[girlwind]

B_Jim:I wanted to let you know about transdermal magnesium. It's something I just found about from a friend who is
a nutritional consultant. Apparently many people don't absorb magnesium supplements well enough to heal their deficiency,
and for those who don't want to go through intravenous injections of it, the transdermal method seems to work just as well.
(I've had a magnesium deficiency for a long time despite taking magnesium daily, and am going to try the transdermal mag-
nesium as soon as it comes in to my local health food store.)

http://www.magnesiumforlife.com/mineraltherapy.shtml
Here's some quotes from the article:

One of the major disadvantages of oral magnesium compositions that are currently available is that they do not control the
release of magnesium, but instead immediately release magnesium in the stomach after they are ingested. These products are
inefficient because they release magnesium in the upper gastrointestinal tract where it reacts with other substances such as
calcium. These reactions reduce the absorption of magnesium.

“When people are ill, faced with magnesium deficiency and poor digestion, what do you think the odds are of fixing that
problem with oral magnesium supplementation and digestive enzymes alone?” asks Dr. Ronald Hoffman.

In his clinic Dr. Hoffman carefully measures magnesium and found that many patients with low magnesium who take just
oral supplements do not normalize. Dr. Mildred Seelig, renowned researcher of magnesium, predicts it would take 6 months
to normalize magnesium levels in a woman who is magnesium deficient with oral supplementation. The bottom line is that
transdermal magnesium therapy speeds up the process of nutrient repletion in much the same way as intravenous methods.

[Counterpoints]

Thanks for your great post Coreman.  Two things:
- How often are you getting psychotherapy?
- Judging from what you've written -- most improvement after exercise, food, etc. -- it seems this problem is closely linked to endorphin levels.

Martin:
Your addiction hypothesis certainly fits well with my experiences.  My symptoms feel very much like extreme withdrawal.

[demografx]

COREMAN

Welcome to the POIS Forum! Your regimen is very interesting and this is very thoughtful of you to post on your first visit. Best wishes to you. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

[demografx]

Martin:
Your addiction hypothesis certainly fits well with my experiences.  My symptoms feel very much like extreme withdrawal.

Me too, Counterpoints. Someone else here also once said that they feel like they're still "in sex" during POIS. That rang true for me! And I do tend to become easily addicted/habituated to other things (e.g., caffeine) if I'm not extremely careful...and vigilant.

[demografx]

The questionnaire is somewhat of an answer to that need.  Though these things take longer to get in motion than I had expected -- they usually end up depending on many, many, people.

Thanks b_jim, for your help organizing critical information here.

Thank you Counterpoints and B_Jim for bringing this Forum to a New Level!

[Coreman]

COUNTERPOINTS: Thanks for telling me about endorphine, it is very useful.

DEMOGRAFX:  Thank you for your kind reaction. I intend to provide only that kind of information which is based on my experiments and experience. We may put the pieces together.

TO EVERYBODY: 

Against fatigue: 500-1000 Mg Carnitine (also: L-Carnitine).
I tried several times, it often helps. (To empty stomach, 1 hour before a meal.) For me, it often eliminates the weakness of the body which occurs after an "action." Just an idea. Best wishes to everbody.   

Other Info: there were 2 months in my period of POIS when there were no  symptoms at all... After a success training. I was packed with self-confidence, power and constructive beliefs. I thought I could touch the sky.

COREMAN

Welcome to the POIS Forum! Your regimen is very interesting and this is very thoughtful of you to post on your first visit. Best wishes to you. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

Thanks for your great post Coreman.  Two things:
- How often are you getting psychotherapy?
- Judging from what you've written -- most improvement after exercise, food, etc. -- it seems this problem is closely linked to endorphin levels.

[demografx]

LEVITRA AND CIALIS

Some of you, like B_Jim, Counterpoints et al, who are more scientifically minded than me perhaps can explain this. As you know, Levitra has been a 75% cure for my POIS, so my psychiatrist suggested Cialis, which is similar to Levitra but longer acting, thinking that it may be a 100% POIS cure. So I tried Cialis but it was a "disaster". One of the worst 4-day POIS episodes of my life (in great part due to my high expectations being smashed).

Since the 2 drugs act similarly, does anyone have a hypothesis as to why Cialis was such a miserable failure? Perhaps if the differences can be understood, that might unlock another POIS Mystery Door!

[demografx]

I suppose both work for erectile dysfunction in your case ?
I'll try to find a difference bewtween both but it seems even doctors don't know! (except duration).

Thanks, B_Jim! Yes, they both work for my ED. But if we can find out the differences between the two, maybe that will highlight what can work for POIS?

[cookie87]

I find posting this material to be a bit difficult to be honest.  Not really because of the sensitivity of the topic but rather because I'm usually compelled to chime in when the symptoms of the topic at hand are at their worse, so it is difficult to think and maintain a train of thought, but I must fight! I find the most distressing and disgusting feeling to be when I have an orgasm when I'm nowhere never "recovered" from the last one.  so essentially I'm "doubling up" on the symptoms and pretty much feel like an idiot afterwards for doing it again when I know exactly what is going to occur.  I made a vow to myself to stop masturbating, at least for a few weeks or try to see if I can go down to once or even every other week, but just cannot seem to do it.  I mentality that I shouldn't have to wait could be in play, but I must have a high libido or something because it really takes a lot to just skip a day for me.

The process is that I will usually masturbate before shower in the evening, but I can anytime in the day.  I will sometimes even do it as early as first thing in the morning, and in that case again at night because I sometimes just feel the routine before the shower would be incomplete.  I remember how in high school I used to stay up to 11:00pm, on weekends or days off maybe even past 1:00am... Now it is almost always around 9:30pm maybe 10:00pm I retire.  It's that god-awful "I just want to go to bed" feeling because I know I will not be able to get into much else, so I just "surrender" to it.  More often than not, I will lie awake with insomnia as well as lots of energy and therefore be restless... So I will try to get up and do something... But why? I can't enjoy for example, listening to music through headphones at the computer.  Used to love that in my late teens, and still do but I can only do it for so long before it's just "not fun anymore" for that night and have to retreat.  It's like a choir to do more than fun...  Keep in mind my insomnia is usually worse when I work during the day (have a very physical and outdoor job), even when I get the closing shift which can go up to 10:00pm.  Maybe the endorphans are still running wild?

Here's what the morning will consist of.  I wake up feeling very empty, sluggish, fatigued, pessimistic, angry, irritable, impatient...  Refreshed from a good night sleep?  heh, no.  Anything but, and I AT LEAST get 8 hours in.  I'm not yawning or anything at this point...  My appetite for breakfast in the morning has gone down in the last few years to.  I have an appetite for things like eggs, bacon and wonderful cooked breakfast, which is not always available of course, but almost no appetite for those things that are accessible and easy to serve yourself, like waffles, pancakes, Pop-Tarts, cereal of all types, donuts... Very annoying.

There is a lot more that I will add as I think of it, but also keep in mind in the meantime I am dealing with several different official diagnoses like depression, anxiety and a mild case of Asperger's Syndrome. I've had bad anxiety attacks for as long as I can remember, but as for the depression part of it I wonder how much of it may have to do with the POIS symptoms, both as a direct cause and just the frustration of dealing with it.

[girlwind]

Hey B_Jim  It's not magnesium sulphate, but magnesium chloride that I read about.

http://www.magnesiumforlife.com/mineraltherapy.shtml

"Dr. Norman Shealy has done studies on transdermal magnesium chloride mineral therapy where individuals sprayed a
solution of magnesium chloride over the entire body once daily for a month and did a 20 minute foot soak in magnesium
chloride also once daily. Dr. Shealy recruited 16 individuals with low intracellular magnesium levels; subjects had a baseline
Intracellular Magnesium Test documenting their deficiency and another post-Intracellular Magnesium Test after 1 month of
daily soaks and spraying were analyzed. The results: Twelve of sixteen patients, 75%, had significant improvements in
intracellular magnesium levels after only four weeks of foot soaking and skin spraying."

[girlwind]

B_Jim again--here's the exact article that compares mag. sulfate w mag. chloride.

http://www.magnesiumforlife.com/chloride_sulfate.shtml

[martin88]

Thank you Girlwind. I'll try betaine, i often wake up at 3 or 4am , and i think it's a problem with my digestion. If i eat very early in the evening i have more chance to sleep all night long. If i eat only carbohydrate in the evening, without protein then i feel very bad at 4am the next day, it's like an intoxication. Also recently i started to have frequent headaches, maybe a digestive origin .

B_Jim, the best magnesium supplement for me was magnesium gluconate (full dose caps or very small doses sublingual). Both were very effective (gave me energy)
With Magnesium chloride only the first pill was effective and then i started to feel bad with the next pills. I have had a serious episode of heart pounding fast and loud (i went to hospital for this) 5 minutes after taking magnesium chloride on an empty stomach !

[John21 (OP)]

Cookie, chastity is very possible, I am proof (except for occasional nocturnal emissions). If you want to seriously try it you have to remove any stimulating content from before your eyes, this includes seemingly small things like people kissing on TV shows. Contrary to how it might seem at times you can become chaste...and nothing explodes   []

[demografx]

...your experience with both drugs [Cialis and Levitra]is fantastic to try to understand POIS. But we probably need to find an expert to compare both.

But on the other hand, it's very strange that someone as Imre1 removed his symptoms with betablockers ("slow down" catecholamines) when other need to stimulate it . 

B_Jim, this is what my psychiatrist has written to me about our different chemical reactions from one person to another:

"The body is way too complicated to predict these drug responses.  For example, there are six SSRI's.  They all cause an immediate and powerful blockade of serotonin reuptake into nerve terminals but some people have no response to Prozac and do well with Zoloft and vice versa.  The reasons for this are poorly understood and usually ascribed to minor effects on other receptors- a weak explanation."

My feeling is that we are all doing amazingly well at progress here in this POIS Forum - in spite of
the bewildering array of individual physical reactions amongst us!

[Nick_B_85]

Hello everyone. Add one more to the count of POIS sufferers.

My symptoms are very close to what Gonzo described. The earliest I remember experiencing POIS was at age 12. As I've gotten older the severity and duration have increased. These days complete recovery takes a full week.

When I was 14, in an orgasm-induced daze I ran my head into an iron beam; the resulting concussion and cracked skull have compounded the effect of POIS on my life.

I've noticed that many of the posters to the forum are either very articulate, or know English as a foreign language. I wonder whether this linguistic aptitude might have more to do with a  unique POIS mentality than the circumstances of our coming together?

Here are some points of similarity between me and some of the posters:
 - I was molested by a peer in early adolescence
 - I probably am a mild case of Asperger Syndrome

Cookie, chastity is very possible, I am proof (except for occasional nocturnal emissions). If you want to seriously try it you have to remove any stimulating content from before your eyes, this includes seemingly small things like people kissing on TV shows. Contrary to how it might seem at times you can become chaste...and nothing explodes   []

As for me, I've gone from the "must have porn every 1-2 days" habit to a nearly porn-free life in about a year. These days my POIS cycles start every 7-12 days. I'll make a celibate yet! (If I were religious, I would certainly be in a monastery right now, the POIS has such an affect on my life.) 

By the way, does anyone else pronounce "POIS" in their mind as in the French language? (PWAH: it means "pea".)

[martin88]

Some of us (pois) have social phobia (how many i don't remember). Beta blockers can help for this. It's a first link.
Also : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_blocker
Beta blockers block the action of endogenous catecholamines (epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) in particular), on β-adrenergic receptors, part of the sympathetic nervous system which mediates the fight or flight response.
(link with sympathetic, adrenals)

However a common side effect of beta blockers is fatigue (from my doc who didn't want to give this to me). I think it's not very good to play on heart rythm if you don't have heart problem (my personal opinion)

Demografx, I'd like to know if you have tried the antidepressant phenelzine among the others. It's one of the most effective for social phobia. It's a "last resort" antidepressant (potentially more side effects). I found very interesting what you have said about SSRI (prozac,zoloft ...) , it will be useful if i take these medications.

Hi Nick, i'm french but pronounce "poys" in my mind. Maybe always fighting against confusion make pois sufferers articulate ! (pois consequence)

[girlwind]

Thank you Girlwind. I'll try betaine, i often wake up at 3 or 4am , and i think it's a problem with my digestion. If i eat
very early in the evening i have more chance to sleep all night long. If i eat only carbohydrate in the evening, without
protein then i feel very bad at 4am the next day, it's like an intoxication. Also recently i started to have frequent
headaches, maybe a digestive origin.

Martin88  I definitely feel better limiting sugar and carbs in my diet, with the exception being occasional fruit in
season. I take the HCl WITH my meals (and not before, or it gives me heartburn).  During the days when I had poor
digestion and malabsorbtion, along with the candida overgrowth, eating any carbs was disastrous, especially if they sat
in my stomach fermenting all night long. I would get horrible headaches that led to vomiting most times. But like I've
mentioned before, the HCl healed all that like magic--for me it was the key to improving my entire digestive system. 
I know there are some kind of lab tests to check if you have low HCl production. But for me it worked to just try it out
and see. I took the Twin Labs Betaine HCl--just one per meal and within a month's time, I noticed considerable im-
provement.

[girlwind]

B_Jim, the best magnesium supplement for me was magnesium gluconate (full dose caps or very small doses sublingual). Both were very effective (gave me energy)
With Magnesium chloride only the first pill was effective and then i started to feel bad with the next pills. I have had a serious episode of heart pounding fast and loud (i went to hospital for this) 5 minutes after taking magnesium chloride on an empty stomach !

HEY B_Jim The magnesium chloride that they are using in that study I sent you is not for oral, but transdermal use. I'm
going to try it  as soon as it comes in to the local health food store and let you know my experiences. The magnesium
gluconate is what I'm taking now, but I'm still deficient after four years of taking it every day. It movesssssss through my
system way too fast to be absorbed, if you know what I mean.   []

[demografx]

Nick_B_85,

A hearty welcome to you and many thanks for posting your experiences. I'm sorry to hear of your compounding difficulties. I hope you gain much here, and you have certainly contributed much in your post.

By the way, in my mind I pronounce POIS as rhyming with "noise".

[demografx]

Demografx, I'd like to know if you have tried the antidepressant phenelzine among the others. It's one of the most effective for social phobia. It's a "last resort" antidepressant (potentially more side effects). I found very interesting what you have said about SSRI (prozac,zoloft ...) , it will be useful if i take these medications.

Nope. Haven't tried phenelzine. I do take Cymbalta, but what seems to work best for me are the ADD-type stimulants, which can become addictive. They do have a potential for abuse, so it's a wee bit scary. I do drink a lot of coffee along with the stimulants, probably not the healthiest thing. But all in all, it's good.