Ratchet’s Story & Recovery

[Ratchet_V2]

4 weeks + 2 days. Today is the last day of my cycle. I killed one can of UH. Feeling pretty good. Have been @ 5 pumps this last week. Taking a vacation the first two weeks of August. Planning on herbs until at least October. Might expand on my first cycle experience soon. My recommendation is to follow the protocol 100%, cycle during a period in your life w/ little stress and a lot of sun, slowly increase your dosage on cycle, and don’t overthink your cycle. I also drank what they call an adrenal cocktail everyday after reading the purported benefits of coconut water here. It’s basically 1 cup of coconut water, a 1/4 cup of organic OJ w/ no additives or pulp, and a 1/4 tsp of sea salt. It’s supposed to be good for balancing your sodium/potassium ratio, but I don’t know if that’s the case. Either way, it tastes good, adds some carbs for cycle, and is something nice to look forward to each day. Give it a go.

All the best,

Ratchet

[HOPE]

4 weeks + 2 days. Today is the last day of my cycle. I killed one can of UH. Feeling pretty good. Have been @ 5 pumps this last week. Taking a vacation the first two weeks of August. Planning on herbs until at least October. Might expand on my first cycle experience soon. My recommendation is to follow the protocol 100%, cycle during a period in your life w/ little stress and a lot of sun, slowly increase your dosage on cycle, and don’t overthink your cycle. I also drank what they call an adrenal cocktail everyday after reading the purported benefits of coconut water here. It’s basically 1 cup of coconut water, a 1/4 cup of organic OJ w/ no additives or pulp, and a 1/4 tsp of sea salt. It’s supposed to be good for balancing your sodium/potassium ratio, but I don’t know if that’s the case. Either way, it tastes good, adds some carbs for cycle, and is something nice to look forward to each day. Give it a go.

All the best,

Ratchet

Any benefits from your first cycle? By the way, how’s your anhedonia? It seems like me, you, Turnover had this symptom pretty hard. It’s been lifted once after a water fast, so I know it doesn’t have to be permanent, but I see that you’ve said your mental symptoms were gone, so would be great to hear of your experience with “anhedonia”. Such a crippling symptom

[Ratchet_V2]

Any benefits from your first cycle? By the way, how’s your anhedonia? It seems like me, you, Turnover had this symptom pretty hard. It’s been lifted once after a water fast, so I know it doesn’t have to be permanent, but I see that you’ve said your mental symptoms were gone, so would be great to hear of your experience with “anhedonia”. Such a crippling symptom

Hey Hope,

Definitely. I would say that, overall, the cycle was very beneficial, but in a wholistic way. Nothing specific resolved itself acutely, I just feel more well-rounded and generally better. One of the more notable things that I noticed, which I thought was interesting, was that it made quitting nicotine easier. I hopped off about a week in, and my withdrawal symptoms were significantly less severe than before. I was also expecting a wall of brain fog, like the other times that I put it down, and it never came. It felt like the UH just kept me cruising, and that has stuck around for the most part after my cycle.

In terms of anhedonia, I'd have to go back and look at my log, but I don't really identify with this symptom any more. I remember during the first half of my recovery, I would have 1-2 day spells where I was certainly anhedonic. Feeling nothing is a very distinct feeling, ironically. But these were also sometimes the result of nuclear fallouts from breakdowns and stress. I would say that I'm more emotionally blunted, but I think this is an indirect consequence of the ensuing trauma of this experience and not a direct result of fin. It's hard to feel anything in the context of PFS, especially when it consumes your every thought and bleeds through every experience you have in your waking life. The less I think about PFS, the more I begin to reconnect with my emotions and feel joy. That being said, too, I did have one day on cycle where I went for a walk during golden hour. It was such a beautiful experience that it actually brought tears to my eyes. I don't know if it was because it was so beautiful, or if it was because I felt connected to the world again and I realized how long I had gone without that feeling. Whether it was joy, mourning, sorrow, whatever, it was emotional and really nice. You're right, its not permanent. I believe it's one of those symptoms that has to be ignored and forgotten in order to move on and overcome it. I like to think about it like the Observer Effect. Or Schrodingers cat, kind of. Observing your emotions inherently changes them. Constantly fixating on this idea that you're unable to feel will cause you to, well, not feel. Looking into the box will kill the cat. Your energy is better spent clearing space in your life for you to be a happy person and not thinking about your anhedonia.

[Ratchet_V2]

Hey all,

I've been doing really well. To be succinct, if my dick miraculously returned to it's old self, I would consider myself 98% recovered. I still don't have the libido I used to, but I think this is more a function of being down because of my dick than it is just PFS at this point. I've come a long ways and look forward to writing a recovery some day. No shame, this post is a hail mary and is going to be completely about my manhood. Go ahead and close out if you don't want to read all things penis for the next five minutes.

I'm here writing this tonight in hopes that anyone who has experienced something similar can help or point me in the right direction. My dick has slowly regressed since the beginning, imperceptibly at first, and it hasn't really shown any sort of improvement in a long time. It may still be getting worse. Please bare with me as I try to describe this, it's proving pretty difficult.

I'm only speaking in terms of it's size, rigidity, and other seriously weird shit involving my pelvic floor and nuts. I'm able to obtain erections when I want, maintain them, and have sex without issue. NTEs and MW are more common than not now. My issues are the following:

I have lost measurable size on my john, primarily girth. I'm going to have a doppler/ultrasound done to eliminate the possibility of fibrosis and plaque, but my money is that it's one of those two causing this. I've developed ridge like dents? but not really dents, more like uniform ribs on both sides of my shaft. I honestly don't think this is plaque, as it's very uniform and only noticeable when erect. I think there is a possibility that these have also always been there, but are noticeable now with tissue loss. My erections are very hard but smaller, like the kind you would have on your third wank sesh of the day prior to PFS. I also have the occasional hourglassing when flaccid, but its not nearly as present anymore. Unfortunately, I think this has more to do with my unit being smaller than it does with whatever causes the hourglass going away. It usually only appears when I've got a chub going.

My whole pelvic floor is completely out of whack in every which way. The way my dick sits and hangs is just different. I used to think pelvic floor was a crock of shit, but after watching the ways my dick can contort and change just by laying a different direction or taking a shit, I've come to realize what a delicate system it really is. I don't really know where to start, so I'll just fire off. I can't flex or make my dick "jump" when flaccid or semi-erect like I used to. I can get it to move inwards, but it's really just me flexing my butthole moreso than anything else. When I have an erection, it stands at attention, so I know this isn't a suspensory issue, and I am able to make it "jump" then. My gucc feels like there is a baseball in it sometimes, and other times it feels completely depleted to the point that my gucc skin literally hangs down and I can flick it. No shit I thought I was growing a vagina at one point. The base of my penis feels weak, eroded, and concave, and it's definitely twisted on its axis. It feels like my pelvic floor dropped out in some areas and tightened in others. Really hard to explain.

Earlier in my recovery, I was definitely hard flaccid most of the time. This quietly went away, and now my dick is longer than it used to be flaccid, but also much skinnier and light. It also hangs lower and more straight down than out, so I don't have a bulge in my shorts when I run. It also goes rubbery if I shake it out too many times or masturbate. I basically feel like I have an 80 year olds dick attached to my pelvis, with the balls to go with it. My balls, like my gucc, like to vacillate between hanging super low and stretched out like a turkey neck to tucked up and tight. Rarely is there any in-between.

The fat pad under my pubes has also gained a lot of fat, which is also weird considering I'm leaner than I've ever been and in better shape than I've ever been. At this rate, I'm going to be a skinny dude with a FUPA.

All in all, I'm going to first and foremost try and just live with this as my new normal. Ironically, I think that's when it will revert back to its old self. Like the way an ex comes back the moment you've actually moved on. I'm also going to incorporate pelvic floor stretching and exercises daily in a way that meshes well with my current routine, and I'm going to look into other pumps, because I can't seem to make the bathmate work, especially with the way my dick and balls hang. If I do end up back with the bathmate, I'll have to fucking downsize it now.

I'm going to make a similar post over on the PE and Peyronie's forums to try and find some answers there as well.

I really appreciate your guys input, and I know whatever you have to say is better than whatever any urologist has ever told me during a 10 minute appointment. I'm very grateful to have overcome the worse side of PFS (imo neurological by far), but going from a sizeable piece to an average, teetering now on below average, one sucks. It really dictates my mental space and has made sexual encounters way less enjoyable. I don't want to end up 30 with an 80 year olds dick and a cuckold fetish. Cheers.

P.S. If you've read my thread and you'd like to know what has and hasn't worked for me re: anything, please feel free to inquire/respond here. I don't think it's possible or relevant to compare cases, but I've experienced the full gamut of sides associated with this shit to varying degrees, and I wouldn't classify my case as mild by any means. It's been almost two years of hard work, trial and error, dedication, learning, and hope and I'd love to share it with all of you. I don't plan on hanging around this place for too long, but I've said that before too.