Morning wood disappeared. I think the gluten-free buckwheat noodles might not be gluten-free enough for me. Super annoying.
Printable View
Morning wood disappeared. I think the gluten-free buckwheat noodles might not be gluten-free enough for me. Super annoying.
Morning wood came and went for me many times during my recovery. It’s hard to attribute it to a certain food you’re eating. It’s probably one of the most ebb and flow symptoms I had, to be honest. Don’t beat yourself up over eating something and thinking that’s the cause of it.
Thanks for the feedback. I feel like with the amount of time I’ve been working on this, if I was close to being cured I would be a lot better in terms of my symptoms.
I had no morning wood for 6 months, except for a few brief periods, when I was eating red lentil pasta most days. When I stopped, after a week or two it started coming back. Also I had had morning wood consistently for months before I started the red lentil pasta. I feel like I’m highly sensitive to a lot of foods and I need to focus on extremely basic, unprocessed foods as much as possible.
In 2021 I would like to regain my ability to feel orgasms again, and get back to having consistent morning wood. Then get my libido back as well... I will have to do whatever I have to do to make that happen.
Totally understand. This is a super frustrating condition with no rhyme or reason as to how it goes when you're thick in the shit.
Might be time to focus more on gut. I had the majority of my success regaining orgasm strength when I added 4-Andro to my cycles in the third or fourth one (can't remember, but it's written on here). Might be worth a try if you've never gone that route.
Hey Maxout777, did you keep a thread/log of how things went for you when you added 4-Andro? I have some coming in the mail and am on the fence on whether I should add it to my current cycle. I'm leaning towards doing it but was curious to see how it went for you.
Sounds good. I got 100 mg tablets. I think I'll start with 1 a day and see how I feel from there. I'm also on 5 pumps of Ultra Hard.
Yeah, I definitely want to get things straightened out in the gut department. I’m not sure if I would need to do another “juice feast” but when I did that I didn’t feel any different. The last time I had consistent morning wood (for about 6 months,) it happened from cutting out all gluten, and it took about two weeks. Maybe focusing on the right foods and only eating them, will get me back to that place. I think I may need to get rid of my “natural” peanut butter, but I struggle to find things I can eat. Maybe I shouldn’t be eating anything that isn’t a whole food, at this point.
When I was eating the buckwheat noodles, my bowel movements became gray, and somewhat less solid. Now it’s no longer gray, but it still looks less solid. So I feel like it was messing up my gut significantly, and it may take another week or two to get back to normal. I want to figure out exactly what I need to eat, and then be like a dog - eating the exact same thing(s) every day. And then when I’m back in NYC, figure out a few restaurant meals I can have at specific places, and that’s it until I’m better.
When it’s time for me to do another prohoromone cycle (the first one didn’t seem to do anything, but I was eating red lentil pasta which I now think was harming my gut,) I will add 4-Andro if CDsnuts says it’s okay. Thanks for that tip! Part of me wants to get consistent morning wood / proper gut before I jump back into prohormones, so that I can really benefit from the cycle. At that point, then I would hopefully be able to reach the next level, and just rinse and repeat the cycles + time off until I was healed.
Thanks, will do. When I ran the cycle the first time, I didn’t feel any different, aside from having worse insomnia than normal. Not sure if my diet was preventing me from making progress.
My hope was that it’d trigger a major upswing and I would feel semi-cured for a time, and then have a higher baseline and just keep building off of that until I’m cured. But for me, the downswings outnumber the upswings and they are generally longer as well. I always feel like I must be doing things wrong.
Thanks, I just made some changes with my diet, and I think that will be the decisive factor. It’s the hardest part for me.
I removed the peanut butter and now have raw almond butter (the only ingredient is raw almonds) instead. Breakfasts are egg whites and bananas now, and I have protein powder on the way.
I don’t think the red lentil pasta was my problem, so I will still have it sometimes on carb backloading days.
I most likely hadn’t been getting enough protein or calories, since my arms haven’t really grown in a long time. I’m adding another 50 grams of protein per day and am logging literally everything I eat to make sure I’m in a small calorie surplus. The idea is to gain muscle and not much fat. When I’m gaining more muscle again I will have more upswings, and consistent morning wood again.
I also ordered this “Snowball” underwear which has cold packs you put in the freezer and they chill your balls for 30 mins at a time. So you do that for 2 hours per day (not all at once) and over time it’s supposed to help your test production.
I can’t wait for an upswing.
If you’re that worried about your diet I would probably also drop the almond butter and just eat almonds. I’m not extreme about my diet but nut butters are still something I avoid, all natural or not.
If you have everything that you eat logged you might as well post it here so people can give you some feedback. Couldn’t hurt,
Edit: my bad CD I meant to reply to @LetsGo
I drink egg yolk shots in the morning a few times a week. Best way to get the egg and no time used cooking the egg, and/or ruining the nutrients by cooking it too long.
Yeah I guess so. It feels like there’s nothing appetizing I can eat anymore. I don’t see why it would be okay to eat raw, but not raw + blended into a paste, but usually it’s better for me to do the opposite of what I think is right.
Posting my diet here could be good in the abstract, but I’m really not feeling up to it today. There will be lots of do this not that, etc, and I already feel like I’m being pulled in too many directions. Over the course of the day I gradually became more and more filled with thoughts of self-harm, and it was so rough in the gym and walking home. Just feelings of - even a full recovery would be too late for me because I’m too old, and I should have done it earlier when I still had a chance at a normal life.
I could post diet things in the future but I don’t feel up to it now. And I guess it also makes more sense to post a longer time’s worth of data because if I make it part of my daily routine people aren’t going to like that.
Sometimes certain ingredients or preservatives aren’t listed on the bottle. Sometimes the process or storing it can make it less than ideal. Might not be the butter itself at all but the process. Kinda like the concept of how storing things in plastic bags can cause whatever is in the plastic to seep into your food. Which is why I use glass. I could be wrong and it could be fine but I can’t imagine swapping out for almonds wouldn’t be a better alternative.
Just do it whenever you’re ready bro, or not at all. We’re here to help tho. You also sound like you may just have depression in general, maybe go out and start a new hobby. Get a new job, find ways to be happy while you’re stuck in this mess. Depression is a thing outside of PFS as well.
I was just going to comment that Turnover. I've spoken to many people with depression throughout the years Letsgo, and while I can't begin to understand what many have gone through, I can tell you that they were all grateful that they received medical help.
That all makes sense; I was just thinking I could enjoy sliced apples with almond butter, but the almond butter could still have industrial BS in it. It’s at least in a glass jar, for what that’s worth. It has a lot of nostalgia value for me because I used to eat that a lot as a kid (except with peanut butter.) I wonder if I can have unsweetened almond milk, maybe not…
I agree about glass being better than plastic; it took me a long time to find a water filter that is mostly glass and not plastic. (The water in my area tastes off, and I won’t drink it without it being filtered.) I do have whole almonds as well, they just don’t go as well with apples but of course that’s not essential, and I need to eat for my goals, not enjoyment. If I ate for enjoyment, I’d be 800 lbs, scooping handfuls of chocolate cake into my mouth as I ordered my second pizza of the day.
I don’t know if I’ll get to a place emotionally where I won’t feel like everything was a waste, and that I’m just too late. I don’t feel too old, but all of my hopes are on this idea that I can turn things around and be successful and meet someone a bit younger than me and that things will work out, and it’ll be basically the same as if I’d met her when I was ten years younger. (Some women like guys who are a bit older than them, and 2 years ago there was a woman at my old gym who was very interested in me and she didn’t even know about my income potential. The women I’ve dated up here who wanted to be with me, reading between the lines, they were into me thinking that I’d transition to my actual career and then be successful.)
I desperately need to get out of my current living situation (alone in a city I hate) and job. My self esteem was so battered, and I was in an abusive situation at home when PFS hit and it took me many years to get out of there. I was suffering badly from PFS, or else I would’ve been emotionally strong enough to have gotten out in a better way. (My free testosterone was at chemical castration levels.)
I ended up taking a very shitty entry-level job that would be okay for a 23 year old, but I was 11 years older than that, with a graduate degree in an unrelated profession. So now I answer phonecalls and make a pathetic salary. And I potentially had a job in my field I could have gotten in 2017, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to the interview and embarass myself. Now it’s 3 years later and I’m still in this horrible job, I've made zero friends here (although I did date a bit here and there when I had flashes of libido,) and I’m long overdue for leaving. Some months ago I stupidly reached out to my dad, who got enraged at the mention of leaving because it’s "a secure job," and he views me as a colossal fuckup and failure who needs to stay within the state system and prioritize job safety over everything else, period. But there are no quality jobs I can lateral to, and especially not down in NYC where I want to live. So I have to leave, it just feels impossible. It felt like a crazy miracle leaving my folks and I feel like it’ll take another miracle to get out of here. When things are open again in NYC, I want to go join a photography meetup and do improv comedy (even though I know I’m too old, at least I won’t have the burden of dreaming of SNL or something,) and hang out with my friends, and make new ones. My world right now is so dark and small.
So I’m working on leaving, for real this time. I'm getting everything ready, and once I get my malpractice insurance and find someone to help me with the retainer agreements and disengagement letters I’ll need for clients, and a few other things, I’ll start running my ads. I already have a temporary shared office that I go to on the weekends, got professional photos, made an okayish website (that I’ll need to keep tweaking,) studied an enormous 500+ page treatise that explains 90% of everything I didn’t know, have 2 people I can ask if I really get stuck, and I know how to do all the substantive work from extensive volunteering, doing the exact things I’d be doing for money. I do not need “at least five years of experience” like my father (who knows nothing about this) insists. Hopefully I can start testing my ads in a week or two. There’s just a ton of small roadblocks that continually pop up, and I know the ads and website are going to need tweaking. (I will eventually hire someone to make a better website.)
In theory, when the ads are working, I should be able to adjust my workflow just by dialing my ad spending. (But if it was this easy, why are so many people doing this work as employees, or quitting the profession, instead of making a good living doing it for themselves?) Once all of that is sorted out and I have some clients lined up, I would like to gear up to leave sooner rather than later, and look for out of state real estate to finally invest in (I’ve been reading books and whatnot on that for 2 years, plus more when I was a teenager.) Then I will also need to learn how to do some consumer advocacy stuff, which should be able to more than double my income over time - it’s somewhat harder and most people in this field don’t bother to learn it. Anyway, if I can do that, theoretically, I can make bank. But launching the ads is going to be like jumping out of a plane, and I know they’re not going to work without tweaks, and that I’ll have to fight the urge to declare it all a failure and quit instead of tweaking the ads.
I have a therapist appointment lined up on Monday, but I had just picked someone at random and I’m not sure he’s going to be a good fit for me after talking to him on the phone. Not sure if I’ll go see him anyway or cancel and try to find someone else ASAP. Also I know they all demand that I go on SSRIs when I’m feeling down, and I don’t like paying and taking time out of my week to argue with someone for 60 minutes about why I won’t take SSRIs. I’m just going to ask him for help dealing with the stuff I need to deal with to get out of this job and back to NYC (which I saw a different thereapist for 2 years ago, but back then I had a shittier plan that I wish people had talked me out of.)
- - - Updated - - -
Thanks for the kind words. I have a therapist appointment on Monday, but I always get into arguments with them when they start telling me to take SSRIs. Most of the time I’m not low like I am now, but sometimes I am, and at that point they always go “yep, you need to be on SSRIs” and they ultimately end up dumping me when I refuse. I’d like to find a good therapist who won’t do that.
Well brother I’m gonna be honest with you, I really sympathize with you. I feel for you for the time you feel like you lost and I know how much of a struggle all this is. Unfortunately that isn’t going to help you my man, but I can share some of my own experiences cuz I think they may be of some help.
I really do think that your attitude is part of the problem, not that you have a shitty attitude or anything but it doesn’t seem like you’re very positive about all this and honestly that’s huge. The only person who can help you is you, so you have to be in your own corner and realize you can do everything you just told me. But stuff like your age, who cares man. People start new hobbies at all walks of life. My hockey team has 60 year old dudes who started playing in their 50’s. Find what you enjoy then do that. Also, your age isn’t going to deter women. Your attitude will though. You sound like a good person who’s accomplished a lot in life and you need to wear that on your sleeve and girls will be attracted to that. Woman love confidence, that’s about it. Unless you’re insanely unattractive.
When I graduated high school about 10 years ago, I had a 6 month period before shipping out to the military where I worked 2nd shift, and just waited to leave. I never saw friends, never did anything I liked and just wasted my life away. I was 18, free of PFS and I was still more depressed than I am today with PFS. Depression can manifest if you’re not getting out there and doing things you enjoy, or allowing yourself to be shackled by your thoughts like you seem to be. I mean that in the nicest way possible of course.
This year around Jan/Feb I was an absolute wreck. I eventually graduated school and I’ve taken a lot of leaps this year I was terrified to take because of PFS but I took the leaps and they paid off. If they didn’t work out, the outcome was never as bad as I was dreading. At least I tried. I got a full time job which I was terrified to fail at because of brain fog, still took it and I’m doing great. I joined a hockey team and was scared for the same reasons and I’m so glad I did. And now I’m seeing a girl who I was terrified to start something with because of fear that brain fog would prevent me from holding conversations or that I wouldn’t be able to fuck because I can’t get hard. It was all in my head and it’s going great.
I don’t mean to be preachy but I care about the guys on this forum and I want you to feel better, PFS will make things hard but if you hold yourself back then you’ve really lost. Just my two cents at least.
Only God will decide what the right path for you is. If you fail, that is what he wanted. If you succeed, that is what he wanted as well. It’s up to you to decide what that means.
Living in a big city is not only bad for your sexual sides due to pollution (my sides improve a lot in the countryside, and many others have reported this as well) but also bad for your mentality. In a city you are surrounded by some people that live and die without a moment of genuine fulfillment, in part due to living in an unhealthy environment and in part due to their never-satiated greed. You don’t want to become a slave to those people, nor do you want to become those people. If you don’t remain disciplined and diligent you yourself will fall into that state. You can live where you choose though, this is just simply my advice.
We have already disobeyed God’s path by using man made pharmaceutical drugs to achieve beauty when in fact we were already blessed with beauty to begin with. But in a PFS state you can even further slip into a state of manic beyond repent. Watch yourself, remain diligent and aware. Work through the brain fog and be good and disciplined, every step of the way. Even when it’s inconvenient. And work hard.
Therapy is a hit or miss, as you said many are not there for you and will prescribe you pharmaceutical drugs which will make you worse in the long run.
I wish you a fulfilling life and a recovery from PFS.
My mood goes up and own in waves; some days I feel really bad, and a day or two later I could feel full of optimism. On the bad days I really don’t have any positivity, and for sure that’s something to work on. Most of the time I’m not feeling pessimistic, but I hear what you’re saying and I agree that confidence / self-esteem are important things to work on. That’s part of why I’m not sure I found the right therapist, but I guess we’ll see how it goes with him. Focusing on launching my biz and getting back where I belong.
Just to reemphasize, I have dated women before and during PFS. It’s not that I’m worried no one would want me, it’s a sort of illogical thought that you have to date someone your own age - which would mean having kids immediately, or never having kids. My father instilled this weird preoccupation with age and I want to get out from under that as well.
Thanks for your kind words and I’m rooting for you as well, bro.
I appreciate that you’re wishing me well, and I wish you well too. Please don’t take what I’m about to say the wrong way, but there are a bunch of things you wrote that I wanted to comment on, because I have a different perspective.
I feel that recovery is entirely within my own control and I do not believe in predestination, or that divine powers control outcomes. I don’t believe in a supernatural force controlling what I do, or the outcomes of my actions, or that there is a grand plan that was set out in advance. I enthusiastically celebrate you having those beliefs, but they’re quite different than mine. We definitely don’t share similar religious beliefs.
Reading between the lines a bit, I feel like you’re saying that there’s doubt and uncertainty about recovering. That it’s all up to some higher power, rather than my own actions. I disagree - this board is about taking charge and taking ownership. If I don’t recover, it’ll be because I gave up or I didn’t follow the directions properly, not because of sins, destiny, religion, or where I choose to live.
I do not think that it is healthy to think of PFS as a curse, or as a punishment for the sin of vanity or anything along those lines. I found that to be a little hurtful. Part of the healing process, for me anyway, is learning to forgive one’s self for taking finasteride, and accepting it. Unconditional self-acceptance. We took a risk, and it didn’t pay off, but that doesn’t mean we were morally worse than someone who dyes their prematurely graying hair, or someone who gets a nose job. If that was how the universe worked, then guys who get hair transplants or liposuction would get PFS. But that’s not how PFS works, it works biologically, through the laws of science.
I also have a different perspective when it comes to cities. I was born in NYC and lived in or next to it for +90% of my life. NYC is my real home, period. You telling me to live out in the countryside would be like me trying to convince you to convert to a different religion.
I’m not letting PFS define my life or dictate where I should live - I don’t want to have to wait X amount of time before I can return to NYC and get going with what I want to do. I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in NYC, but the air is not dirty. I’m sure the air is cleaner out in a Montana countryside or whatever, but that has nothing to do with PFS. CD did not move out to a rural area to get cured, and lots of guys who live in big cities, including NYC, have been cured. This is our first interaction, so it’s a bit bold to assume that I am a rural person.
I have a very different perspective than you do about NYC being an unhealthy environment, and it rubbed me the wrong way when you insinuated that it’s filled with insatiable greed, or that it carries this risk of turning me into an unfulfilled slave who cares only about money. Perhaps you already consider me to be such a person. But anyway, I lived most of my life in or next to NYC. It’s home to me. I’m sure people could say negative things about where you like to live, but that’s not a kind thing to do. There are good and bad people everywhere, and whether someone wants to live in a city or not comes down to their personal preferences. Moving out to the countryside is the last thing I’d want to do.
So just to reiterate, I’m not angry at you and I wish you all the best. Please don’t take the above differences as criticism; we just have different perspectives. I’m wishing you a speedy recovery.
Correct on the women aspect. Age has nothing to do with it.....at all. Your personality has EVERYTHING to do with it. Looks are a plus and it will get you in the door, so to speak, but for men, it's our attitude and confidence and the way we carry ourselves that define who we are. NOTHING else.
I agree. That’s the next thing to work on, as I work on some other things as well. I’m above-average in the looks department, but not in the upper upper tier - which is fine. A decent portion of women like how I look, even though I’m not tall, so that’s pretty nice. Plus, my shoulders are broader and I look somewhat muscular. I’d still like to get a good 80% of the way to my genetic maximum, and I’m not close to that yet.
Also it’ll be easier for me to be confident when things are rolling with my business, and as I make more progress with recovering. I do feel like I’m on the verge of another upswing, potentially. As always, I need to find a way to get more sleep and to stop touching myself. It’s no good to be tired all day, like I am now.
During an upswing I have libido every day; right now it’s starting to be most days, but the morning wood is extremely weak and in the times I do fap, I either don’t feel anything, or it feels like my brain isn’t fully connected so I don’t really feel an orgasm. It’s a sort of in-between phase between feeling absolutely nothing, and something.
The Snowballs underwear might be helping, and I also tend to do better hormonally when I’m in a small caloric surplus, like I am now. I’m also making sure to get enough protein now, which is sure to help. With better protein intake and a caloric surplus, I expect my workouts to start translating into more muscle and strength gains now.
Still no morning wood. I wonder if the gluten free rice noodles I sometimes use for carb backloading are somehow to blame. (I don’t use gluten free soy sauce with them anymore.)
When I started parts of the protocol, I got good results at first. I got mono in October and didn’t eat many calories that month, and lost a huge amount of muscle and fat. When I started eating again I stopped eating gluten, in November 2019, and I suddenly got my morning wood back every day. That only until May 2020, I think. I attributed it ending in May due to not working out much since mid-March, due to the gym closure and me being too lazy and whatnot to find a way to work out consistently and intensely in my apartment.
I can’t think of what I’m doing “wrong,” other than only getting 6.5 hours of sleep per night and not meditating every day. I feel like I was closer to getting healed at the beginning of this year, and I can’t seem to get back to that daily morning wood. Even the prohormones didn’t kick off an upswing or restore my morning wood.
When I eliminated the red lentil pasta, that didn’t restore the morning wood either. Nothing has, right now.
Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts on this?
Don't use morning wood as so much of a guage of your overall health. Use your actual functionality for that. If you're doing everything 100% then you have nothing to worry about. During healing these things come and go and you can't put too much stock into them or you'll drive yourself nuts. As long as you're making steady forward progress it's a non issue, and that's how it should be thought of.
So I’ve been using the Snowballs underwear; not sure if I mentioned this already but it has some freezable gel packs that slide into the front. They are gray briefs that have a deep “pocket” in the front for the gel packs, each of which keeps the boys cold for about 20 mins. This system has the advantage of not being able to accidentally castrate you in your sleep like an ice pack, because it’ll thaw out before any damage can be done. The 3 packs last about 60 mins, and then you re-freeze them and use them again in the second half of the day.
The creator was supposedly infertile and went to many fertility doctors before one of them recommended cooling his balls, and apparently that worked for him and he created the product. It’s expensive for what it is, but I wouldn’t mess around with an ice pack and this feels much safer, and comfortable. You can wear it and mostly forget about it while you’re at home.
Bizarrely, after 10 - 15 minutes, I tend to get spontaneous wood with it! And some feelings of libido! Not the entire time, but here and there; it does seem to elevate my libido. I’ll definitely keep using it. If I’m getting this reaction to it this quickly, maybe it will keep helping me.
There have been a bunch of studies showing that cooling the balls can increase sperm count, but I haven’t been able to find studies showing that it can actually raise test. They might be out there, and I wasn’t looking very hard. There are tons of studies showing that heating the balls lowers sperm count by a lot, but many claim that short-term cold provides benefits. English wrote that he felt that starting the day with a swim in cold water, or taking a cold shower, was very important. So this could be something to add in along with a cold shower - because let’s face it, you’re not going to take a 2 hour cold shower.
Perhaps the coldness causes the body to send extra blood to that area, to try to warm it up, and the extra blood could help it to function better. That could explain the wood, but I don’t know why it seems to boost my libido.
From December 12th to December 24th, there were only 7 days where I didn’t fap. And on the other 6 days I fapped 7 times total - generally there would be 2 or so days of abstaining and then 2 days of not. I have to figure out some sort of strategy - or just use more willpower - to stop that. I always felt like if I could get it under control for an extended period, that that would help me. Oddly, most of those faps were because of sudden libido surges while wearing the cold balls thing.
I have been feeling a bit foggy lately; I think from lack of sleep. Getting 6 hours every night leaves me feeling exhausted - I need 8, or close to it, on a consistent basis and I know I’ll feel a lot better. At night I always feel like I need to stay up later, apparently I was like that even as a baby and toddler, but it’s just a habit, not genetics.
I have been getting morning wood lately, although not 10/10 strength, except one time when I took a nap and woke up with one that was just like it was pre-fin. Maximum strength, and it lasted for a good 3 minutes without me doing anything. It’s weird when you get a real one, maximum strength, because you’re not used to it and you forgot it could get like that. I wouldn’t call this an upswing necessarily, but it’s definitely not a downswing and I’m doing better hormonally than I have been in recent weeks. I think my body is desperate for more sleep, and that that will be a key thing for me. So on that note, I’m heading to bed now.
As you know cold showers are a part of this protocol for the numerous health benefits they have for men. Once you get yourself acclimated, you really only need to take a 5 minute cold shower......max, and you still get all of the benefits. It's more about the consistency then the length of time under ice. I'm not familiar with the snowballs underwear but I would think you wouldn't want to cool your boys for more then two hours.....
The thing with the snowballs underwear is that they recommend doing 60 minutes in the morning and 60 minutes in the evening, rather than two hours all in one shot. I end up doing 20 mins at a time with some gaps in between, and then a second set of 3 in the next half of the day. The boys feel cold to the touch, but they don’t feel numb from the cold. It’s been shown to boost sperm count by a lot so I don’t think it has any negatives, and Soviet Olympic athletes used to ice their boys back in the days before steroids were invented.
General update: I’m having a very nice upswing now, with libido/interest waaay up (still not pre-fin,) and my ability to feel pleasure is partly back, maybe 20%. Morning wood is also back but not max strength. It’s been like this all week.
I’ll do cold showers in addition. I normally only take showers at night before bed, because I’m always waking up as late as possible due to awful sleep habits. If I take the cold showers right before bed, it’d probably mess with my sleep. I’ll have to find a way to sleep earlier and then wake up a little earlier and start my day off the cold way.