P.A.W.S. - what are they, cure, duration

Congratulations man, that's great.

 

Yea I hadn't read that before. Very inspiring.

 

I've had all these symptoms except Hypnagogia. I've also struggled with neurological symptoms:

Visual Snow
Visual Trails / Tracers
Oscillopsia (vision bouncing with movement)
Wavy lines in vision on edges of objects
Dizziness when looking at repetitive geometry
Tinnitus
Pressure in ears
Intense muscular tension around eyes
Feeling of rubber bands around head and face
Intermittent RLS
Yes, phantom tooth pain too.

I've decided that if your psychiatrist sends you to a neurologist and your neurologist sends you to a psychiatrist, then you probably have PAWS. Neither of them can help you because they have no fucking clue what's wrong. The psychiatrist is more dangerous though because he'll be happy to make things much worse for you if you let him.

@6'6 280 lbs androgenic beast 6, have you ever had your cholesterol levels checked during extreme PAWS? Mine is chronically low for years now. Under 170mg/dl is considered low and both sex and adrenal hormones use cholesterol as their precursor. I have a theory that the excess cortisol release during withdrawal creates a cholesterol deficit that is hard for the body to recover from. Since 95% of circulating cholesterol is the result of reabsorption and not biosynthesis, lack of cholesterol due to chronically high cortisol demand could eventually cause a homeostatic disruption in adrenal hormone availability. That would make it harder to manufacture on-demand cortisol in times of high stress. The worse my symptoms are, the lower my cholesterol readings.

I've always felt there was a cholesterol connection but not many young people know their cholesterol numbers so they wouldn't know if they were low or not. Nobody really chimes in either way when I mention it so maybe it's not the common denominator I thought it was. It seems odd to me though that my only reliably out-of-range lab reading has nothing to do with my symptoms.

You and I have had some similar experiences though and we're both big boys so I'd be interested to know if you know your numbers, especially when your symptoms were at their worst. When I was rapid detoxed from X@n@x years ago in the hospital my total cholesterol was 108 mg/dl! For several years now it tends to hover around 140 which is still too low. When doctors see my very low numbers they say I'm the epitome of health, which is total BS. They only think in terms of cholesterol and clogged arteries, not cholesterol and stress tolerance.

I have a friend who is in his 60s and was an alcoholic for 40 years. Eventually he had to quit cold turkey because of cirrhosis and had alcohol PAWS for at least a year. During that time his total cholesterol was 150mg/dl but it was 210 before withdrawal. I'm waiting for someone to tell me that they had severe PAWS with visual and neurological symptoms while maintaining normal >170 total cholesterol at the same time.

I'm open to the possibility that I have genetically low cholesterol because I don't know what my numbers were before PAWS. It will be very interesting for me to see what they are as my symptoms get better. There's a lot of documentation that hypocholesterolemia directly causes memory loss and mood disorders but most of it is based on side effects of statin drugs (which lower cholesterol).

Do you have any thoughts about it?

 

Worth a read if you haven’t already. Success story while still having sex. The OP hasn’t posted since 2015, so I guess he just got better and better.

https://www.rebootnation.org/forum/index.php?topic=5929.0

 

Interesting theory. I haven’t had my levels checked but maybe that’s something to look into because my symptoms sound awfully similar to yours, especially the visual disturbances. Can you say a bit more about the “wavy lines” and whether they’ve improved? Do you mean that it’s like you see the edges of objects as bent or crooked?

 

I never really thought about it. You might have a point. I did one blood checkup one time after benzo withdrawal and during my porn addiction days, and had my LDL and HDL checked. LDL was actually on the high side because of the amount of meat I ate for powerlifting. I then went on a vegan diet, and started feeling more energetic. I don't think that there is a connection in my case. All symptoms started after 21 days, after a really intense long porn binge with multiple orgasms for a couple of weeks.

 

What's crazy about these symptoms is they come in waves. Today, you may feel okay then feel bad tomorrow then feel bad again the day after.

 

That's indeed how it goes. For me the mental symptoms like depression, anhedonia, anxiety, social anxiety were almost 24/7, but the physical symptoms were randomly present. I.e. diarrhea, stomach cramps, urinary problems, weak legs, blurry vision, stomach aches and cramps, nausea etc. Now all I have is some insomnia, sometimes social anxiety and anhedonia left. The rest is all gone. I still have visual snow, but that's a permanent leftover from benzo withdrawal.

 

You say your visual snow is still there but you did see some improvements in blurry vision? The visual symptoms stress me out the most and I need some hope things can get better.

 

Hi Dave. Visual symptoms should be distinguished between neurological and non-neurological (physical). Trails, persistent afterimages, wavy lines, shimmering edges, etc... are neurological in origin because they are caused by changes in the brain's ability to process sensory input. Double vision, blurry vision, starburst effect from streetlights and digital clocks, etc... are usually physical because it's related to the functioning of the eye and eye muscles, not the brain. In my case, the onset of neurological symptoms were also accompanied by natural changes that might have happened anyway in my 30s.

If your visual symptoms get better when you poke a pinhole in a piece of paper and bring it up to your eye and look through it, then you might just need glasses. The pin hole blocks out the light that isn't hitting your iris at the right angle. Glasses will correct any issues with refraction. As people age they can become near-sighted, far-sighted, or both. Don't be afraid to get a $50 eye exam to find out.

Neurological changes can be related to neurotransmitter dysfunction (think LSD) or because of structural loss of gray matter in the brain regions that process visual input. I don't know the exact cause of mine but all of my visual symptoms are doing much better these days so the fact that there is improvement is encouraging. Severity comes in waves and definitely tracks with the state of my other cognitive and emotional symptoms.

The most disturbing for me is the ripples and wavy lines. Doctors have suggested that it could be migraine aura but it's very different than that. It's hard to describe but it's like I have a problem with edge detection. I see shimmering or rippling on anything that forms repeated lines like tile floors, vertical blinds, google images thumbnail pages, lanes in the road, aisles in a grocery store, etc... If I stare at a spot, the center is fine but the geometry in the peripheral seems to be in motion. It's like my brain is going in and out of being able to form a solid picture. When my symptoms are mild it only really happens with extremely busy patterns. These days I don't have any problems with roads or grocery aisles so that means some healing is slowly taking place.

But, a picture like this causes problems for me even on good days. For me, it looks to be jumping all over the page. But when I look at it with one eye covered, it just looks like a normal plaid pattern. All of the movement stops. It has something to do with the brain's ability to form a single image out of the two separate ones it's getting from the eyes.

 

A symptom I experience more than any other these days: extreme anger. It's hard to describe how angry I get when my brain is craving porn. It's a daily occurrence. 3-4 hours a day I'm in a state of complete irritability and, sometimes, rage.

After reading that pdf and hearing some more stories on this site it seems that symptoms don't really gradually improve. Maybe towards the very end they do, but it seems that the flatline is just this long, extended period of pain that has no middle, only a beginning and an end. My experience totally confirms that. I'm 15.25 months into this and I don't feel any different, really, than when I was at month 10, 11, etc. Sometimes it feels as if the symptoms are getting worse. And the amount of time they last hasn't changed either. The number of "decent" days I experience hasn't increased at all. 98% of my days are awful, I would say.

I'm excited to be able to start reporting good news, but, for now, I got nothin'.

 

How is the depression and fatigue for you these days? I'm at 10.5 months and extreme fatigue is my worst symptom right now. Acute anxiety is way down, but the fatigue. No motivation for anything at all.

 

Man, I completely understand if you can't. But, could you send me the Gary's email? I'm dealing with some problems related to my capacity in speaking and I think it's porn related. But I need someone who is an expert in brain and neurochemistry. This doubts are killing me man.

 

I experience fatigue in waves. The past week or so I haven't been that fatigued, but the whole month prior I was fatigued just about every day. It's just so fucking weird how this shit works, it's a giant god-damned mystery.

 

Thanks, this is all really helpful. I am having an eye exam soon so hopefully that will help put my mind at ease. I’m glad to hear you’re doing better.

I know what you mean about the waves and correlation with other symptoms. I notice I get really panicked whenever my vision is at its worst, but maybe the causation is not what you think: could be that it’s not just a conscious reaction to the visual symptoms but that they’re linked at a much deeper level somehow.

 

The motivation thing does come back actually, I struggle with that after my last relapse, currently around 60 days monk mode, and starting to get motivation back, the first 50 days or so were tough in terms of motivation, 0 study or reading. The annoying thing is before my last relapse I was starting to get super motivated and had 2-3 projects I was working on, they all got put on pause this past 3 months.

 

I'm not experiencing things in the way that you, @Masked-Debater and others seem to. For me there seems to be an underlying improvement as time goes on, but it is so slow that I can only see it if I compare how I am today with where I was a week ago or more. I also have to correct for the fact that too much activity will leave me utterly exhausted, so if I've had a busy few days, I will feel worse because of it, but will eventually "rebound" back to where I was before the activity.

Since my last relapse, I felt horrifically bad for the first 6 weeks, then seemed to bottom out for another 4 weeks, but have seen small improvements since then. I'm talking about fatigue, and general mental / emotional health problems. I do have days where I seem worse or better than I would expect, but invariably, this can be accounted for by activity that I hadn't thought about at the time, or food that has aggravated by stomach issues.

So I seem to be on a fairly linear and predictable path. Having said all of this, I am always bracing myself for an unexpected setback in terms of PAWS symptoms, because I've never had a relapse where I felt this bad before, or a streak that has lasted this long.

 

New User here, been lurking on this thread for a long time, decided to reveal myself as I suffered from PAWS as well of which I have dealt with from Cannabis, Risperidone, Prozac all at the same time (LOL).

All of the symptoms are mainly gone now from the former, except for this last, final boss of an addiction, a vicegrip, it is the oldest one out of them all, the last poisoned tree rooted in my brain, I've conquered countless demons and have been through hell to heaven to Earth countless times, recovery is possible! Remember that!

I am currently on a new streak of which began a week or two ago, I'm not going to count it though, not by days no, by years as I did/do with the other ones that I had, this is the best way to go through. I had a streak that lasted a year, but texting girls on instagram made me fall back into the addiction of which I was still in the cycle until I moved all technology out of the bedroom, haven't had an urge since, anyways, on PAWS duration...

In my experience, it lasts typically 1-3 years and leaves granted you are cleared from the addiction, I had virtually every symptom that could be had and they went away over time, if I had PAWS from those 3 chemical beasts and it went away then surely this will too! I just have to wait another few months to enter PAWS again, which will happen as I abstain more, if you need any advice, give me a holler

 

I don't have much to add to this thread, just wanna give a show of respect to you bros who have made it as long as you have and are dealing with this issue. I hope to join you and add some input on PAWS, one day. God bless.

 

This has echoed in my mind for the last 24 hours... I have a rage problem - have since I was a kid. Hard to say how closely it is related to PMO / PAWS, but when things were especially bad in the autumn, I had several moments where I completely lost it. Small things seem to set me off, and I know that they wouldn't if I was having a better day in terms of PAWS. On one occasion I was literally biting my sofa with fury. I can't even remember why - it could have been nothing but the frustration of dealing with symptoms, and the head-banging nature of withdrawal itself.

PAWS rage - like road-rage for porn addicts...?