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~3 Week Hard Flaccid Recovery: Lessons learnt and advice.

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  • ~3 Week Hard Flaccid Recovery: Lessons learnt and advice.

    note: This won't work for everyone with hard flaccid / chronic pelvic pain syndrome (HF is often a symptom) - from reading around some people seem to suffer through this problem for months, if not years. However, as somebody who had the condition to a mild degree and managed to get rid of it in under 4 weeks - with 4 days of 'active' recovery - I want to shed some light on what might help for you, and hopefully provide some psychological comfort to those freaking out (as I truly believe a huge part of the problem is mental). I think this problem is likely more frequent with beginners than imagined, but many people just recover relatively quickly and get on with it. Even if this isn't the case I want to provide some lessons learnt for newbies, because there's advice been given out there on other websites (this one not so much) which leads to the problems.

    My advice for anybody who wants more information would be to look at the long (300+ pages) thread on this site about hard flaccid, and follow the advice laid out by Voodoo and Orbitto (sp?).


    My Experience and Lessons Learnt

    For me this problem started due to auto-regulation. This forum suggests slowly building up from low volume / intensity and paying attention to PIs (i.e. the way you react to training). This advice is golden. However, on other leading PE forums, a certain high profile coach advocates a high volume program built around auto-regulation. I.e. if you are responding well to the volume then don't take a rest day. Don't, under any circumstances, as a beginner (or even somebody who's done less than 6 months of training) do this.

    As somebody with a great deal of experience in physical training for sport I should have ignored this advice, but I didn't, and this is where I ran into problems. Within 2 weeks of training I started increasing the volume with positive PIs happening day after day and I was witnessing fantastic results. Until one day I woke up and that was it: no warning, no pain. Just a shrivelled up, hard, limp and cold dick with a tingling towards the base down to my pelvic floor, tension in my PC muscle, and basically no signs of life.

    So following on from the advice of the coaches on this site, sure, follow your positive PIs, but also pay attention to everyone giving you advice not to go too hard too soon. Build the volume slowly. Don't add any 'advanced' exercises, or even start off doing the entire JP90. Finally, my own advice would be to keep that pelvic floor relaxed! If you're a clencher especially, stop doing it and start focusing on reverse kegels before you kegel normally again.


    What I did next

    When I realised that I had a problem ~4 weeks ago I didn't know what hard flaccid was. I realised that something was going on with my pelvic floor but that was it. Once or twice that first week I spent ages playing around until I had light, dead feeling 60% semi (with absolutely no blood in the glans) and just decided to leave it and wait. Through the second week still nothing. I quit watching all porn (I'm not big on it anyway), and didn't masturbate. At this time my mindset was completely calm. This is important. I had distractions going on elsewhere, but beyond slight annoyance I simply didn't think or worry about the situation. I got on with my life as normal.

    Into the 3rd week and I still wasn't improving: no morning wood, no spontaneous erections. So I started stretching my pelvic floor and hip-flexors. I'd do basic stretches, deep breathing and relaxation techniques, reverse kegals, and I'd sit on a lacrosse / tennis ball for 10 minutes at a time. I also started reading up on the condition a bit, and saw just how many people seemed to be in complete despair over this condition. This is where you really can't afford to suddenly start worrying. This is a phenomenon which happens all the time on the internet when it comes to a medical condition: hysteria. This is also the main reason I'm making this post instead of getting back to my progress log. The reality is that the people who recover quickly, or hardly suffer from a problem aren't going to be thinking about posting about it online. With any illness when you go online you begin to see a cycle of panic, and despair, and it makes the problem much worse for yourself. In my case, I still didn't care at all, I just figured that I needed to fix it.

    I kept up my routine for 4 days, and also kept up the no-porn / no-fap / no panic situation. I was as relaxed as possible. I eat very cleanly and work out a lot as it is, but I introduced omega-3 in higher doses, niacin, zinc and l-arginine to my diet. I began noticing my flaccid penis seemed to be returning to normal. But I still had symptoms: a tight, weird tingling feeling in my pelvic floor (as if my 'inner penis' was pulled into my body) and no erections. If, for example, I felt horny, my dick would get a little bigger, but still basically be completely floppy. If I played around with it it might get to 50-60%, but the corpus spongiosum (the bottom part) would seem to be very flat, and only the base of my penis and the area below that (in pelvic floor) would feel engorged.

    It was on day 5 that I actively got annoyed. I still wasn't worried, but I was incredibly frustrated with the situation and basically sat down at my computer, fired up the porn, and, over an hour, mentally willed my penis to fix itself. That's the only way can I describe it. I sat there and took deep breaths down into my stomach, and put 100% focus into getting an erection. It wasn't easy. At around 60-70%, the usual period in which things would all go wrong, I had to really grind it out (this sounds ridiculous now with a working penis, but seriously, I mentally had to almost go into a trance). It took a long time but eventually it was back.
    Now here's where it really got interesting: my penis was .5" longer both bone pressed and npb than it was pre-injury. The girth was the same, but that 'tight' feeling in my pelvic floor had gone and I'd somehow gained a considerable amount of length. I initially wondered if it was a result of abstaining for almost 3 weeks, but since that day those gains have stuck around.

    Week 4: Full Recovery

    In the 5 or so days since I 'recovered' I've continued taking supplements, focused on keeping my pelvic floor relaxed, doing reverse kegels, and stretching out my pelvic floor and hip flexors. I'm now having multiple erections per day, and can easily get it up. Additionally, it's bigger than ever and my glans fill up more than they ever have. What I surmise as the cause of this is that I've always kept my pelvic floor contracted during sex and masturbation most of the time, and I'd keep it tight as a force of habit a lot. When I started PE I was always keeping it tight, and, with the edition of lots of kegels, I think I somehow over tightened my pelvic floor and my nervous system kept the floor on lock. To get it off lock you need to completely relax, and in order to do this you can't be anxious. You also need to get more in tune with your pelvic floor. For the first 2 weeks, when I did absolutely but remain calm and not touch anything, I didn't really improve at all.

    Once I started stretching and learning how to reverse kegel, in combination with being completely relaxed the entire time about my situation, I was able to recover well within a week of active recovery, and am now completely sorted (and then some). Interestingly enough, a lot of the cases I've read about online seem to be far more mild than my own: I literally didn't get a single erection in 2 weeks. I'd get horny and just get a weird semi. If you're still getting moderate erections and morning wood you're in a good position to get this fixed quickly. The take away from this though is that you need to be mentally solid. My past experiences and knowledge about hysteria when it comes to online diagnosis, distractions in my personal life, and a calm, 100% belief that there wasn't a concern made this very easy to get over.

    Get it into your head that this isn't a permanent problem, and isn't even necessarily a long term problem, and you'll be on your way to sorting it out.

    If anyone wants any more advice PM me. I'll check in a couple of times per week.


    TL;DR / Summary + Prevention

    -Fixed hard flaccid in under a week (1.5 weeks full recovery, 2 weeks elapsed until I started working on active recovery).
    -The key was a solid mental state throughout, staying very relaxed, and learning how to relax my pelvic floor (went from being a clencher to now no longer doing it).
    -My key physical exercises were:
    • Deep Breathing (into the belly, focusing on lightly pushing into a reverse kegel)
    • Deep sumo-squats (weightless), heavy deadlifts, bulgarian split squats (weightless), cossack squats, lots of groin / hamstring stretching.
    • Sitting on a hard chair with a tennis ball / lacrosse ball / juggling ball on pc muscles for 5-10+ minutes

    -Supplements:
    • L-arginine
    • Omega 3 (1.8-3mg per day)
    • Zinc (20mg)
    • Niacin (500mg)

    -Finally got over it by a 1 hour refusal to accept the situation. If you've ever played in an intense competition, or have been under intense pressure in doing something and put yourself into that zone where you simply can't fathom failure that's basically what happened. There is no doubt a physical element to this problem, but you can't overstate the mental component.

    -To prevent this from happening to you:
    • Stop clenching your pelvic floor so much, and focus on reverse kegels. I theorise that the cause for many people's HF when they start PE is that they have 'clenched' a lot throughout their lives without much in the way of reverse kegels which has caused a pelvic floor imbalance. Once they've introduced PE, and exercises which actively cause a lot of pelvic floor activation (if not direct kegeling itself), this imbalance becomes far worse and causes their pelvic floor to 'lock on'.

      This is all complete conjecture, but from what it felt like to me, and from the numerous reports I've read of other people's symptoms, I think this is very much a possibility.
    totemj
    Junior Member
    Last edited by totemj; 05-05-2016, 07:19 AM.

  • #2
    Originally posted by totemj View Post
    -To prevent this from happening to you:
    • Stop clenching your pelvic floor so much, and focus on reverse kegels. I theorise that the cause for many people's HF when they start PE is that they have 'clenched' a lot throughout their lives without much in the way of reverse kegels which has caused a pelvic floor imbalance. Once they've introduced PE, and exercises which actively cause a lot of pelvic floor activation (if not direct kegeling itself), this imbalance becomes far worse and causes their pelvic floor to 'lock on'.

      This is all complete conjecture, but from what it felt like to me, and from the numerous reports I've read of other people's symptoms, I think this is very much a possibility.
    This is exactly how my HF/CPPS was caused. Pelvic floor muscles are very different from any other types of muscles that we posses because they never stop working. If they did stop working we would be incontinent. I believe that due to this those muscles are, for lack of a better word, naive, and that is why we can train them to the point where tension/relaxation becomes involuntary.
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    • #3
      Originally posted by BigBob223 View Post
      This is exactly how my HF/CPPS was caused. Pelvic floor muscles are very different from any other types of muscles that we posses because they never stop working. If they did stop working we would be incontinent. I believe that due to this those muscles are, for lack of a better word, naive, and that is why we can train them to the point where tension/relaxation becomes involuntary.
      Very good point. Muscle imbalances can occur surprisingly quickly due to CNS adaptation. The common one seen in commercial gyms, for example, is the hunched over shoulder look you see in people with over-active chest muscles vs the rear delts / upper back. This can occur within only a week or two in new lifters - before enough time's elapsed for hypertrophy to have forced this change.

      With the pelvic floor, as you say, it's always in use. When I refer to it as 'locking on' I see it as your body basically seeing the default 'on' setting as being tighter than it used to be due to a significant volume of training exacerbating an already imbalanced pelvic floor. Your job is to then somehow teach yourself to relax. The best way to do this, imo, is to get into the habit off relaxing / and even reverse kegelling. I subconsciously reverse kegel now all the time and my situation there is now better than I can ever remember it being even before HF.

      I've 'clenched' for as long as I can remember, and - from discussing it with friends - it seems to be a common thing. Yet searching around apparently it's not 'normal'. It'd be interesting to see how my HF sufferers are habitual clenchers.

      The whole 'mental' component is significant because if you're walking around stressed all day you're likely going to be subconsciously 'tight', not to mention that it's hard to get an erection when you're mentally worrying that it's not possible as it is.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by totemj View Post
        The whole 'mental' component is significant because if you're walking around stressed all day you're likely going to be subconsciously 'tight', not to mention that it's hard to get an erection when you're mentally worrying that it's not possible as it is.
        Exactly, it becomes a cycle in and of itself. That is why some people suffer from HF for long periods of time. What do all those individuals have in common? They see multiple doctors who can only answer to physical problems and not psychological problems, which are the culprit. Unfortunately, those individuals are in denial of any type of psychological problem so they are compulsively suffering and constantly seeking answers. Even more unfortunate, they end up scaring other people who have just encountered a penile injury or who simply overtrained their pelvic floor.

        My HF was debilitating, I was in constant pelvic pain and was literally crying myself to sleep every night only to wake up with a normal penis just to become firm again as the day (and the anxiety) went on.
        HansTwilight
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        Last edited by HansTwilight; 05-05-2016, 09:48 PM.
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        • #5
          What an amazing thread! Glad to hear you beat this annoying and troubling condition. I'm recovering very well from mine. Yoga and Reverse kegels are amazing.

          But above all, the Mind! It's power is unlike any other.

          I've been off of PE/masturbation/everything for 2 months now. And my pelvic floor is way better, still not 100%, as i can still feel a tight muscle/nerve stretched from my anus up the spongiosum, but have been doing a yoga/reverse kegel routine that has helped me A LOT. Erections are MUCH better than when i first was injured. I did stupid stuff for awhile (4 months) and it will probably take that long to undo those 4 months of stupidity.

          The whole recovery is on my injury thread if you'd like to check it out, I try to update as much as possible.

          Needless to say i will be back soon, when i recover, because this will NOT stop me from growing my dick. (See the positivity right there?!)

          Amazing post, and thank you for sharing your recovery dude!
          "I simply am not there..."

          "Sharp like an edge of a Samurai sword, the mental blade cuts through flesh and bone."

          Start BPEL: (7/30/16) : 17.5 cm
          Current BPEL: ? (pending)
          Current NBP: 19cm
          BPFSL : 23.3 cm

          1st major Goal: 21.5 cm BPEL

          Ultimate Goal: 25 cm BPEL

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Dr. Bateman View Post

            But above all, the Mind! It's power is unlike any other.

            I've been off of PE/masturbation/everything for 2 months now. And my pelvic floor is way better, still not 100%, as i can still feel a tight muscle/nerve stretched from my anus up the spongiosum, but have been doing a yoga/reverse kegel routine that has helped me A LOT. Erections are MUCH better than when i first was injured. I did stupid stuff for awhile (4 months) and it will probably take that long to undo those 4 months of stupidity.

            The whole recovery is on my injury thread if you'd like to check it out, I try to update as much as possible.

            Needless to say i will be back soon, when i recover, because this will NOT stop me from growing my dick. (See the positivity right there?!)
            Keep it up mate! Glad to hear you're progressing! I think it's important for people like us who have / are making progress recovering to post about it because - using myself as an example - when I 'fixed' this problem I almost had no real incentive to get on the forums and talk about it; I was just thinking about jumping straight back into a low volume PE routine. I realised I had to post something when I saw a guy posting in another thread on here (I think he was called 'greendaywarning' but I can't find the thread) basically saying that there was irreversible damage.

            The nature of a forum will obviously lead to confirmation bias when you think you have something wrong with you, and the way forums work with reputation / authority being directly correlated with post count exacerbates this problem completely. When it comes to somebody who's posted a lot for a long time about a condition then in all likelihood they're going to be the people worrying the most, as they've always got it on their minds and have had the condition for a long time. Yet these people drive and influence the discussion whilst those who've recovered get on with their lives.

            I think what makes HF so mentally challenging for people is that it seems to have such a profound effect on one's penis that one struggles to accept it's merely a pelvic floor issue. The symptoms seem to scream 'blood flow problem', but they're really not. Ultimately you'll get rid of it when you can mentally flip that switch. It's easier said than done, but once I did it (by sitting there and forcing myself to get an erection for literally over an hour - see OP) that was it.

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            • #7
              Had a few PMs about HF / injury recovery so bumping this.

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              • #8
                Great thread.

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                • #9
                  I didn't actually realize it until I read this post, but the issue I've been having is essentially the same as "hard flaccid." That name for the condition never really rang a bell for me, so I didn't even bother reading threads about it before. But all the stuff you're saying about abrupt loss of morning wood, weak erections and other negative PI's due to over-training, the tightened / spasmed PC muscle, etc, is right on the money. In my case, it was due to overdoing kegels, clenching them too hard and for too long without enough prior experience in doing them.

                  And just like you said, it's nothing to panic about, even though it's annoying and frustrating to mend, because it's absolutely not permanent and it absolutely is reversible. You just have to be diligent and do those relaxation exercises that you outlined well in your post.

                  I would mention that for me personally, magnesium has been a helpful supplement. I take calcium with it so as not to have an imbalance. I think it stops having a substantial effect after you take it for a little while, but initially the effect was quite pronounced. I saw it recommended by KingPole in this thread (and in other threads): https://www.pegym.com/forums/erectil...y-damaged.html

                  Not entirely PE related, but a "squatty potty" could also be good for people with a really clenched up PC muscle. If the back pelvic floor muscles are so tight that they're having trouble moving their bowels, the squatting posture can help them defecate better.

                  Thanks for the good, informative post!

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Blackfish View Post
                    I didn't actually realize it until I read this post, but the issue I've been having is essentially the same as "hard flaccid."
                    Looking through a lot of posts across the internet about PE injuries I've noticed that the vast majority of them appear to be some form of pelvic floor imbalance with varying degrees of 'hard flaccid' simply being a symptom of the problem.

                    What makes it confusing are the changes one sees in their penis when they have the problem. The changes in it are often radical and it seems that blood flow has been compromised and, in my case, that in some areas blood simply wouldn't flow there any-more. And yet if you look at the guys who've had a full check up with various doctors most of them seem to have little to no actual physical injury. Once I got that first proper, 100% (if anything it was harder than usual) erection all of the symptoms seemed to disappear as quickly as they came. It was bizarre: one minute I was sat there with symptoms galore and a complete inability to get even a 40% erection, and the next (well after a good 45 minutes to get it to a decent level and a further 15+ to max it out) everything was back to normal.

                    To anyone with the issue take that as a reassurance. Your symptoms might seem extreme but they're really not.

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                    • #11
                      The mental part of these injuries is the biggest block to recovery.

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                      • #12
                        I think that I have hard flaccid. Upon lots of reading I started PE this sunday with a light session. 10' warm up, 5' basic, light stretching, less than 5' minutes of wet jelq, <5' of edging with some kegels in the mix. The dick was HARD during the edging, I deliberately not ejaculated. No evident pain, discomfort whatsoever.

                        Meanwhile it appeared that i have developed symptoms of the so-called hard flaccid:

                        -dick fells harder than usual when flaccid
                        -no erection during the day
                        -disonfort in the groin region, in particular if i stay seated for some time
                        -weak morning woods, with the head of the dick being soft
                        -increased frequency of urination
                        -sometimes a bit of a burden when urinating

                        I’m mid 30’s, I don’t masturbate a lot, haven’t since this event. No PE either.
                        Been doing some light reverse kegels and occasional deep breathing.

                        I’m generally a chill dude but this past half-year has been hard on my spirit. Developed some anxiety and had a panic attack. Because of that I’m going to the therapist this week.
                        I believe that addressing the mental part and having an optimistic outlook is key to recovery and wellbeing, both in life and in this issue in particular.

                        This thread was a soothing read and I appreciate you guys for that.
                        acsirip
                        Junior Member
                        Last edited by acsirip; 03-15-2017, 06:47 AM.

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                        • #13
                          If you haven't already... this may be of some benefit.
                          Pelvic floor physical therapy... Day 1
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                          • #14
                            thanks for the link, hans, and for the service that you provide to the community.

                            i am definitively better. i even managed to have sex on saturday! yesterday i was able to have a nice erection in the shower. happy

                            things appears to be on the right track. what i have done? chill a bit more, some light reverse kegels and occasional deep breathing. i tried my best to not focus on my dick. nothing more.

                            i plan to follow this routine for another couple of weeks to see if things solve for themselves. if not, i will follow the exercises that you guys have been sugesting.

                            thanks for the help
                            acsirip
                            Junior Member
                            Last edited by acsirip; 03-21-2017, 03:31 PM.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by acsirip View Post
                              thanks for the link, hans, and for the service that you provide to the community.

                              i am definitively better. i even managed to have sex on saturday! yesterday i was able to have a nice erection in the shower. happy

                              things appears to be on the right track. what i have done? chill a bit more, some light reverse kegels and occasional deep breathing. nothing more.

                              i plan to follow this routine for another couple of weeks to see if things solve for themselves. if not, i will follow the exercises that you guys have been sugesting.

                              thanks for the help
                              Glad I could help!
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