Does your sex drive fluctuate? By how much?

I fluctuate a lot as well. If I have a lot of sex, my sex drive goes through the roof. If I’m going through a dry spell my sex drive is very low. It is usually connected with how much physical activity I do along with how tired I am etc etc.

You are just perfect specimen of a young healthy man with some issues but nothing more Renholder

Forget reading the tea leaves for diseases that you do not have such as TRT’s , endocrinologists, ultrasounds and MRI and the like these are used at times to diagnose serious illnesses sometimes irreversible ones.
Everyone gets lowish testosterone from time to time and it is quite normal and acceptable in my late middle age I developed a bit of man boobs and completely hairless that caught the attention of endos but even when my testosterone was on the lowish side the were other health issues more serious to look at the testosterone problem was just a part of it.
Don’t accept TRT injections they are quite painful

I work in the medical field so that is my advice just practice kegel routines daily, take some multivitamins don’t masturbate quite often have more sex with your partners
mastrubation is a one person affair and lonely whilst sex is more of a social interaction (flirting, foreplay, orals sex, try to please your partner rather than worry about your dick)
BTW I am 55y/o so have been there than that

Renholder, take a chill pill. You are completely normal. Every man’s sex drive fluctuates. So does every woman’s. Everything in your life evolves in cycles. Not only your sex drive, but your health, and energy levels in general. It has to do with the Universe itself. So since it is too much for you to understand, you don’t need to concern yourself with that :) .

But you need to relax. The best and only way to completely enjoy your sexuality is to be relaxed about it. Over thinking the issue won’t help.

Guys,

I appreciate the advice and encouragement that I am indeed normal. It is also encouraging to see that other people experience fluctuation in their sex drive.

However, I feel fairly confident that something is going on in the system and if my sex drive is fluctuating between close to none and normal, that is a different situation than if it fluctuates from normal and high, right? :)

Truth be told, the libido is only a part of the equation and I have been meaning to do some research the last days (my new years resolution is to get well), but only today do I have the energy to do it. Fatigue (physical and mental) and low energy is the worst part of my problems. Hopefully, I can find out something in the close future.

If you don’t use it you lose it. An active sex life free of worry will cure you sex drive issues.

Wow, what a great detective story this is Ren. Keep us updated with this.

It’s a subject not well understood. The plumbing is much more the focus in medicine than the desire aspect.

What you mentioned about the fatigue reminded me a lot of chronic fatigue syndrome. CFS, written about since the turn of the last century and once called Benign myalgic encephomyelitis. It seems to be another rabbit hole.
It’s related to the symptoms seen in Fibromyalgia and both are thought to be somatoform disorders, or to put it bluntly ’ in your head ‘. I don’t believe this to be the case.

I do believe these both to be related dopamine disorders but I can’t be certain.

I have heard of people treating themselves and improving with NADH supplements.

Also, there is Pramipex*le, which is a dopaminergic for improving libido.

The levodopa in Mucun pruriens is mostly inactive without a COMT and or a MAO-B inhibitor present. Green tea helps in some respects. I suspect that in cultures where velvet bean was used there was something else present in the diet or in the preparation that boosted it’s effects and gave it it’s real strength.

Buproprion, also known as Wellb*trin or Zyb*n can stimulate the libido through norepinephrine reuptake inhibition. It may or may not have dopamine reuptake inhibition. It works very well in some and not at all in others.

Also there is Bremelanotide. This began as a peptide for the purpose of tanning research and was found to stimulate the sex drive through the melanocortin receptors.

I am not a pharmacist and don’t particularly like pharmaceuticals. I would rather go the natural route when possible but in the case of a serious disorder, sometimes the natural route will take much longer and won’t be as direct. Although I’m glad to hear you’ve had some improvement with DHEA, CoQ10, EFA’s etc.

The stuff I’ve mentioned is for the most part, tinkering with brain chemistry to get a desired result. Not a great idea, BUT if something vitally important isn’t working already then it becomes a trade off for something else potentially going wrong. You have to weigh the outcome yourself and review and test the safety of each.

Hopefully what happens is you kick start the system to work on it’s own again. After that you can live a normal life. Although it is important to get an answer for what was or is causing the original problem. When the body is fighting a disease of some kind, sometimes it ‘borrows’ from resources that are not vital to reserve the energy to keep fighting. Or the disease has caused a change in the function of the brain itself.

I wouldn’t think that any damage done is permanent because that’s just defeatest and highly unlikely. However something is/was likely at the very least suppressing your sex drive.

Keep getting bloodwork done. Someone may find something that someone else overlooked. The ferritin results sounded interesting.
Find a clinic to donate blood to monthly and see if anything improves immediately after you donate. See if there’s a libido spike. This would very much indicate hemochromatosis.

Not being in radiology, I can’t tell you how accurate the results of an ultrasound would be or not be as compared to an MRI.

Having said all that ( WHEW! ) if everything seems to be working, don’t tinker any more. The clomiphene won’t be necessary. (Did I read that you were releasing 1-2 times a day? That’s kind of more than half of anyone I’d say).
Sometimes supplements will take a while to start having an effect on the body. You may be giving it what it lacks and the body is doing some repair work.

I wouldn’t want to do TRT either.

Keep up the good fight and keep looking for answers Ren.

The detective story goes on…

Ren, also, I don’t want to be dispensing advice and have the cause be something more serious than is being explored here. You need to be seeing a doctor regularly regarding your symptoms and get checked regularly.

It might help to look for other symptoms and keep records. When you’re dealing with something unknown or Idiopathic you can’t get a lot of answers and you are likely to frustrate most M.D’s. You are looking after your own health and are for the most part on your own. Just make sure it’s not something more serious and get several opinions.

Again, I’m just giving you ideas. I have some limited medical education but I am NOT a diagnostician. There are people who are. Make sure you see them.

My sex drive varies between 0% when I am in the dentist chair having my teeth drilled, and 100% when there is a beautiful naked woman in my bed.

I vary between ‘horny as a bastard’ and ‘horny as a motherfucker’ if that’s any help.

Just to throw in my .02.

I don’t really fluctuate all that much. My drive is pretty much always high, unless I have a migraine of course. I can plateau at times like when I’m at work, but just THINKING about my girlfriend and how much I love her always starts to redirect my blood if you know what I mean. It seems to be 100% mental for me.

If it helps, I’m 34 and my girlfriend is 23. My drive and stamina are definitely greater than hers, but I like that.

My advice is, whatever you do, do not avoid girls because you are worried you will not perform. I was doing this for a long time because I was distressed that my day-to-day libido seems to be but a shadow of its former self, and thought I would be disappointing and seem lame to girls with healthy libido. Then a couple girls basically threw themselves at me in ways I couldn’t get out of and I was forced to man up. It turned out that when I have real live naked girl who I can regularly have sex with, the libido comes back 100%. When I do not have a girl, it shuts down completely.

Yes, it is a detective story, although I do not find it particularly entertaining being in the middle of it. :)

I considered CFS myself once, but reading up on it, it seems a lot more severe than my current state. Well, when I first wrote up a thread about it here, it was very severe, but I have improved immensely since then.

The thing about my libido (which I`m not entirely sure is 100% correlated with my fatigue) is that it is cyclical. I actually got back on clomiphene, but quit after 3 weeks, since I did not feel any better at all. If anything, I may actually have been worse. My libido also went down the drain, although that could be random. Now, I`m once again feeling that I have a normal libido, but I have been feeling very tired this week, with the emphasis on feeling. I don`t think my body is tired, since I often experience being STRONG after pushing myself and getting started with whatever I have to do. I took a personal record in deadlift this week as an example.

I remember vividly one time last year where I had an appointment with a friend to go hiking. I truly felt like shit. Weak and powerless. I was about to call my friend and cancel, but he beat me to it so I had to push myself although I felt more like dying. After 5 minutes or so, my body was feeling strong and great and we actually took a new personal best in performance. I could not believe it was the same body that felt like it was 80 years old and wanted to cancel the appointment an hour earlier. I felt great afterwards as well. Similar stuff have happened countless times.

I currently do not use any supplements and quit the DHEA as well. I ordered a lot of new stuff that I intend on experimenting with: ginkgo biloba, maca, high dosage d-vitamin, tongkat ali and mucuna pruriens.

I have been talking to another guy online and he is convinced that my issues may be because of a cortisol rhythm that is completely out of whack. I considered this angle earlier myself, but all doctors say that I`m fine as they always do, so I kind of gave up on that. It turns out that cortisol tested from blood is not very reliable and for a test to mean anything, one needs multiple measurements throughout the day. This guy thinks that using melatonin may help me regulate my cortisol levels. I will need to do some research before I consider trying that, but it sounds plausible to me.

I will have to research all those drugs you mentioned.

With regards to hemachromatosis, I don`t think the answer is there. I have given blood many times (very strict here in Norway btw, so I can`t release monthly at will) and did not notice anything with regards to libido.

What you say about the body borrowing resources that are not vital when fighting a disease is very interesting and I really believe that back when I made my first thread here, something was very off in my body. Possibly a chronic infection, inflammation or something like that. Ferritin tends to rise during inflammations, so that could explain it.

Thank you for your time and interest! :)

The real problem here is the lack of knowledge with all the GPs I`ve visited, which are not few. Did I mention the guy who said LH is a “lady hormone”? Or the freshly educated female doctor that GOOGLED “testosterone” in front of my very eyes and told me honestly that she really did not know much about “this stuff”.

Now, the last GP I`ve been to, who have been strongly recommended to me and is supposed to think outside the box, turns out to be not far from clueless himself. The last time I visited he really did not offer any advice, but writing out clomiphene after I asked for it. It also turns out that he never even tested my cortisol levels.

So, I`ve been trying to find a good endocrinologist, but it`s not so easy. There is one, but I have to travel, so maybe I will just have to shell out for that. I was about to book an appointment with a medical center here in Oslo, but then I read about people who had almost left there crying because the doctors mocked them. It seems like most doctors here in Norway, including specialists, got their head up their ass when it comes to such issues. As long as measurements are inside the reference range, you are fine. Does not matter if you`re at the top or bottom as long as you`re within. :)

Good advice about keeping records. I try to plot down stuff in my PE-log. :)

Good advice.

I`m in paradise city now with regards to girls, so I hope to get some action soon. I will definitely not go into hiding, although I`m starting to believe that my libido issues may not be 100% correlated to my other troubles.

Glad to hear things turned out good for you. :)

:rolling:
woooooooohhhhhhww I laughed hard. Just to be clear I’m not laughing at you or your situation, just at the doctor. I would have laughed in her face and just walked out still laughing.