My experience with PFS and how I'm beating it

[Ridd]

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to introduce myself to the community and offer what I have learned from this challenge so far. We all have a lot of knowledge on this thing, and I know someone can benefit from reading this, but a lot of you will probably know everything I'm going to say. It's the attitude that this forum has towards beating PFS that attracted me here, so thank you for the support and knowledge that many of you have provided me with, I feel like I know some of you personally, but I haven't been able to engage in the community yet because this websites functionality is a huge piece of shit. sorry mods. I have been lurking here (trying to chat for literally months) since february 2017 after my second crash from saw palmetto had me ready to end things. I've been following the info laid out for us by the big community players, and I'm thankful for each and every one of you contributing to make this into something that is much needed for men in our situation.

Notable sides-

hardcore depression
hardcore ED/reduced sex drive
brain fog
random health issues, incredibly easy to "lose balance" and feel like shit at any given time. (hypoglycemic, extreme sensitivities to stressors etc)
lots of other random stuff but the depression and reduced libido and definitely the worst.

I am a saw palmetto sufferer and I think I was particularly vulnerable to sides after taking accutane as a kid, which many know, may cause similar symptoms because of a similar mechanism of action. I was only on SP for about a month, but I was on a high dose, and my body was stressed out for years before finally crashing.
I took my first dose around september of 2016 at 23, crashed in october, made a decent recovery to about 85%, and then crashed hard in february after stressing out my body. I was unable to sleep for 4 days, bedridden, incredibly depressed, experienced the typical "walking dead" and very seriously considered ending it.

Now, on my good days, I'll be between 85-95% recovered, but as soon as my balance goes out of whack things quickly get bad. It's amazing how sensitive I am to any stress, I believe my adrenal glands are/were completely fucked as my symptoms seem to agree with that. I currently want to get my sexual health back and be able to not be a slave to this lifestyle eventually; however, for now, anyone dealing with what we are dealing with must follow the protocol that is laid out before us. You may make tweaks to fit what your body is telling you, but the basics are all here for us.

I've noticed that when do you have bad days and you don't actually have a full crash, if you end up pushing through that and continue the regiment, you hit an even higher upswing. It's easy to get tripped up on your bad days, but we all must push through that to get ever so slightly better each time it happens. mental health is just as important as our physical and physiological health here.

This syndrome is pretty fucked, but I'm confident we can all come out of it better men in the end if we continue working at it and stay in the right head space, which this community will help foster. No one else understands this thing like we do and we should all feel an obligation to help each other out as much as we can, especially because of how little support and awareness surrounds this issue. we are all we have here. This community is virtually the only positive PFS forum, and we must keep it that way and focus on recovery rather than the syndrome itself.

Good luck brothers.