Arahant intro - My experience with PSSD - treatment log.
Posted: Tue Nov 26, 2019 3:39 pm
Hello Guys,
I have been following this forum since 2015, and I decided to share my experience with PSSD.
I recommend everyone to answer https://rxisk.org/experiencing-a-drug-side-effect/.
My score was 13.
It helped to prepare my intro to this forum.
Family Background
Mother - Generalized anxiety disorder
Father - Severe OCD.
Background
Diagnostic of ADHD, and Anxiety/OCD like behavior, obsessive thoughts about numbers, rituals to leave home, obsession for Sex and Pornography. I also had substantial genital and nipples sensitivity before experiencing PSSD.
I took Buproprion and Ritalin from 2007 to 2015.
I from 2014 to 2015, I was involved in a branch of Osho "sex" Cult (The Documentary "Wild Wild Country" ).
While inside the cult, I stopped Ritalin and bupropion ( Medicines are demonized inside cults).
And, I was involved in a lot of dissociative practices like Hyperventilation, "scream therapy" and tiring and painful exercises (Osho "Dynamic Meditation" is an example).
My Anxiety, sex obsession, and OCD like symptoms got too worse that I quit going to the cult.
Then I started taking Sertraline (25 - 150 mg/day) alongside Buproprion (150 mg/day that was supposed to "boost" the treatment and alleviate the sexual side effects).
But I had genital and nipple numbness just after started and orgasms without pleasure. I got Erectile dysfunction after 75 mg per day. No libido, no sexual drive. My Doctor prescribed Cialis, but I rejected, I suspected that the ED was due to loss of sexual sensations and numbness. I started doing Mindfulness meditation to alleviate my anxiety, which resulted in reducing the sertraline dose to zero after six months of daily practice ( 20 min - 60 min per day). My Anxiety/OCD symptoms were gone, my ADHD symptoms continued, and my Psychiatrist basically ignored my complaints of low sexual sensations and desire, and put me back on Buproprion and Ritalin (Wich improved my ADHD a lot), and I have no more ED.
Then I moved to another country, and I got to visit a younger psychiatrist (Resident under supervision) at a University Psychiatric Center. Then I started my journey of trying to treat my PSSD symptoms.
Warning, do not mess with psych drugs, be careful !!!
First try:
They kept methylphenidate 30 mg/day (ADHD) and increased my bupropion (doses between 150 to 450 mg/day) to try to improve my sexual experience. It failed tremendously, my anhedonia got worse, and I got severe jaw clenching, neck stiffness, suboccipital muscle pain, and severe tinnitus (without hearing loss). Also, I spent a lot of money on CHIRO/PT/ENT visits (people in the USA know how expensive Health Care is there), I am still recovering from the head and neck muscle pain and tinnitus (95% better). I had to stop bupropion and methylphenidate, and the doctor introduced buspirone (There is literature supporting the use of Buspirone as an antidote for antidepressant-induced bruxism https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 3817317169)
It resolved the jaw clenching that was bugging me 24/7 immediately. But the inconsistent "side" effects of buspirone started to appear. I started with 5 mg 3x/day (total of 15 mg), I got drowsiness 30 min after taking it, and spontaneous penile erections 1 - 1.5 h after taking it, which I found interesting because I was not fantasizing about sex.
Drowsiness is supposed to fade away after time, and I was told that, on average, it takes a week or so. Mine took more than three months, and I still get a bit tired after taking it. After a few months taking started 40 mg/day, something strange happens.
My old friend, yes, the fucking anxiety/claustrophobia/OCD like symptoms started to appear again, the symptoms were so intense that I thought about giving up reversing my PSSD.
Current try:
Today, I am visiting another doctor, and I am on methylphenidate again a schedule of buspirone (40 mg/day) and Hydroxyzine (12.5 mg/day). I got a small improvement in orgasms, but I still have delayed ejaculations that require a lot of vigorous masturbation, and I still have genital and nipple numbness.
I am going to put here a few things that I researched.
The time of peak concentration (Tmax) matters a lot for me. Buspirone has an average of 1 h to peak, and Hydroxyzine around two hours, and it varies a lot among people (It may explain a lot of inconsistent results). Then, I tried to match both peaks by taking buspirone one hour and Hydroxizyne 2 h before sex or masturbation, and voila!
I got food cravings and increased orgasm time. It remembered that I had a similar experience after smoking marihuana during my teenager age; I also used to smoke Salvia Divinorum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum), a potent opioid (kappa-opioid) receptor agonist and D2 receptor partial agonist.
I stopped smoking both weeds because it increased my anxiety/paranoia and ended up visiting a doctor (Here, my journey of visiting a psychiatrist started).
Lessons I learned:
Be careful while combining prescriptions. It can be painful.
Be aware of every drug peak time for maximum concentration, and try to match them.
Methylphenidate seems only to reduce my ADHD symptoms.
Because It seems that my OCD like symptoms are related to abnormalities on the 5-HT system, and the availability of the 5-HT2A in the brain https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-018-0128-4, and I took Sertraline which seems to mess around the 5-HT system.
My second attempt to alleviating my PSSD is matching the combination of:
Buspirone - Targeting 5-HT1A and in 5-HT2A
Hydroxyzine - Targeting 5-HT2A receptor
Supplement Capsaicin - Trying to improve genital and nipple numbness.
I might change Hydroxyzine to shallow doses of Cyproheptadine to target 5-HT2A, I am not sure, it seems to have gigantic side effects.
That is it!
I will keep you posted, and I would be glad to answer any questions.
I have been following this forum since 2015, and I decided to share my experience with PSSD.
I recommend everyone to answer https://rxisk.org/experiencing-a-drug-side-effect/.
My score was 13.
It helped to prepare my intro to this forum.
Family Background
Mother - Generalized anxiety disorder
Father - Severe OCD.
Background
Diagnostic of ADHD, and Anxiety/OCD like behavior, obsessive thoughts about numbers, rituals to leave home, obsession for Sex and Pornography. I also had substantial genital and nipples sensitivity before experiencing PSSD.
I took Buproprion and Ritalin from 2007 to 2015.
I from 2014 to 2015, I was involved in a branch of Osho "sex" Cult (The Documentary "Wild Wild Country" ).
While inside the cult, I stopped Ritalin and bupropion ( Medicines are demonized inside cults).
And, I was involved in a lot of dissociative practices like Hyperventilation, "scream therapy" and tiring and painful exercises (Osho "Dynamic Meditation" is an example).
My Anxiety, sex obsession, and OCD like symptoms got too worse that I quit going to the cult.
Then I started taking Sertraline (25 - 150 mg/day) alongside Buproprion (150 mg/day that was supposed to "boost" the treatment and alleviate the sexual side effects).
But I had genital and nipple numbness just after started and orgasms without pleasure. I got Erectile dysfunction after 75 mg per day. No libido, no sexual drive. My Doctor prescribed Cialis, but I rejected, I suspected that the ED was due to loss of sexual sensations and numbness. I started doing Mindfulness meditation to alleviate my anxiety, which resulted in reducing the sertraline dose to zero after six months of daily practice ( 20 min - 60 min per day). My Anxiety/OCD symptoms were gone, my ADHD symptoms continued, and my Psychiatrist basically ignored my complaints of low sexual sensations and desire, and put me back on Buproprion and Ritalin (Wich improved my ADHD a lot), and I have no more ED.
Then I moved to another country, and I got to visit a younger psychiatrist (Resident under supervision) at a University Psychiatric Center. Then I started my journey of trying to treat my PSSD symptoms.
Warning, do not mess with psych drugs, be careful !!!
First try:
They kept methylphenidate 30 mg/day (ADHD) and increased my bupropion (doses between 150 to 450 mg/day) to try to improve my sexual experience. It failed tremendously, my anhedonia got worse, and I got severe jaw clenching, neck stiffness, suboccipital muscle pain, and severe tinnitus (without hearing loss). Also, I spent a lot of money on CHIRO/PT/ENT visits (people in the USA know how expensive Health Care is there), I am still recovering from the head and neck muscle pain and tinnitus (95% better). I had to stop bupropion and methylphenidate, and the doctor introduced buspirone (There is literature supporting the use of Buspirone as an antidote for antidepressant-induced bruxism https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 3817317169)
It resolved the jaw clenching that was bugging me 24/7 immediately. But the inconsistent "side" effects of buspirone started to appear. I started with 5 mg 3x/day (total of 15 mg), I got drowsiness 30 min after taking it, and spontaneous penile erections 1 - 1.5 h after taking it, which I found interesting because I was not fantasizing about sex.
Drowsiness is supposed to fade away after time, and I was told that, on average, it takes a week or so. Mine took more than three months, and I still get a bit tired after taking it. After a few months taking started 40 mg/day, something strange happens.
My old friend, yes, the fucking anxiety/claustrophobia/OCD like symptoms started to appear again, the symptoms were so intense that I thought about giving up reversing my PSSD.
Current try:
Today, I am visiting another doctor, and I am on methylphenidate again a schedule of buspirone (40 mg/day) and Hydroxyzine (12.5 mg/day). I got a small improvement in orgasms, but I still have delayed ejaculations that require a lot of vigorous masturbation, and I still have genital and nipple numbness.
I am going to put here a few things that I researched.
The time of peak concentration (Tmax) matters a lot for me. Buspirone has an average of 1 h to peak, and Hydroxyzine around two hours, and it varies a lot among people (It may explain a lot of inconsistent results). Then, I tried to match both peaks by taking buspirone one hour and Hydroxizyne 2 h before sex or masturbation, and voila!
I got food cravings and increased orgasm time. It remembered that I had a similar experience after smoking marihuana during my teenager age; I also used to smoke Salvia Divinorum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_divinorum), a potent opioid (kappa-opioid) receptor agonist and D2 receptor partial agonist.
I stopped smoking both weeds because it increased my anxiety/paranoia and ended up visiting a doctor (Here, my journey of visiting a psychiatrist started).
Lessons I learned:
Be careful while combining prescriptions. It can be painful.
Be aware of every drug peak time for maximum concentration, and try to match them.
Methylphenidate seems only to reduce my ADHD symptoms.
Because It seems that my OCD like symptoms are related to abnormalities on the 5-HT system, and the availability of the 5-HT2A in the brain https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-018-0128-4, and I took Sertraline which seems to mess around the 5-HT system.
My second attempt to alleviating my PSSD is matching the combination of:
Buspirone - Targeting 5-HT1A and in 5-HT2A
Hydroxyzine - Targeting 5-HT2A receptor
Supplement Capsaicin - Trying to improve genital and nipple numbness.
I might change Hydroxyzine to shallow doses of Cyproheptadine to target 5-HT2A, I am not sure, it seems to have gigantic side effects.
That is it!
I will keep you posted, and I would be glad to answer any questions.