Lethargy, apathy, anhedonia what ever you want to call it. That has been the main symptoms for me. Like I said it has improved but im still not back to normal. I used to have spaciness here and there but not anymore.
Out of curiosity, have you tried taking mucuna pruriensis (L-Dopa) or any other dopaminergic stimulant? If yes, do they still have the same effect for you?
Im interested in this because mucuna does not have the same kick for me anymore. If we would be suffering from a parkinson like condition then our brain - mainly the D2 receptors - should have a higher sensitivity to dopamine. This is usually seen in parkinson patients when they start the levodopa treatment.
My situation seems to be the opposite. At worst mucuna does nothing for me - when in the past it had a clear effects. Now in my mind this does point to something else than the loss of dopaminergic neurons. Perhaps a problem with estrogen itself - some sort of dysfunction in the estrogen receptor.
But yeah. Who knows for certain? Time seems to be the best medicine for this ordeal.
Oh and labs. You should take thorough testing to make sure everything else is withing good range. To be honest im amazed about the amount of pure speculation some people have in this thread. If theres one thing that I have learned from all this it is the fact that you cannot trust on your feelings as indicator whether you have high or low e2. You can of course speculate but in my mind any changes in your protocol should only be made after your lab work indicates the need for it - and you have symptoms.
When I mentioned lethargy, I was more-so referring to the fatigue. I’ve had fatigue so bad I can’t sit straight or stand without sitting, after I eat I start falling asleep, it’s horrific, that’s by far my worst side-effect. My apathy/depression more-so comes from the fact that I’m so tired I don’t have the energy to be happy/exited.
To try to answer your question, Not super proud of this but towards the end of my initial crash was partying in Mexico and ended up doing one small line of snow, first time in years, started feeling like I was going to pass out because ligaments were loosing circulation. Then head started loosing circulation, thought I was gonna OD for a couple hours till symptoms went away. Never happened to me before, especially off such small amount of crappy stuff. Horrifying experience and can NOT be healthy... I assumed it was cuz low E. But may be a correlation with dopamine?
Labs have been perfect for months, everything including E2, thyroid, prolactin, you name it.
One thing tho, there’s a blood test for dopamine - “Catecholamines Blood Test, Fractionated“ not sure if it can pinpoint what we’re looking for, but might help.
Thinking about getting that done...
