InvegaAnon
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2023
- Messages
- 1,013
End of Month 5 Update:
I wish I had better news, but it could be worse I guess. I feel like I fucked up my recovery by trying Prozac and then taking lion's mane immediately afterward. I hope I don't have PSSD, but the symptoms of bad reactions lion's mane and Prozac withdrawl and PSSD all overlap. I'm dealing with very muddy water here. I chose Prozac because I thought it wouldn't cause as many sexual side effects and there were posts that were like "Oh yeah, if you're only on 10mg you can still smoke weed, it's fine." Turns out people with ADHD don't process Prozac well, and I also have mild NAFLD. It was very much the wrong drug for me and I wish I had spoken to a smarter psychiatrist. On top of that I was smoking weed and was only a few months off of mania from Straterra. What a mistake.
Sensation and sex drive came back 10 days after I quit Prozac, then my sex drive was cut down again by one 5mg of Abilify and two 10mg of Zyprexia. I'm not currently taking those. Drive came back again when Abilify left my system, but weaker. I was over a week into taking lion's mane at the time, I thought things were going fine.
I was taking 1000mg of extract, which may have been too much for me. I was sleeping better and I had a clear head. I was attempting to be creative. My memory had improved.
That all changed in the third week. I had all of the bad effects of lion's mane, but I had no idea what was happening because there isn't a lot of awareness about that sort of thing. I had a lot of brain fog and I couldn't follow anything. I thought symptoms from invega were acting up again! Then I thought "Oh, is this the Prozac withdrawl finally hitting me?" I continued to take it.
My body temperature spiked, I started to disassociate, I felt physically numb. I lost sensation in my genitals, but then I was fine the next day. I thought "That was weird." and kept taking it because I felt like I had to in order to prevent dementia that could be caused by invega. The next night was even worse, my life didn't feel like my life. I felt like my personality and emotions were gone again. My genitals went completely numb exactly like after my injections. Then I searched "lion's mane genital numbness" and I found a post on Reddit warning about the effects of lion's mane. It's a very rare side effect, but it can happen.
These days were followed by extreme anxiety, insomnia, and a sense of impending doom. I wanted to give up on my career and I somehow managed to apply for a job because I decided to give up on art. I was very suicidal. I was also completely anhedonic and swimming, going for walks, taking baths and playing video games all made me horribly anxious. I couldn't do anything but panic constantly. The post I read gave me the impression this would be permanent or long-term, but thankfully most of these horrible feelings and anhedonia have passed.
CW suicidal behavior-
<edited out method info - SMod> , but it wasn't an actual attempt. Just a "Let's see if I could do it." I couldn't feel any attachment to my friends and family and I didn't care if I died. Now I get emotional again when I think about how they would react if I killed myself and it frightens me that I couldn't feel that. I'm no longer suicidal.
- End of discussion of suicidal behavior.
I'm getting emotional as I write this and I'm taking that as a sign my emotions are coming back again. I can think more clearly. I'm obsessively googling and checking my genitals all day though.
My sensation is at 80%, my libido is at 10% two and a half weeks later. The timeframe for this recovery makes more sense for lion's mane sexual dysfunction rather than PSSD, so I would rather think it's that for now. I don't need anyone telling me "well actually it sounds like you have PSSD now" so please back off on diagnosing me. I had an acceptable masturbation session after drinking some coffee, but coffee seems to have only worked well once.
My clitoral erections are getting stronger/longer (although today I'm pretty squishy, I did waaay too much checking yesterday) and my orgasms have ups and downs. I had clit shrinkage and vagina slackening, but most of that is gone now. My emotions and anhedonia are also improving quickly. I was having good orgasms just before lion's mane turned on me. I hope it's not PSSD and just a bad reaction to lion's mane. PSSD onset doesn't include full body numbness and extreme suicidality so I think it's the lion's mane. But like I said, it's really unclear right now and I would appreciate it if no one made a comment on weather or not it's PSSD.
It's also hard to say where my recovery is in general because of all this shit. I should have a clearer picture by the October update. I will say my tremor has gone away and my coordination has returned. I remember how to draw again.
I think lion's mane messed with my hormones a lot. I had a hormonal panel done only 10 days in and my progesterone was at 0.2. It was at 0.7 when I had it tested again exactly a month later. It must have hit rock bottom. Low progesterone with estrogen dominance can cause genital numbness. It typically happens to menopausal people.
It also hit my thyroid hormone, which had been bad before but it had been stable for a year now. I had tests run because I thought mercury poisoning was possible.
My testasterone was in normal AFAB range, which is really surprising to me considering how hairy I am among other signs of naturally high testasterone. So I think it made my testasterone go down as well. It seems to impact the hormones of people who have anemia and whoops, I just got my yearly ulcerative colitis labs done too and I'm anemic again! I probably also still have slightly high prolactin. It also made my white blood cell count go up and I got a bruise when I injected my Humeria and got blood drawn. I've since injected my medication and had blood drawn with no bruising.
I have quit smoking weed for now because I'm afraid it's going to hurt my sex drive and it made me disassociate a lot after lion's mane.
I think lion's mane can help some people, but please be cautious if you decide to take it.
Don't take lion's mane if:
Your hormones are still imbalanced from invega
You're anemic or have a history of anemia
You have an autoimmune disease
You have NAFLD or other liver issues. (I think it built up in my system too much, my breath and pee smelled like mushrooms for weeks)
You have depersonalization/derealization disorder
You are taking a medication that raises norepinephrine levels (I think my norepinephrine got waaaay too high since guanfacine raises it, so does lion's mane)
Lion's mane side effects I got:
Physical numbness
Emotional numbness
Disassociation
Extreme anxiety
Insomnia
Sexual dysfunction
Genital numbness
Anhedonia accompanied by panic when doing things I liked doing
Loss of coordination
All of this is going away. I've been playing No Man's Sky and watching Star Trek again and enjoying it. I can pay attention again. The newer emotional blunting caused by prozac and lion's mane is improving and my life feels like it belongs to me again.
Wish me luck in bouncing back. I think that's all I have to say this month. If the universe is a simulation, whoever is running my personal simulation is probably like "They keep getting poison damage! Aaahh!"
Like last month, I leave you with a song that is helping me get through all of this.
I wish I had better news, but it could be worse I guess. I feel like I fucked up my recovery by trying Prozac and then taking lion's mane immediately afterward. I hope I don't have PSSD, but the symptoms of bad reactions lion's mane and Prozac withdrawl and PSSD all overlap. I'm dealing with very muddy water here. I chose Prozac because I thought it wouldn't cause as many sexual side effects and there were posts that were like "Oh yeah, if you're only on 10mg you can still smoke weed, it's fine." Turns out people with ADHD don't process Prozac well, and I also have mild NAFLD. It was very much the wrong drug for me and I wish I had spoken to a smarter psychiatrist. On top of that I was smoking weed and was only a few months off of mania from Straterra. What a mistake.
Sensation and sex drive came back 10 days after I quit Prozac, then my sex drive was cut down again by one 5mg of Abilify and two 10mg of Zyprexia. I'm not currently taking those. Drive came back again when Abilify left my system, but weaker. I was over a week into taking lion's mane at the time, I thought things were going fine.
I was taking 1000mg of extract, which may have been too much for me. I was sleeping better and I had a clear head. I was attempting to be creative. My memory had improved.
That all changed in the third week. I had all of the bad effects of lion's mane, but I had no idea what was happening because there isn't a lot of awareness about that sort of thing. I had a lot of brain fog and I couldn't follow anything. I thought symptoms from invega were acting up again! Then I thought "Oh, is this the Prozac withdrawl finally hitting me?" I continued to take it.
My body temperature spiked, I started to disassociate, I felt physically numb. I lost sensation in my genitals, but then I was fine the next day. I thought "That was weird." and kept taking it because I felt like I had to in order to prevent dementia that could be caused by invega. The next night was even worse, my life didn't feel like my life. I felt like my personality and emotions were gone again. My genitals went completely numb exactly like after my injections. Then I searched "lion's mane genital numbness" and I found a post on Reddit warning about the effects of lion's mane. It's a very rare side effect, but it can happen.
These days were followed by extreme anxiety, insomnia, and a sense of impending doom. I wanted to give up on my career and I somehow managed to apply for a job because I decided to give up on art. I was very suicidal. I was also completely anhedonic and swimming, going for walks, taking baths and playing video games all made me horribly anxious. I couldn't do anything but panic constantly. The post I read gave me the impression this would be permanent or long-term, but thankfully most of these horrible feelings and anhedonia have passed.
CW suicidal behavior-
<edited out method info - SMod> , but it wasn't an actual attempt. Just a "Let's see if I could do it." I couldn't feel any attachment to my friends and family and I didn't care if I died. Now I get emotional again when I think about how they would react if I killed myself and it frightens me that I couldn't feel that. I'm no longer suicidal.
- End of discussion of suicidal behavior.
I'm getting emotional as I write this and I'm taking that as a sign my emotions are coming back again. I can think more clearly. I'm obsessively googling and checking my genitals all day though.
My sensation is at 80%, my libido is at 10% two and a half weeks later. The timeframe for this recovery makes more sense for lion's mane sexual dysfunction rather than PSSD, so I would rather think it's that for now. I don't need anyone telling me "well actually it sounds like you have PSSD now" so please back off on diagnosing me. I had an acceptable masturbation session after drinking some coffee, but coffee seems to have only worked well once.
My clitoral erections are getting stronger/longer (although today I'm pretty squishy, I did waaay too much checking yesterday) and my orgasms have ups and downs. I had clit shrinkage and vagina slackening, but most of that is gone now. My emotions and anhedonia are also improving quickly. I was having good orgasms just before lion's mane turned on me. I hope it's not PSSD and just a bad reaction to lion's mane. PSSD onset doesn't include full body numbness and extreme suicidality so I think it's the lion's mane. But like I said, it's really unclear right now and I would appreciate it if no one made a comment on weather or not it's PSSD.
It's also hard to say where my recovery is in general because of all this shit. I should have a clearer picture by the October update. I will say my tremor has gone away and my coordination has returned. I remember how to draw again.
I think lion's mane messed with my hormones a lot. I had a hormonal panel done only 10 days in and my progesterone was at 0.2. It was at 0.7 when I had it tested again exactly a month later. It must have hit rock bottom. Low progesterone with estrogen dominance can cause genital numbness. It typically happens to menopausal people.
It also hit my thyroid hormone, which had been bad before but it had been stable for a year now. I had tests run because I thought mercury poisoning was possible.
My testasterone was in normal AFAB range, which is really surprising to me considering how hairy I am among other signs of naturally high testasterone. So I think it made my testasterone go down as well. It seems to impact the hormones of people who have anemia and whoops, I just got my yearly ulcerative colitis labs done too and I'm anemic again! I probably also still have slightly high prolactin. It also made my white blood cell count go up and I got a bruise when I injected my Humeria and got blood drawn. I've since injected my medication and had blood drawn with no bruising.
I have quit smoking weed for now because I'm afraid it's going to hurt my sex drive and it made me disassociate a lot after lion's mane.
I think lion's mane can help some people, but please be cautious if you decide to take it.
Don't take lion's mane if:
Your hormones are still imbalanced from invega
You're anemic or have a history of anemia
You have an autoimmune disease
You have NAFLD or other liver issues. (I think it built up in my system too much, my breath and pee smelled like mushrooms for weeks)
You have depersonalization/derealization disorder
You are taking a medication that raises norepinephrine levels (I think my norepinephrine got waaaay too high since guanfacine raises it, so does lion's mane)
Lion's mane side effects I got:
Physical numbness
Emotional numbness
Disassociation
Extreme anxiety
Insomnia
Sexual dysfunction
Genital numbness
Anhedonia accompanied by panic when doing things I liked doing
Loss of coordination
All of this is going away. I've been playing No Man's Sky and watching Star Trek again and enjoying it. I can pay attention again. The newer emotional blunting caused by prozac and lion's mane is improving and my life feels like it belongs to me again.
Wish me luck in bouncing back. I think that's all I have to say this month. If the universe is a simulation, whoever is running my personal simulation is probably like "They keep getting poison damage! Aaahh!"
Like last month, I leave you with a song that is helping me get through all of this.
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