Lately I've done a whole lot of LessFap rather than NoFap. I am not watching any p**rn. NoFap is very difficult for me without sleeping pills, which I can't take right now due to lifestyle issues. I've been averageing about once or twice a week for a while now, and I've noticed a pattern:
- For three days after jerking off, approximately, morning wood goes away. It then returns, and the intensity creeps up, this I've "tested" several times over;
- About a week after jerking off, erections that are not morning wood return, this I've tested and confirmed a few times;
Separately, there's a weird aspect where if I'm lying on my side the morning wood appears stronger than if I'm lying on my back. I also sometimes (often) drip after urination, I don't know what causes either effect or if they mean anything.
The suggestion from this, I think, is that the standard treatment for PIED is working but not working that well. Perhaps I'd benefit from a 90-day masturbation fast, but that seems like it would be really hard, the last time I went 38 days I was getting *a lot* of erections, all the time, I was waking up in the middle of the night because my dick was so hard.
The other suggestion might be that my testosterone levels are a little too low, or my estrogen/prolactin levels a little too high, for vigorous male sexual function. The fact it recovers after ejaculation relatively quickly (approximately 1 week) means I'm not far off, and thus I should keep losing fat and eating better. Unfortunately, I can't build muscle right now, and can't increase my testosterone that way, as I need to get surgery for a paraumbilical hernia first. That will come in one or two months.
For those unfamiliar, fat cells in the body convert testosterone into estrogen, which likely affects sexual function. I personally have both high testosterone and high estrogen, so I can shift that a little bit with further body fat loss. On the other hand, I'm already at a much lower weight than what studies show is the range where body fat impacts sexual function, so it may yield nothing.
This morning I got a blood test, which I'm reviewing with my doctor tomorrow. We've tested the same hormones as before to see how they've evolved, but also glucose, insulin, progesterone, and hopefully DHT. DHT is going to a different lab so we'll see.
My situation may not be very good right now, but at least there's progress and there's hope.