My Recovery Journey

[acne1776]

Hey guys,

First off I would like to thank the members here for being so helpful and creating such a positive environment for people with PFS. Tremendous amount of respect for the members here. It is particularly inspiring to see the members who have recovered from the disorder.

I'm very familiar with CDnuts protocol and have implemented the majority of it over the past few months. I'm lifting 3x a week and doing HIIT 2x a week. Also doing cardio a few times a week (hobby of mine) but I'm planning on stopping as it gets colder out as I know cardio isn't good for testosterone levels.

Currently have a gluten free, dairy free, sugar free diet and was found to have candida so I'm taking garlic supplements to get rid of that.

The reason I'm posting is because a few years ago I experimented with cannabis as a potential cure, and although it surprisingly worked, i eventually developed psychosis on it and I have residual psychotic symptoms. As a result I have to take a low dose of seroquel indefinitely. My shrink also put me on effexor. I know both of these are bad for testosterone levels so I guess my question is: do you guys think it is still possible to recover while being on these drugs? The effexor I could come off at any time but unfortunately i need to be one seroquel or another antipsychotic probably for life. Strangely i started getting morning erections every night after starting the effexor.

Also because of possible interactions I probably can't take herbs but read for guys tanning your chest increases testosterone by 50%, tanning your back doubles test levels, and tanning your balls TRIPLES test levels. So i'm planning on buying a sun lamp and doing this as an alternative. Hopefully this information is accurate.

I apologize for such a long post but felt it necessary to include all the details of my situation. Once again appreciate any advice anyone can give and thanks for being so generous with your time and knowledge.

[Snell1234]

Careful with the sun lamp - melanoma isn't a cancer you want to be getting.

[Maxout777]

Careful with the sun lamp - melanoma isn't a cancer you want to be getting.

Just to add on to this - the LAST thing I would want to be baking with external heat would be my balls. That's a whole host of other issues. Your boys like to be cool....that's why I've switched to all cold showers. Hot balls equal poor sperm quality and probably lower T than higher T.

Other than that, welcome to the forum and keep at it!

[acne1776]

Hey guys appreciate the advice probably not gonna use the sunlamp after all. Also decided to come off of effexor (even though it definitely helped my depression significantly). Feel like the best way to do this is as natural as possible. Can't come off the seroquel unfortunately but I'm hoping I can recover despite being on it. It does have anti inflammatory properties so maybe i'm just being optimistic in hoping it isn't a huge detriment. Either way gonna work my ass off and excited to see what happens

[xxLUK]

The reason I'm posting is because a few years ago I experimented with cannabis as a potential cure, and although it surprisingly worked, i eventually developed psychosis on it and I have residual psychotic symptoms. As a result I have to take a low dose of seroquel indefinitely.

to what extent did cannabis help you with your sexual side effects? I have read brahs who have accutane induced PFS who vaped cannabis or even ate the oil claimed they had improved libido and erections, when stopping the use of cannabis nothing improved or got worse, it elevated their baseline. Did you keep your gains from the cannabis in regards to sexuality or no?

I am sorry to hear you are suffering from psychotic symptoms, perhaps an underlying issue all along but was accelerated by weed?

[acne1776]

It got me to about 80%-90% but i was continuing to improve when I had to stop. Morning erections every morning, libido, was having good sex. Actually mental functioning was better than ever until the psychotic symptoms. All my improvements slowly went away over the course of 2 months. I do not believe it is a viable long term treatment option and quite frankly it is not even worth it to experiment with it. Diet exercise and supplementation is the way to go in my opinion.

Not a chance in hell I had an underlying issue that would have happened without the cannabis. I had the genes that made me susceptible to psychosis but I had never even experienced mild paranoia or anything beyond PFS induced social anxiety before.