Damn...Getting Close with a Lifetime to Optimize

[Damn]

Hi all,

I joined the forum at the beginning of this year and have chimed in a handful of times here and there, although, I never officially introduced myself. So, here I am...Damn

Before I get into the gory details, I would like to start by saying that, on protocol, I am currently at around 85-90% of my overall pre-Fin baseline (and actually above 100% in some areas due to all of the positive life changes I've made). This estimate is based on the fact that almost all of my symptoms are gone/nearly gone almost all of the time (I will get into more details on this later). It objectively takes into consideration age related factors (I am now 51), and being honest with myself re: my ability to recall with exact precision exactly how I looked or felt a year and a half ago (I was just not that intimately familiar with things like the texture of my nut sack back then ).

So, with that, here’s my story. I took Fin for 10 days in July of 2016 and then quit due to overwhelming fatigue & sleepiness. A couple days after quitting, my nuts started to ache fiercely and my left tit got a tad droopy. I went to my GP who had originally prescribed (she told me it was in my head) and a urologist (she told me it was just a transient issue that would clear up in a week or two). Well, you know the punchline…within a week, I was completely in the shit.

Symptoms (in no particular order) included:
• Aching & atrophying nuts
• Sweaty, cellophane skinned, constantly expanding & contracting scrotum (left testicle was actually laying sideways in the sack…you can’t make this shit up!)
• Swollen, saggy and painful tits
• Lost over 15 pounds of mostly lean mass (from an already thin 145 pounds to a skeletal sub-130)
• Extreme thinning specifically in face, forearms, wrists & thighs
• Bloating around hips & abdomen
• Dry and thinning skin
• No oil on face or forehead
• No sweat or body odor (except for a pencil eraser sized spot in my right pit that smelled funky as hell)
• Dry and super wiry hair (preferred my thinning hair to my new Brillo pad)
• Knee & wrist pain and cracking
• Low body temp (low 97s) and low pulse (upper 40s at rest)
• Reduced visual acuity (not so much blurry, but muted like an iPhone photo filter)
• Dry, tired & bloodshot eyes
• Dry mouth (especially at night)
• Transient rash over large parts of abdomen
• Vacillation between extreme anxiety and inability to give a shit about anything
• Difficulty with memory, concentrating & critical thinking (challenging as I regularly consult to a number of Fortune 500 CXOs)
• Challenged to find words when speaking (a big change for me as I previously performed improv at Second City)
• Physical clumsiness (kept dropping, banging into and knocking things over)
• Able to fall asleep OK but would wake up multiple times a night with heart racing and difficulty falling back asleep
• No dreams
• Extreme muscle fatigue (body felt like when you have the flu)
• Overwhelming sleepiness throughout the day
• Regularly numb lower arms and hands, arms falling asleep at night even without lying on them (anyone else have this? It is one thing that still bothers me fairly regularly)
• Sore jaw & teeth (had to quit Invisalign treatment a month before I was finished as teeth literally became wiggly)
• Frequent, immediate need to piss
• Pain in lower abdomen (prostate?)
• Patchy loss of and slowing growth of facial hair
• Complete rubber dick which (thank God) transitioned over a couple weeks to just a loss of sensation (to varying degrees) and difficulty achieving & maintaining an erection without constant stimulation & focus
• Potato in a sock dick when flaccid (skin was also very thin, soft and tacky feeling…felt more like a synthetic material than skin)
• No nocturnal erections/morning wood
• No precum, watery & lumpy ejaculate
• Interesting note: Besides the first couple weeks while I was shitting myself over all of this, I never really had significant libido issues (I've always been a horny mofo )

As the symptoms stacked up, I started doing my research and like most of you, I stumbled across PH. Thankfully, without spending too much time getting sucked into that cesspool of despair, good fortune led me to a post from a guy in Italy who had fully recovered and I was able to have a couple conversations with him. That was exactly what I needed to truly believe that I could & would recover from this (I believe this to be the most critical factor in my recovery journey and why I feel this site here is so damn important). Between his advice and another great website I found (no longer exists…I believe the guy’s name was Josh Abrhams), I began to focus on healing my adrenals, thyroid & gut. I built a diet, supplement & lifestyle (e.g. sleep, stress management, avoiding xenoestrogens, exercise, avoiding PH like the fucking plague and just enjoying life) plan around these three things. I did not try to solve for specific PFS symptoms. My guiding principal was the firm belief that my body wanted to & was capable of healing itself and bringing itself back to homeostasis…all I could do was put it in the best possible position do so. I knew trying to manage to individual symptoms, hormone levels, etc. would be an exercise in futility. I now had my plan and committed to stick to it religiously.

As an aside…during all this, a friend got me into see the top endocrinologist at one of the country’s leading university research hospitals in Chicago (worse than worthless). Had T of 177 (250-1100), Free T of 23 (35-155), LH of 0.8 (1.2-8.6), DHT of 17 (16-79) and E2 of 11.7 (23.8-52.2). He told me I shouldn’t worry about the low T because it was “barely below normal”…WTF?. He also literally laughed when I told him I was completely normal a couple weeks earlier and that I believed it was Fin that had caused this. This just reinforced early that this one was gonna be all up to me (with, of course, the invaluable information & insights from many of those that were here before me).

Things were pretty tough through the end of 2016, but I stuck to the plan. Over the course of 2017, I would have a couple of months progressing towards recovery and then, like Groundhog Day, the shadow of achy nuts would reappear and I’d have six more weeks of winter . It was a 2 month forward, 1 month back cycle…sound familiar? During the fall of 2017 I had a pretty bad crash, but picked myself up by the bootstraps and, you guessed it, stuck with the plan. I did tinker a bit here and there with my diet, supplements, lifestyle, etc. over the year to fine tune for my body’s specific needs. I worked with a natural nutritionist who helped me understand how to use food (types, frequencies, ratios, etc.) to help support cellular health, functioning and energy production to establish an overall ecosystem for recovery. During this time, I kept a journal which really helped me to objectively understand the effect of these changes, identify positive & negative triggers, etc. I was careful, however, not to be too reactive to every little symptom change, but to really listen to what my body was telling me overall and try to meet its needs at a macro level as it dealt with the details. All while sticking to the plan.

Towards the end of 2017, my recovery/downswing cycle was getting much more stable and I knew without a doubt that I would be back to my old self soon. The issue now was I could no longer be satisfied with getting back to the status quo of my life before Fin. All the research I had done, all the healthy living, all the discipline I learned, all the positive results made we want more. I decided to see what I could do to push myself not only over the hump, but beyond. So, I went out on the interwebs to see what I could find. Good fortune struck again and I happened across TMO ("optimization" was the perfect word for what I was looking for) where I found what I believe to be a few of the missing links in my evolution. I added heavy lifting & HIIT, a broader herb rotation (was already taking a number of these) and those cold fucking showers (I have to admit I have developed quite an addiction to those ) to my plan…and stuck to it.

So here I am, four months later. As I mentioned earlier, I can honestly say I am at 85-90% of my pre-Fin baseline (this is on protocol…I have no idea if this would be the case off it or not, but I have no reason to go off so I don’t give a fuck, pvdl). This means, even when I trough, I am never below 85-90% on any one thing. Every couple weeks, I seem to have a mild hormonal imbalance that lasts a day or so. This usually consists of some breast puffiness, some minor fatigue and some flaccid penis shapeshifting (and occasionally some testicle pain which no longer freaks me out like it used to). I have actually correlated these occurrences to stress and find I am definitely more sensitive to it right now. In some ways, I see this as a positive because it keeps me acutely aware of stress and how to manage it which should end up adding years to my life in the long run. Other than that, all of my other symptoms are gone or at least 90% recovered. And in case you young lads were concerned about me, I have absolutely no problems pounding it out with my beautiful, and much younger, girlfriend on pretty much a daily basis .

But let’s get back to “optimization” and those areas where I am above 100% of my pre-Fin self. I am honestly in my best shape since my high school wrestling days. I love lifting hard so much I get bummed on off days (I’m actually glad I waited a while to start lifting because I am so into it I think I would have overdone it too early when my body wasn’t ready yet). My self-confidence is through the roof and I have more mental & physical discipline & toughness than I have ever had (trust me, this turns on the ladies far more than a head of hair ever will). I have also become a much more patient & caring person with my family, friends & people I don’t even know. I have my priorities in order and frankly don’t give a shit about all the petty stuff that used to get my panties in a bunch. As ridiculous as it may sound, I think this may be the best thing that ever happened to me in some ways and I thank God that I can pass these lessons along to my son. I know I may have made it sound like this was easy and I breezed through it, but rest assured, I struggled as much as anyone else with fear, anger, self-pity, self-doubt, etc.. I just knew, in the end, I had no other choice for me, for my son & for my girlfriend (I also thank them for their amazing support through all of this).

I hope to continue my recovery & optimization journey here and continue to learn from all of you who have had your own successes (and setbacks) while improving yourselves. I hope I can contribute something back, as well, and am wide open to questions any of you may have.

One last thing…ironically, my hair is coming back. The woman who cuts my hair has even mentioned it the last couple haircuts…go fucking figure. I may shave it anyway…just because .