Post-sex exhaustion

[perardua]

Hi Chiron, hope you are doing okay. Are you able to orgasm without ejaculating? I believe ejaculation is depleting even for very healthy men but you can learn to separate the two. I am a virgin woman so I am not speaking from experience

 

[Nord Wolf]

Are you able to orgasm without ejaculating? I believe ejaculation is depleting even for very healthy men but you can learn to separate the two.

I was a student of Mantak Chia’s work years ago. Back in my 20’s I was finally able, after a long time of serious practice, to master the “Big Draw”. It is a process for males and female where nearing the point of orgasm, you do a series of full body muscle contractions combined with breathing coordination and mental focus. The object is to reverse the direction of orgasmic energy. Normally it is focused out of the body through either the penis or vagina. This is a huge loss of energy for both sexes. The “Big Draw” trains the body to orgasm without loss of energy. Rather the orgasmic energy shoots backward and up the spine. It takes an incredible amount of time and focus to successfully execute, and it is a lot of work to actually do the technique as well. Not everyone who practices is lucky enough to attain the proper outcome.

If you can achieve this, then you can go on to lots more practice in training the body to employ the reverse orgasm just with mental focus, and no longer have to work the ridiculous full body muscle contractions with breath coordination, etc.

I did manage to accomplish both, which was amazing really. My wife was able to as well. To be able to move the point of orgasm to other regions of the body is truly an amazing experience. However, after I was poisoned in 05 I slowly lost the ability within about 6 years. And now with a more severe level of ME/CFS, the though of sex is exhausting. It’s a cruel aspect of this disease, for anyone.

 

[nerd]

It might also be the case that an over-excitation of certain brain regions leads to a change in receptor homeostasis, like the one presumed by Cortene.

 

[VisualEffect]

It might also be the case that an over-excitation of certain brain regions leads to a change in receptor homeostasis, like the one presumed by Cortene.

Yes I have the same thoughts. POIS sufferers (without ME/CFS) basically have temporary ME/CFS (severity varies) after sexual activity. And since all symptoms disappears on its own after some time in POIS, maybe ME/CFS can resolve too, but something prevents it. I mean maybe there is no permanent damage in ME/CFS, and with certain help, ME can be cured. (Again maybe it’s overoptimistic but I wanna be hopeful)

 

[Mouse girl]

I never had that. I remember it giving me energy when i was younger.

 

[hapl808]

I've definitely experienced that. Ever since my ME/CFS was mild, any sexual activity would make me feel better briefly, then trigger a PEM style crash. Now at the more severe end of the scale, it does the same thing. From housebound to more bedbound. Either way, it's unpleasant and debilitating.

 

[linusbert]

my vitamin c taken right after the ejacul. used to reduce or prevent the next day worsening of symptoms.
sadly i dont tolerate that vitamin c anymore.

also worsening only after ejacul.
but wanking without ejacul. even makes me feel better.

 

[godlovesatrier]

Just wanted to say I've been trying 50mg DHEA with some small benefit but I'm still testing. Probably taken it four times so far...seemed to help a bit or a lot not 100% sure as I've had some confounding factors so more tests needed.

 

[karst]

So this needs a disclaimer like with everything ME-related that it probably won't work for everyone BUT I've been able to remove all of my previously instantantaneous-PEM symptoms (i.e. things that would instantly create fatigue after the activity, including orgasm-related) by a very unexpected method.

This definitely needs an open heart and mind as it requires essentially brain training that I learned through the Curable app (not affiliated with them in any way, just sharing my experience).

I'll try and summarize what I learned.

1. Fatigue is influenced by your body, your mind, your present relationships, and your surrounding environment.
2. All fatigue is processed in the nervous system. Nociceptors (receptors located all over the body) detect a threat and then transmit this information to the brain. The brain then decides what level of pain to produce. Therefore pain is an opinion not a fact (meaning that it is a subjective opinion made by the brain and based on multiple factors but not necessarily an accurate diagnosis). In our case especially, opinion does not always reflect reality.
3. In people with chronic fatigue, the nervous system has programmed itself to an sensitive, hyper protective setting (sound familiar anyone?). This has been shown by brain imaging studies.
4. Fatigue is a protective force. It stops us doing stupid stuff and gives us motivation to rest and recover.
5. Fatigue can occur after the original source has disappeared, as the brain stem has already been wired up and continues to fire after the fact.

Anecdote on note 5 ... about six years ago I recovered from something called Tension Myositis Syndrome (non-stop disabling pain in both my arms for around a year) and it started with this single point: your brain can wire pain/fatigue to repeat even after what was originally causing the symptoms to appear is no longer a problem. This was why I was so interested with trying this methodology out in the first place. I'm 100% convinced it's not a coincidence I have somehow managed to get both of these diseases!

6. This is the most crucial point and requires practice in action: The entire fatigue system is connected directly to the attention, questioning and meaning-making systems in the brain. Therefore how you interpret signals of pain/fatigue and what you conclude it means to you determines the brain's pain/fatigue response.

In practice for me this looks like:

a) I worry that doing an activity (e.g. sex, yoga, whatever) will cause me fatigue.
b) The act of worrying about this causes fatigue.

The a) part of this is me trying to create meaning from a previous experience where I've already associated fatigue with the activity. The b) is a direct result of this meaning-forming process in my mind.

I know this can sound ludicrous or wacky, but don't knock it until you've put time into undoing these natural thought cycles. Mindfulness is extremely beneficial (perhaps necesssary) in noticing when these thoughts are appearing.

I also noticed that I had fallen into a way of thinking which was in itself amplifying the worry (and therefore the fatigue response from the brain).

c) A thought occurs that, "Next time I do activity X I might be fatigued afterwards ..." or "I wonder if activity X will cause fatigue for me this time?" etc.
d) Heightened awareness around any fatigue that appears afterwards equalling heightened worry about doing this activity equalling a greater fatigue response from the body.

So in conclusion to stop instantaneous fatigue from some activities I had to stop worrying that an activity was causing fatigue before or after the fact and tell myself some of the science points I mentioned in 1-5. E.g. that my fatigue system is misfiring because it's trying to protect me. The activity is not causing me fatigue, but it's my mental thoughts trying make sense of the activity and fatigue which is causing the fatigue.

Practising this consistently took me from severe (2/10) to moderate (3/10) about a month ago (and has stayed that way).

I originally heard of the Curable app through this (very hope-filled) medium post. The app is aimed towards chronic pain sufferers. The author of the medium post says that fatigue and pain are similar and so I swapped out the word pain for fatigue whenever I saw/heard it mentioned in the lessons and activities in the app.

In my experience, this brain training and science works directly for a portion of what I'm now thinking of as "mentally-induced" fatigue (which for me covers activity-specific fatigue like sex, yoga etc.). The other side of the coin for me is "exertion-induced" fatigue (which is not affected by this brain training and covers activities like hiking, running etc. where I apparently really am exerting my body in some way).

Hope this helps someone out there.

 

[linusbert]

karst, if this works for somebody, i wouldnt be sure if this is truly cfs.. might be something else.

i have enough examples for my situation, where i was expecting a crash after doing a thing and i didnt and others where i crashed and didnt expect it. and sometimes seamingly nothing causes it.
i got crashes from new things i never would have imagined even are possible.
these psychosomatic models i do not like, they seam to try to explain away a problem which is physiological and not psychological. if you break your leg you cannot imagine the broken bone away and suddenly play soccer, same for most cfs folks, they cant imagine it away because its physiological.

there is this idea of a trigger in brain being flipped over to cause the human to rest. and then the body forgets to flip it back. this surely is possible, but i doubt this is the mechanism for most of cfs folks. it might just be another isolated disease which presents cfs-like.
like thiamin or b12 deficiency... like poisoning.. like chronic over exercising like genetic metabolic diseases etc.

 

[Dysfunkion]

I have POIS, not everyone with POIS has CFS and not everyone with CFS has POIS. There's a lot of symptom cross over though. I find my orgasm intensity matters a lot. Less intensity = less symptoms but less intense and I also barely get any pleasure making it a waste. Seems to have some basis in a neurotransmitter and hormonal dysfunction after orgasm but I think what in many peoples cases it's caused by is orgasm reactivating a viral infection. I get intense fatigue and brain fog, it's a distinct drugged feeling. Then this will tend to after that wave go in one of 2 directions I'll get extremely over stimulated with intense distortion of how I'm perceiving my body (it'll feel like i'm inhabiting my body weird, walking will feel strange, navigating the world around me is like navigating a maze), with extreme sensory over sensitivity, and out of control anxiety. The other direction will have me fly deeper into the fatigue and I'll get intense flu like feeling usually with a lot of nasal drip. I'll feel extremely cold too and ironically when the reaction swings in this direction the insomnia is far worse. Which one it turns into is usually random it seems.

 

[hapl808]

I get intense fatigue and brain fog, it's a distinct drugged feeling. Then this will tend to after that wave go in one of 2 directions I'll get extremely over stimulated with intense distortion of how I'm perceiving my body (it'll feel like i'm inhabiting my body weird, walking will feel strange, navigating the world around me is like navigating a maze), with extreme sensory over sensitivity, and out of control anxiety. The other direction will have me fly deeper into the fatigue and I'll get intense flu like feeling usually with a lot of nasal drip. I'll feel extremely cold too and ironically when the reaction swings in this direction the insomnia is far worse.

Similar, although I think my after-effects are the latter.

 

[karst]

if this works for somebody, i wouldnt be sure if this is truly cfs.. might be something else

As this has worked for me and the girl in the original medium post I would say it is not impossible that this mental-caused fatigue is easier to trigger in people with CFS or that it is simply a part of the problem for a percentage of people.

It's also hard (impossible?) to diagnose/differentiate between mental and exertion caused fatigue via a third party, since seemingly the only way to do this is to overcome the mental-caused fatigue and thus be able to say without a doubt that this was the cause.

i have enough examples for my situation, where i was expecting a crash after doing a thing and i didnt and others where i crashed and didnt expect it

This isn't enough to prove that 0% of your fatigue is from a mental stimuli. I never expected to get a crash after sex and was devastated when it happened because of the implications.

The process I detailed above has to be thoroughly applied and tested over the course of a few days (or possibly longer if you don't yet have adequate mindfulness). It's really not easy to be mindful of every fatigue-inducing thought as they come and only once you fully embrace the challenge of trying this can you know for sure through experience.

these psychosomatic models i do not like, they seam to try to explain away a problem which is physiological and not psychological.

Understandable, though the second half of this is inaccurate. This is not explaining away the problem as psychological. It's more complex than that. It's a step-by-step process that connects the nociceptors > mind > body. This process happens to all of us every day, but in most people does not cause any problems.

I think the difficulty in approaching this comes from the hostile idea that we are somehow intent on being ill or so stupid that don't know what we're doing. It makes sense to be defensive about this because it's so untrue that it's painful. So I totally get you. Anyone suggesting that does not understand what we're going through. In fact, I don't even know what people are really suggesting if they think this is "all in our heads." Do they think that we are actually not experiencing anything (like a child throwing a tantrum to get an attention?). It doesn't make sense to me.

What was happening to me through this experience I can only describe as becoming conscious of an unconscious process. And through this increased awareness I was able to stop pulling the trigger unconsciously.

if you break your leg you cannot imagine the broken bone away and suddenly play soccer

I don't think my experience supports this analogy. This was the cure to my symptom, without a doubt. So it's more like treating a broken leg with a cast and rest ...

The puzzling part is that this will not work for everybody. For the people is does work for, I think this information deserves to get out there. Not to be buried under doubts and negativity, which is why I tried to respond to this comprehensively.

The underlying problem remains for me at least. Like seemingly everything with ME/CFS, it's simply a puzzle piece in a grand puzzle. If I can reduce one symptom by practising this, I'll take it as win.

In the end, liking or disliking is irrelevant. It's about results. Try for yourself and give it a 100% honest effort. Only then will you be able to say how many of your symptoms can be explained/cured this way.

 

[hapl808]

The puzzling part is that this will not work for everybody. For the people is does work for, I think this information deserves to get out there. Not to be buried under doubts and negativity, which is why I tried to respond to this comprehensively.

I'm a bit confused - did you first start experiencing MECFS in Sep 2024? Most people with these types of symptoms just get better over time. Usually it's not considered MECFS unless it persists for a lot longer than that, so your symptoms and diagnosis are confusing to me.

c) A thought occurs that, "Next time I do activity X I might be fatigued afterwards ..." or "I wonder if activity X will cause fatigue for me this time?" etc.
d) Heightened awareness around any fatigue that appears afterwards equalling heightened worry about doing this activity equalling a greater fatigue response from the body.

I just never really thought like that in the first years of illness. Maybe I'm a slow learner, but I was always very surprised when my activities led to crashes and didn't even identify them as crashes.

You also mention instantaneous fatigue, which I just never had. I felt good while doing the activities - the crash would come hours or days later, which made it much harder for me to even associate the activities. If you have instantaneous fatigue, that sounds very different from PEM to me?

To each their own, but many have tried all the various brain retraining techniques, CBT, etc - and I would say it's a small group that found it helpful.

 

[linusbert]

As this has worked for me and the girl in the original medium post I would say it is not impossible that this mental-caused fatigue is easier to trigger in people with CFS or that it is simply a part of the problem for a percentage of people.

It's also hard (impossible?) to diagnose/differentiate between mental and exertion caused fatigue via a third party, since seemingly the only way to do this is to overcome the mental-caused fatigue and thus be able to say without a doubt that this was the cause.

This isn't enough to prove that 0% of your fatigue is from a mental stimuli. I never expected to get a crash after sex and was devastated when it happened because of the implications.

The process I detailed above has to be thoroughly applied and tested over the course of a few days (or possibly longer if you don't yet have adequate mindfulness). It's really not easy to be mindful of every fatigue-inducing thought as they come and only once you fully embrace the challenge of trying this can you know for sure through experience.

Understandable, though the second half of this is inaccurate. This is not explaining away the problem as psychological. It's more complex than that. It's a step-by-step process that connects the nociceptors > mind > body. This process happens to all of us every day, but in most people does not cause any problems.

I think the difficulty in approaching this comes from the hostile idea that we are somehow intent on being ill or so stupid that don't know what we're doing. It makes sense to be defensive about this because it's so untrue that it's painful. So I totally get you. Anyone suggesting that does not understand what we're going through. In fact, I don't even know what people are really suggesting if they think this is "all in our heads." Do they think that we are actually not experiencing anything (like a child throwing a tantrum to get an attention?). It doesn't make sense to me.

What was happening to me through this experience I can only describe as becoming conscious of an unconscious process. And through this increased awareness I was able to stop pulling the trigger unconsciously.


I don't think my experience supports this analogy. This was the cure to my symptom, without a doubt. So it's more like treating a broken leg with a cast and rest ...

The puzzling part is that this will not work for everybody. For the people is does work for, I think this information deserves to get out there. Not to be buried under doubts and negativity, which is why I tried to respond to this comprehensively.

The underlying problem remains for me at least. Like seemingly everything with ME/CFS, it's simply a puzzle piece in a grand puzzle. If I can reduce one symptom by practising this, I'll take it as win.

In the end, liking or disliking is irrelevant. It's about results. Try for yourself and give it a 100% honest effort. Only then will you be able to say how many of your symptoms can be explained/cured this way.

i am not saying this is wrong or does not work.
just saying if it does work , it might have been a different disease which presents similiarly like cfs but isnt. because this goes against the core of what so many experience.
one of the criteria of cfs is worsening after exercise. if its not worsening, its not cfs.
just my thoughts.

and i think there are plenty of tests right now which show problems.
like reduced atp levels in blood etc.
or doing a repeated bicycle test after 3 days , which will be worse in cfs than the first. probably not a test most of us should do.

 

[karst]

Weird to be having to defend my illness on a forum that is supposed to be an oasis of acceptance, but hey. If it helps people give this a chance, it's worth it. (BTW are you also suggesting that the original medium poster had something else and not 10+ years of ME? I suggest you read her post to alleviate any further doubts)

I can trace back the starting of ME/CFS to at least Jan 2024 and possibly before. Now that I know what a crash feels like I can see that I was crashing frequently after exercise (usually hiking) since then when I had a horrible viral illness. I still crash after seemingly any exercise which makes me sweat.

I was diagnosed in Oct 2024 because I crashed in Sept 2024 and didn't get better so started doing more research/probing. The doctor thought I had chronic fatigue syndrome but wanted me to redo a bunch of tests I'd done in China to confirm, back in the UK, because he couldn't read/trust the Chinese tests. I've also done the questionnaire posted elsewhere on the forum and came out with ME for 3/4 official tests (I didn't qualify for the Canadian one because I don't have brain fog).

I actually kept records of the initial period I was crashing accidentally because I was trying to increase long-distance running at the time. Instead of logging runs I ended up logging the weeks I was ill, mainly out of disbelief that I was getting ill so frequently (starting in March: "18(3)"). I had an illness-free June/July and then it returned in August. The light green is illness where each row is a week.

You also mention instantaneous fatigue, which I just never had

Right, this is interesting. I wonder whether the instantaneous nature of it is notable. Maybe other people can confirm eventually?

If you have instantaneous fatigue, that sounds very different from PEM to me?

According to this poll on PR, this is common in 25% of us. But I did not exclusively have instantaneous PEM before.

and i think there are plenty of tests right now which show problems.
like reduced atp levels in blood etc.
or doing a repeated bicycle test after 3 days , which will be worse in cfs than the first. probably not a test most of us should do.

linusbert, to clarify, my experience does not mean that all ME symptoms are caused in this way since that only a portion of my own symptoms could be removed through the brain training. Others still exist for me. Especially exercise or socializing-related PEM.

It does however mean that this may be a path worth pursuing for people interested who experience sex-related PEM.

 

[linusbert]

Weird to be having to defend my illness on a forum that is supposed to be an oasis of acceptance,

i did not mean it in that way, maybe you heard different tunes in my words.
i am just saying that it might not be the typical cfs we expect because it does not fit the criteria if its not worsening after exercise. if you say you can with behavioural techniques overcome PEM , than its per criteria not cfs.
and to be frank, i do not think i have cfs either, i believe i have a metabolic myopathy sortish disease as my doctors also suggested which presents in a smiliar way, probably involving mitochondrial dysfunction.
i also do not think that most people in this forum have the same disease because i believe this cfs is just a syndrome, a compilation of symptoms. but the origin of sickness might be different. for many it might be a viral trigger with sudden onset after disease, others got a disease slowly creeping into life like me.
for some it could be a thiamin deficiency or a b12 deficiency or any other deficiency. for some it could be a functional brain problem like you suggested.
you actually might have identified a different disease with different origins.

you do not need to defend this. and people who have the same will benefit from this. but i would not classify it as typical cfs because the moment you can with behavioural techniques circument the main criteria its not fitting that specific syndrome anymore.
and it still can be a disgusting disabling disease, not doubting that at all! MS is a damning disease as well, with similiar features and sometimes even part or all of criteria of cfs are fulfilled.

i just want to make it clear, if this works, its not a fix for cfs, its a fix for a different disease or syndrome. i do not want this thought that cfs can be tackled with psychological techniques to manifest in medical community in general more as it already is, because this makes hell to a lot for us. even if CBT and graded exercise and brain realignment work for some, it should only be known as a potential thing to try, but in no way should be part of diagnosing and treating general cfs patients.
everyone should know all possibilities and try all things they wanna try, but this idea that cfs has anything todo with psyche must go away in the medical community (not this forum though)

 

[hapl808]

i did not mean it in that way, maybe you heard different tunes in my words.
i am just saying that it might not be the typical cfs we expect because it does not fit the criteria if its not worsening after exercise. if you say you can with behavioural techniques overcome PEM , than its per criteria not cfs.

All of that.

And if it was directed at me, I was going by your intro post where you said symptoms started in Sep of 2024. Since many people find symptoms will resolve on their own - there's general acceptance in MECFS communities that your chance of getting better in your first year or two is much, much higher than in your fifth or tenth year.

You'll also have to understand, having been looking at this forum for over a decade, there are always people posting: just do this and it'll fix you like it fixed me. It's tough because it's often people who are much newer to the illness, and are usually suggesting things we've already tried - but then they get frustrated with us.

i also do not think that most people in this forum have the same disease because i believe this cfs is just a syndrome, a compilation of symptoms. but the origin of sickness might be different. for many it might be a viral trigger with sudden onset after disease, others got a disease slowly creeping into life like me.

Fully agree. The difference between a symptom-based syndrome and a single positive biomarker disease is we just don't know if the syndrome is one illness or 100.

i do not want this thought that cfs can be tackled with psychological techniques to manifest in medical community in general more as it already is, because this makes hell to a lot for us. even if CBT and graded exercise and brain realignment work for some, it should only be known as a potential thing to try, but in no way should be part of diagnosing and treating general cfs patients.

And again, fully agree. I tried brain retraining when I was particularly desperate and it did...nothing for me at all. Didn't make me worse, didn't make me better. Just...nothing.

It does however mean that this may be a path worth pursuing for people interested who experience sex-related PEM.

There are forums like POIS Center that investigate treatments for POIS. While I think there may be symptom overlap between MECFS and POIS, I don't think they're the same illness. Unfortunately, both are poorly understood syndromes, so who knows what's actually happening.

On the POIS forums, there are also many who are sure the disease is tied up in guilt about sex, mental issues, fear of sex or intimacy, etc. And I imagine those things may affect some people, but not everyone.

So it's not being 'unwelcome', but this forum has many of us who are bedbound or housebound for many years and some have experienced remissions and relapses. So when a new member is talking about crashing after long distance running - if it's MECFS, that's very early mild stages.

Most people will improve on their own from there, but may relapse at other points (after infections, injuries, etc).

In practice for me this looks like:

a) I worry that doing an activity (e.g. sex, yoga, whatever) will cause me fatigue.
b) The act of worrying about this causes fatigue.

The a) part of this is me trying to create meaning from a previous experience where I've already associated fatigue with the activity. The b) is a direct result of this meaning-forming process in my mind.

I know this can sound ludicrous or wacky, but don't knock it until you've put time into undoing these natural thought cycles. Mindfulness is extremely beneficial (perhaps necesssary) in noticing when these thoughts are appearing.

I also noticed that I had fallen into a way of thinking which was in itself amplifying the worry (and therefore the fatigue response from the brain).

c) A thought occurs that, "Next time I do activity X I might be fatigued afterwards ..." or "I wonder if activity X will cause fatigue for me this time?" etc.
d) Heightened awareness around any fatigue that appears afterwards equalling heightened worry about doing this activity equalling a greater fatigue response from the body.

So in conclusion to stop instantaneous fatigue from some activities I had to stop worrying that an activity was causing fatigue before or after the fact and tell myself some of the science points I mentioned in 1-5. E.g. that my fatigue system is misfiring because it's trying to protect me. The activity is not causing me fatigue, but it's my mental thoughts trying make sense of the activity and fatigue which is causing the fatigue.

And again, what you're describing is every single brain retraining system out there. Many of us have tried them, and not only did they do nothing for most of us - they belie the seriousness of the disease and make doctors and researchers think they don't need to help us, we just need to change our imagined anxiety.

People with MS or glioblastomas also get fatigued immediately after an activity, but I don't think it's just their way of thinking.

I never tracked my crashes or illnesses for my early years because it absolutely never occurred to me any of my activities or actions might be causing the crashes or illnesses.

Sorry if you feel unwelcome, but it gets frustrated to hear your exact suggestion every day from doctors, DNRS, Gupta, and half of Twitter. Then when we try it and it doesn't work, they get upset with us because clearly we didn't do it right.

 

[hapl808]

everyone should know all possibilities and try all things they wanna try, but this idea that cfs has anything todo with psyche must go away in the medical community

All my rambling could've been reduced to this statement - perfectly said.

 

[linusbert]

thanks.
i actually liked reading your long post, gives me great impression how other people think about this disease.