I see theres a flurry of activity on the forum last week or so, so figured I'd do an update. Like with so many before me, once you start approaching an acceptable degree of normal health again, theres a sudden urge to relax (finally), and part of that is a tendency to check in on the forum less.
Since my last update, Ive had mostly good or great days, and a few bad ones, but almost no terrible ones. The long in the short of it is, healing is undeniably occuring.
I smiled through a month long upswing that saw me enjoying probably a week and a half worth of days where I was at that golden 90-95% state. As mentioned in a recent update, my sexual sides are definitely subsiding. A new baseline has been created, so even whe I hit my 2 day downswing just a few days ago, it wasnt that terrible. That's not to say I didnt sort of freak out at first, having had a month of slow and steady improvement, but I was frustrated over a degree of functioning that I would have been THANKFUL for just a couple of months ago. Anyways, that downswing came and went in 2 days, and I'm back on an upswing, feeling great energetically, mentally, and physically, and anywhere from decent to great sexually. Today was one of those days where everything was normal, except for a touch of libido, so it's what I call a 95% day.
I've still not done the Ultea Hard that I bought a month ago,l because, honestly, I'm just doing so damn good, kind of enjoying the ride in some masochistic self-overcoming way, and learning to really listen to my intuition. I've never been great at that, as I tend to be an extreme overthinker, but this whole ordeal is teaching me 1.) What my body-derived intuition is, separate from my ego-driven overthinking, and 2.) to trust it!
My intuition has been telling me since about 2 weeks on protocol that I was definitely healing and that yes, it would be a non-linear path with ups and downs, but that healing is absolutely occuring over all. My overthinking would sometimes step in and say, "what if it isnt a general upward trend, but just a directionless scrambling of hormones?"
Fast forward to today, almost 3 months later, and I'm having way more good days than bad. In otherwords, it's clear healing is taking place, and that the trend is upwards, i.e., that my intuition was of course correct from the beginning.
All the little missing parts of my personality keep trickling back in, sexual and otherwise. I first catch fleeting glimpses of them, and then they return more boldly, and then eventually they just stick around. Its bizarre and beautiful, in a strange way, just how delicate the whole process of returning to hormonal homeostasis is, and insanely intriguing that we get to see, by paying close attention to our thoughts and emotions throughout all of this, just how minutely intricate this whole process is.
The general trend reminds me of a relic being slowly washed onto the shore. First just a bit of the item can be seen in the distance, mostly obscured by the waves, and then it becomes more and more visible as the tides repeatedly nudge it further towards shore, where it finally nestles into the sand and stays put.
I want to say, I truly credit my progress this far to being totally over the top by-the-book as far as the TMO protocol. I haven't cheated on diet once, or drank a drop of alcohol, or really done anything outside of the established regimen, and the reason is because I dont want to. I want to feel what it is to be a completely invigorated male functioning at his optimal capacity every day.