Flapjack - Recovery log

[Flapjack]

Happy for you my man.

I can really relate with the obsessive thoughts, everyday I wish I didnt take that single pill it's really hard. I am not as recovered as you, but I know it's gonna be a challenge to reintegrate real life once I am, because I will always be scared.

Keep it up with the protocol, I think you'll be 100% soon

Yeah, by and large i see obsessive thought patterns being the last major obstacle that stands in the way of a normal life again besides my Insomnia. Time heals all and as the body heals in tandem, I'm sure the thoughts will diminish. Thanks for the encouragement, I expect the same of you!

[Flapjack]

Back earlier than I thought to report that for the first time all year, I actually felt horny last night. Damn that felt good lmao. Was afraid I'd never feel that again. Cheers!

[Cdsnuts]

Back earlier than I thought to report that for the first time all year, I actually felt horny last night. Damn that felt good lmao. Was afraid I'd never feel that again. Cheers!

GREAT sign!! Now you know you CAN'T stop. You're on you way man....This is when things start to get good......START...to get good.

[Flapjack]

Today I felt as close to normal as I ever have. odd, because over christmas i slacked a bit and drank, and ate out of the paleo diet. libido, energy, and mental clarity all on point. We'll see how it goes though.

[Flapjack]

Sup everyone,

it's been another month. Here's where I'm at.
I've been following the protocol at about 80%, I ran out of some supplements so I'm going to restock and i'll be back at full go, but otherwise my diet and exercise along with cold water exposure and breathwork have been maintained well. I will say about once a week I have given in to meeting friends for drinks, and I'm not exactly pleased with what that means for my recovery timeline. I do wonder how much that has truly set me back but going forward, i think I'm just going to have to turn down the opportunities to go out. Symptom wise, still a slow crawl. I've been on an upward trajectory since starting but the dp/dr and fatigue are still sticking around. sleep is about 90% but i still walk around most days feeling like I had about 4 hours of rest. Enough energy to get my tasks done, but not enough to really flourish in my life, I'm just sort of stuck in this hazy dream state. It's getting very tiresome and I'm eager to put this behind me. Anyways, nothing revelatory but that's where things stand. hope all is well out there.

Flapjack

[Cdsnuts]

Sup everyone,

it's been another month. Here's where I'm at.
I've been following the protocol at about 80%, I ran out of some supplements so I'm going to restock and i'll be back at full go, but otherwise my diet and exercise along with cold water exposure and breathwork have been maintained well. I will say about once a week I have given in to meeting friends for drinks, and I'm not exactly pleased with what that means for my recovery timeline. I do wonder how much that has truly set me back but going forward, i think I'm just going to have to turn down the opportunities to go out. Symptom wise, still a slow crawl. I've been on an upward trajectory since starting but the dp/dr and fatigue are still sticking around. sleep is about 90% but i still walk around most days feeling like I had about 4 hours of rest. Enough energy to get my tasks done, but not enough to really flourish in my life, I'm just sort of stuck in this hazy dream state. It's getting very tiresome and I'm eager to put this behind me. Anyways, nothing revelatory but that's where things stand. hope all is well out there.

Flapjack

We both know that drinking is going to set your recovery back, by how much, hard to say, but enough to warrant not doing it.

[Flapjack]

We both know that drinking is going to set your recovery back, by how much, hard to say, but enough to warrant not doing it.

yep. it's hard, because i just moved to a city in the pacific northwest where I know almost nobody and the winter weather wears on your psyche at times, i really want to meet people here but alcohol is ingrained in the social scene unfortunately. at the end of the day, i know what i need to do, I just don't want to pass up opportunities for dates, making friends etc.

[Flapjack]

Been feeling well lately. It's been slow, consistent improvement since I set off on this regimen full go back in October. My sleep was completely fucked back in those days. The way I felt as I woke up from 4 hours of some semi-sleeplike state and the thought of dealing with that for a lifetime caused a crushing depression that lasted an entire spring, summer, and well into the fall. I've already been dealing with a litany of chronic health problems in my young life and to add one more debilitating issue was terrifying.

Now, I'm back to a point where the depression is more or less gone, or at least more reflective of actual normal problems instead of something directly caused by 5AR inhibitors. I wake up, go to the gym, feel inspired to be creative again, and generally feel well throughout the day. My DP/DR, fatigue, and libido issues are still present but I now can see a rough timeline for a full recovery forming if my progress continues to be consistent. Right now, I feel like I'm a good year from being fully recovered and then some.

Something interesting is that I now realize I've been suffering from some form of anhedonia since my adolescence. I actually went to a counselor when I was 15 for this issue I noticed I had developed where It seemed like I couldn't laugh or truly find humor in things that used to make me laugh to the point of tears. This was also a period of time in my life where I was smoking a lot of marijuana and on ADD medication for a prolonged period of time. I suspect these two may have impeded some aspect of my brain development in these years, as there came a point where I felt like something was really off in terms of my emotional processing. Since then, things got better but never resolved prior to finding this forum. Now that I've been familiarized with the deleterious effects of pharmaceuticals, I can see that this could possibly be the root cause of these emotional issues I've been struggling with for now around a decade. I'm hoping the protocol can pull me back to my pre-fin state and then push me to recover at least partially from the anhedonia and emotional stunting I dealt with since far before I ever tried finasteride. Just some thoughts floating in my head on a weekend. Hope you all are well.

Best,

Flapjack

[Flapjack]

Good and bad news -

The good is that the fatigue spell I was hit with after the yeast has pretty much dissipated, which is a relief.
The bad is that my tinnitus - which I've had for 8 years as a result of other drug use, is on a tear after a night out at a club. I wore hearing protection as I almost always do in this setting, but there was a good 5 minutes or so where I didn't have them in. My hearing is still pretty much perfect but my tinnitus has just been ripping which is really concerning me. Being drug-induced tinnitus in the first place, I'm hoping that continuing along with the protocol will bring it back to the state it previously was, which was basically unnoticeable. But the anxiety is telling me PFS has weakened my hearing and this spike isn't going down again. Regardless, life goes on. I'm just hoping I see a resolution in this soon.

[Outlaw]

Good and bad news -

The good is that the fatigue spell I was hit with after the yeast has pretty much dissipated, which is a relief.
The bad is that my tinnitus - which I've had for 8 years as a result of other drug use, is on a tear after a night out at a club. I wore hearing protection as I almost always do in this setting, but there was a good 5 minutes or so where I didn't have them in. My hearing is still pretty much perfect but my tinnitus has just been ripping which is really concerning me. Being drug-induced tinnitus in the first place, I'm hoping that continuing along with the protocol will bring it back to the state it previously was, which was basically unnoticeable. But the anxiety is telling me PFS has weakened my hearing and this spike isn't going down again. Regardless, life goes on. I'm just hoping I see a resolution in this soon.

I have PFS induced tinnitus. I got exposed to loud sounds at the dental cleaning, I had a huge spike, but it wasn't permanent. I don't mean that I'm tinnitus free, but it has generally lowered, and I had a handful of days (in the last 8 months) where it was really low.

I was the first one to be scared of tinnitus. I still am, but now that I understand what's going on, I realize that it's a biochemical response, rather than a physical damage. At least for me, it's a nervous system activation issue. If I expose myself to sounds, I will be sensitive to sounds for a few days. This lead me to believe that it's physical damage, but I always get back to baseline, and I recover much quicker with NMDA blocking substances, which tells me it's more a limbic system activation or excitoxicity.

I would recommend taking things that blocks the NMDA receptors (bacopa, magnesium threonate, gotu kola). Taking care of your liver and gut can also help tinnitus and sound sensitivity, as an overloaded liver or gut dysbiosis produces an excess of ammonia which stimulates NMDA receptors.

You got this king