:02:20 PM »
Can POIS be a cause of serotonin deficiency?

So far what relieved my symptoms: adderall, 5htp, st. john's wort, lexapro
what didn't: provigil, ritalin, strattera, wellbutrin, niacin

I've tried a lot of meds. I have adhd, premature ejaculation and social anxiety.

Doc thought I had bipolar, so she ruled out ssri until now. I am trying out an ssri for my social anxiety as well as for my pois.

I explained my hypothesis to my doc. my doc has no idea but she is down for an experiment. This is my hypothesis.

When I orgasm, my serotonin gets depleted. It takes about 1 week to recover. Sleep seems to be only 100% cure to my pois. Serotonin only gets replenished when sleeping. Therefore as soon as 5 min after sex, I have POIS symptoms. Due to frequency of sex, I have chronic serotonin deficiency, as known as Dysthymia. Due to this, I don't know that I am depressed because I have no baseline and I have been thinking everyone else is like myself. This is chronic depression, one would never know that he/she is depressed because that's just the way he/she is. I also experience social anxiety and premature ejaculation that backs up serotonin deficiency. My mood is usually horrible, easily irritable, OCD and worried.

Under my doc's consent, I experiemented with 5-htp. It takes me about an hour and thirty minutes to feel the effect of 5htp. I feel that my mood is better and my anxiety is reduced. I usually get panic attacks when I give presentaitons. But when I take 100mg 5htp 1.5 hours before my presentation I do not get panic attack.

I take 5htp 2 hours before sex, I have a full on POIS, 5htp effect before orgasm does not seem to help.
I take 5htp 1 hour before sex, POIS is 90% relieved within 30 min after orgasm.
I take 5htp 1 hour 30 min before sex, POIS is relieved within 5 minutes after orgasm
I take 5htp right after sex, POIS is relieved about 70% at 1:30 mark.

I also noticed that adderall does not help me with my adhd, it just makes me speedy and manic. I also had an incident when adderall worked on me ONCE 8 hour after ingestion (when it supposedly stopped working), which was 1 hour after I took 100mg 5htp. Ritalin ONLY works to cure my ADHD if I do NOT have sex for over 10 days. It does NOT work on me for 10 days after ejaculation. However, it works only if I take 100mg 5htp along with ritalin but only temporarily for an hour.

I think for my case of POIS, the problem arises from serotonin imbalance. I am on 10mg lexapro. It's been only 1 week. I don't see a significant improvement for my premature ejaculation or mood. It actually is very activating for me. Lots of side effects as well, I plan to stick with it for about 2 months and see if anything improves. One thing I noticed about lexapro is that I had sex 2 hours after my lexapro dose, I didn't have any POIS sympotms, I felt more energized from sex! Not really sure what is going on. But I am hopeful.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2012, 11:06:17 PM by asdfdoc »

vetrofragile79

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2012, 11:16:53 PM »
i took ssri  4 years long, absolutly no effect on my pois, moreover, gave me a strong apathy and detachment from the world, it was very difficult to stop even say that they are not addictive

asdfdoc

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2012, 11:23:19 PM »
Did you have any side effects?  Your pois cause may be different from mine. Have you tried 5htp?

vetrofragile79

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2012, 05:35:59 PM »
with citalopram
CONS: Total drowsiness, apathy, fattening and left me all'imporvviso after four years, making me suffer the punishments of hell. No improvement Pois

PRO: reducing anxiety but I slept too many hours a day.

Efexor:

CONS Very difficult to stop, apathy, no effect on pois
 
PRO merely anxiety but did sleep

asdfdoc

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #4 on: November 24, 2012, 08:32:05 PM »
2 weeks update with lexapro. I still have some side effects. Within 1 hour of ingestion, I am slightly more energized and spaced out, but it resolves within hour 3. I had O today and no POIS, I felt more energized from sex. I did feel tired about 2 hours later but I was about to sleep anyway at 1AM.

:D

asdfdoc

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #5 on: December 08, 2012, 09:15:45 PM »
Just wanna share my experience here.

I am currently on 10mg lexapro in the morning. And Ritalin 5mg IR tid PRN focus.

I was actually only on lexapro for past 4 weeks and I just started back on ritalin 5mg 3 days ago.

So far my POIS is 95% reduced. I am no longer tired after sex. I feel great after sex. I can go multiple times in one day and I still feel great. I get fatigued from physical exercise part of sex but I am not fatigued psychologically and physically in the odd way that was presented with my POIS. I still feel like something is off and I can probably benefit from being on either SSRI a little longer or upping the dosage.

Ritalin used to only work for me for an hour. However, ritalin now works for 3-4 hours. My ADHD is definitely benefiting from SSRI and I am very happy about the result. However, SSRI has not helped me with anxiety or mood yet. I still feel like the same individual that I was 4 weeks ago.

Other physical changes that I notice are:
1. I sleep with my mouth open and my mouth is always dry when I get up. Now, I sleep with my mouth closed.
2. I drive or walk with my mouth open and my mom always told me I looked stupid. Now, I always have my mouth shut when I am doing something. no TMJ issue, no clenching or bruxing
3. My eye dilation is much more dynamic. 4 weeks ago and throughout my life, my pupils are usually pinpoint small and the maximum dilation would be only about half of my iris. Now, I still have a pinpoint small constriction but my dilation goes up to about 3/4 of the iris. I have previously known that my dilation dynamic was much less compared to others.
4. less urination (possibly due to lessened anxiety)


vetrofragile79

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2012, 01:22:21 PM »
The SSRI escitalopram was the first that I tested, after 1 month stopped working and I had to change with citalopram. As I said above, I SSRIs provoked strong memory loss, inability to learn, the world was apathetic and linear, no effect on dots and slept Difficult to stop, but if you find them good I'm very happy.

asdfdoc

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #7 on: January 01, 2013, 01:17:49 AM »
8 wk update,

meds: 10mg lexapro and 5mg ritalin prn focus

pois still not fully cured. will up lexapro dose soon. lexapro doesn't feel as effective as before probably because I don't remember how bad pois was 8 weeks ago! I still fill really really tired after sex but it is much better than before.

5mg ritalin is still working, but it started giving me headaches when using following other meds (ritalin SA different brand). I think it's because of different brands? Methylene ER (ritalin sa) is giving me terrible headaches and makes me mean. Doc prescribed me focalin to reduce side effects but focalin just drives me nuts. I can't move on 5mg of focalin because I feel so drugged up. I am staying with ritalin.


LAPOISSE

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2013, 08:54:48 AM »
I was on SSRI's for 36 month(paroxetin)...It solved the POIS for 3 to 6 month but symptoms came back and I end up with an other problem to solve(SSRI withdrawal)wich was really not funny for a while.

Serotonine/dopamine is surely involved(as a symtoms) but i dont think it's a cause and SSRI will not help long term

asdfdoc

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2013, 03:48:28 PM »
Did it just stop working all the sudden when you were on ssri? What dosage were you on?

asdfdoc

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #10 on: February 26, 2013, 01:33:24 PM »
3.5 months update.

This is what I've concluded. SSRI does work for my POIS. It's not 100% but it make me able to function. With POIS, sleep is the only cure and I am more active with SSRI. However, the problem is still there. Like the previous poster said, I think lexapro is definitely doing something that is making my POIS better. W/o lexapro, I felt extremely exhausted within 10 minutes after O, and I just could not get up, function or feel any desire to do anything. I felt exhausted for the days after that. What lexapro does is that it lengthens that 10 minutes to about 1.5 hours and it is much less severe. I can actually work out, study or have another round if I desire.

Something happened during the time though. SSRI was prescribed to me due to my generalized anxiety as well. It's been working out great in that sense. I started on 5mg for 1 week and 10mg after. I felt like there was a room for improvement. Doc upped dosage to 15mg after 2 months on 10mg. 1 month into 15mg, I felt that there was something wrong with my body. My doc calls it "different form of anxiety attack", I have pharmacist and nurse friends, and they call it "mild serotonin syndrome", I was experiencing hypereflexia, anxiety, extreme ADHD, almost manic like state. I called doc immediately, doc wanted me to actually stay on 15mg since she thought it was an anxiety attack, but I felt unsafe and lowered dosage to 10mg. During that 1 month on 15mg, I didn't see much improvement on POIS. 10mg worked better than no SSRI though. I've been on 10mg for a month now, the weird side effect that I encountered from 15mg disappeared and I am back to normal.

In retrospect, I try to remember how I used to feel and compare now and then. I am also diagnosed ADHD. There is one big problem that came up with the use of SSRI. SSRI killed my anxiety, which was a big problem for me. However, SSRI acted like a double edged sword; without anxiety, I found myself no longer motivated to do anything, carry on responsibilities and chores. Simply, my ADHD got worse. I was on ritalin and focalin. For some reason, after 1 month on lexapro, the ADHD meds stopped working, it no longer gives me clarity and focus. All I get from ADHD meds are just a ton of side effects such as tightening of chest and shortness of breath and so on at even at very low dosage. I stopped taking ADHD meds because of side effects. Instead of giving me any positive effects from ritalin, I now find it extremely sedating and it puts me to asleep.

I work in healthcare, and I consulted about my situations with friends who are MDs as I have feel some changes to my mental and physical sensation. One brought up an interesting point that my metabolism is all messed up due to medications. I felt extremely sedated on 2.5mg of focalin while on lexapro. A friend asked me a couple of questions, suspected me to be hypoglycemic. Did the blood glucose level test, and it came out to be 71mg/dl (cutoff line is 70). This came to me as a shock. This was 1 hour after my lunch, my blood glucose level should be higher than 110. I am not the most active guy, I used to be very obese. I took a glucose tablet, and the symptoms went away. I frequently take my blood glucose level now and my blood sugar level is low, around 80-90s. This is not the way I usually am and this is a news to me. I had a physical and blood test a year ago and my blood glucose level was actually higher side on the normal range. For some reason, my insulin is overworking and I think norepi system is involved.

I had many hypotheses that didn't work out as I wanted them to be. Like LAPOISSE said, I think serotonine/dopamine is surely involved in POIS. Lexapro is a very selective SRI, but it does affect norepi reuptake at some extent. In the past year with a lot of trials on tons of drugs, I found out that I am extremely sensitive to stimulants, even coffee and vitamin B pills. Seeing how ritalin (and focalin) sedates me now that I am on lexapro is a mystery to me. ADHD meds usually work on reuptake of dopa and norepi. Doc assures me that there is no interactions between them, but I think otherwise. Maybe, the adrenergic regulation is in imbalance for some of us, causing anxiety, adhd and other symptoms including pois. Orgasm releases a ton of hormones and that can really mess up brain chemical imbalance. I read somewhere that O can be like a panic attack which is followed by extreme sedation of the body. Someone mentioned clonidine (a2 receptor agonist), I wonder if anyone tried it.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2013, 01:36:49 PM by asdfdoc »

15yrsAndCounting

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #11 on: June 11, 2020, 04:34:28 PM »
3.5 months update.

This is what I've concluded. SSRI does work for my POIS. It's not 100% but it make me able to function. With POIS, sleep is the only cure and I am more active with SSRI. However, the problem is still there. Like the previous poster said, I think lexapro is definitely doing something that is making my POIS better. W/o lexapro, I felt extremely exhausted within 10 minutes after O, and I just could not get up, function or feel any desire to do anything. I felt exhausted for the days after that. What lexapro does is that it lengthens that 10 minutes to about 1.5 hours and it is much less severe. I can actually work out, study or have another round if I desire.

Something happened during the time though. SSRI was prescribed to me due to my generalized anxiety as well. It's been working out great in that sense. I started on 5mg for 1 week and 10mg after. I felt like there was a room for improvement. Doc upped dosage to 15mg after 2 months on 10mg. 1 month into 15mg, I felt that there was something wrong with my body. My doc calls it "different form of anxiety attack", I have pharmacist and nurse friends, and they call it "mild serotonin syndrome", I was experiencing hypereflexia, anxiety, extreme ADHD, almost manic like state. I called doc immediately, doc wanted me to actually stay on 15mg since she thought it was an anxiety attack, but I felt unsafe and lowered dosage to 10mg. During that 1 month on 15mg, I didn't see much improvement on POIS. 10mg worked better than no SSRI though. I've been on 10mg for a month now, the weird side effect that I encountered from 15mg disappeared and I am back to normal.

In retrospect, I try to remember how I used to feel and compare now and then. I am also diagnosed ADHD. There is one big problem that came up with the use of SSRI. SSRI killed my anxiety, which was a big problem for me. However, SSRI acted like a double edged sword; without anxiety, I found myself no longer motivated to do anything, carry on responsibilities and chores. Simply, my ADHD got worse. I was on ritalin and focalin. For some reason, after 1 month on lexapro, the ADHD meds stopped working, it no longer gives me clarity and focus. All I get from ADHD meds are just a ton of side effects such as tightening of chest and shortness of breath and so on at even at very low dosage. I stopped taking ADHD meds because of side effects. Instead of giving me any positive effects from ritalin, I now find it extremely sedating and it puts me to asleep.

I work in healthcare, and I consulted about my situations with friends who are MDs as I have feel some changes to my mental and physical sensation. One brought up an interesting point that my metabolism is all messed up due to medications. I felt extremely sedated on 2.5mg of focalin while on lexapro. A friend asked me a couple of questions, suspected me to be hypoglycemic. Did the blood glucose level test, and it came out to be 71mg/dl (cutoff line is 70). This came to me as a shock. This was 1 hour after my lunch, my blood glucose level should be higher than 110. I am not the most active guy, I used to be very obese. I took a glucose tablet, and the symptoms went away. I frequently take my blood glucose level now and my blood sugar level is low, around 80-90s. This is not the way I usually am and this is a news to me. I had a physical and blood test a year ago and my blood glucose level was actually higher side on the normal range. For some reason, my insulin is overworking and I think norepi system is involved.

I had many hypotheses that didn't work out as I wanted them to be. Like LAPOISSE said, I think serotonine/dopamine is surely involved in POIS. Lexapro is a very selective SRI, but it does affect norepi reuptake at some extent. In the past year with a lot of trials on tons of drugs, I found out that I am extremely sensitive to stimulants, even coffee and vitamin B pills. Seeing how ritalin (and focalin) sedates me now that I am on lexapro is a mystery to me. ADHD meds usually work on reuptake of dopa and norepi. Doc assures me that there is no interactions between them, but I think otherwise. Maybe, the adrenergic regulation is in imbalance for some of us, causing anxiety, adhd and other symptoms including pois. Orgasm releases a ton of hormones and that can really mess up brain chemical imbalance. I read somewhere that O can be like a panic attack which is followed by extreme sedation of the body. Someone mentioned clonidine (a2 receptor agonist), I wonder if anyone tried it.

What is the final outcome of this asdfdoc?

devastated

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Re: serotonin
« Reply #12 on: April 23, 2022, 01:21:26 AM »