Hey everyone. I'm new to the SwoleSource. I came here based on Maxout777's post on his recovery from saw palmetto on Reddit. I will give a history of my usage.

On February 5th, 2017, (I was 19) I started taking Hr23+, which has a dosage of 500 mg saw palmetto and other 5AR inhibitors.

I discountinued on February 24th, 2017 after noticing my testicles were shrunken and I had some slight breast pain. During the time I had sky high libido, great energy and I was socially interacting with everyone (naturally I'm an extremely social person but this was absolutely crazy social). I had a panic attack after noticing the testicles.

The next day, I woke up with full blown chronic fatigue. My tear ducts were dry and the feeling didn't subside even when I put water on my face. My appetite was shot, I couldn't concentrate, I felt like an asexual zombie. My semen was watery. I literally wanted to stay in my room. At university I literally couldn't stay for more than 3 hours cause I felt like I was going to fall asleep. I was so tired but I couldn't fall asleep. I had tinnitus, low libido, emotionally passive, apathetic and lethargic. I didn't have erectile dysfunction and my insomnia was not horrible. I could get around 3-4 hours of deep sleep a night. This was the worst period of my life and I kept faith in God which kept me moving forward. I also discountinued carbs and dairy and went for non processed foods. Over a month, most of the physical symptoms left (the lows got less bad and the highs got better). I took 2 steps forward and one step backwards. It was the hardest period of my life and I tried so hard just to not kill myself. I did not have brain fog however (I'm an engineering student and my grades were great).

After about a month, in April I suffered primarily from emotional sides like depression, but in a month that eventually went away. On May 9 2017 (I was 20), I mostly recovered. The only lingering sides were tinnitus for 2-3 seconds (mild) every 2 weeks in my left ear, a slight penile pain once a week or two and sleep. With my sleep, I can fall asleep but 1-2 hours before I intend to wake up, my sleep becomes light and I do a lot of going in and out of sleep during this time (along with a lot of tossing and turning).

Now for this year. In February 2018, I ate KFC and for some reason, idk why, it caused a lot of penile and testicular pain and my dick immediately became limp and I had watery semen. My penile sensitivity immediately decreased. My libido decreased. I started getting PFS like symptoms like irregular sleep (falling asleep super late cause I couldn't fall asleep). I became apathetic and lethargic around May and a solid chunk of June 2018. I did recover a lot of my libido and sensitivity but my dick still has some problems with staying hard while jerking off. My main problems really are being apathetic and lethargic. I really want to have the energy and zest for life that I used to have and will do anything to get it back. I'm considering doing CD's protocols, but I'm wondering if I need to cycle herbs since my case is not as bad as most users here. I figured I'd do one week juice fast, keto diet and workout. Let me know guys and thanks for reading my story. Really appreciate it and love the positivity of this community.