40 And Something New

40mg has been the magic dosage for me. I’ve been on it for a little over a month now. I wouldn’t say I feel like a new person, but I feel more present. It’s helped me focus on my cognitive behavioral exercises, leading to a decrease in the negative self talk. My overthinking has subsided a bit, which is a major relief. Of course I still get nervous and concerned about things, but those nerves haven’t turned in severe worrying and dreadfulness like before. The physical symptoms I used to experience have pretty much disappeared. The racing heart, sweating, shortness of breath, and tightness in my chest are not there. I also think more of my personality is starting to show. I’m not living in my head, overthinking and being anxious about responses to things, nor worrying so much about what other people are thinking about me. I’m just being!

The initial side effects when introduced to the 40mg were the same as before. However, I started to notice something else… my libido decreasing. Feel free to skip this part, if it’s TMI, but I must inform! It would take nothing for me to get an erection, but now I noticed not being as “hard” as before, and needing a little extra stimulation to stay “up”. I also noticed it taking significantly longer for me to climax. With self-pleasure, I could pop one off easily, but even that was taking longer than what I was used to. It scared me a bit, but even that side effect seemed to subside a bit after being on that dosage for a while. That is until an additional medication was added to my regimen… Trazodone.

Tazodone was added to help me sleep. I’ve had sleep issues for a while now. I developed sleep-apnea due to prior weight gain, plus I live in a poorly built condo where little to no sound proofing was done between the units; I can hear every foot step my upstairs neighbors take, in addition to hearing their TV, alarm going off in the morning, loud conversation… everything!! It sucks!! Any-who, I tried to pop some Melatnoine, but even that was not helping me stay sleep. My psychiatrist recommended Trazodone at 50mg, so I tried it. I was a bit concerned about taking more meds, but that went out the window once I took it and slept like a baby. My sleep has been great, really only waking up to use the bathroom, but again a hit to my libido was taken. I could get aroused, but climaxing was not happening. Self-pleasuring in the morning was out. I tried once and could not climax after about 30 minutes and wasting about 6 pumps of my good lube! Tried a few more times in the morning and got the same results. It’s still an issue now, but I’ve learned to work around it; basically, not self-pleasuring in the morning any more. Also with the Trazodone, the sluggishness in the morning can be pretty drastic. It’ll take me a minute to get moving and i’ll be drowsy for maybe an hour after waking up. However, again, the sleep has been the bomb, so I can deal with that!

Overall, I feel a nice balance with my medication treatment. I’m happy and glad this is working for me. Now that I’ve caught you up on present happenings, but now we’re going to take it back… way back! How did things even get to this point? As with most things, it starts at childhood. Stay tuned…