Any Treatment For Anhedonia ?

Cymatic

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Feb 15, 2017
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Oh my god. You actually take fin? That IS DEFINITELY the cause of your anhedonia. Get off fin right away. Havent you read this forum at all?!?! We all have had nightmares and tragedies due to fin. It killed my libido, my ability to concentrate, my ability to feel, my ability to sleep, fin is a terrible drug, man. Get off it before you do any more damage to yourself. Fin is also not effective at treating hairloss at all. Simply supplementing taurine at 2grams a day has been shown to be more effective. Getting your thyroid function up high is usually all it takes to stop hairloss. Then you can also do other things like laser therapy, selenium shampoo, dermaneedling, topical caffiene, etc etc. There is a lot of options we have talked about on the forum.

Just get off fin, I promise it is the cause of your problems...

What this guy said. Also, slowly taper off any psychotropic drugs you're currently taking but plan to stop.
 

Shin

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Oct 22, 2016
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I have been fighting Anhedonia for years guess it came when I crash dieted back in the day and destroyed my metabolism.
Still trying to get it back up, I have tried sooo much over the years...
What works best for me is low dose LSD, makes me feel completely normal for a day, with an afterglow for the next day.
Caffeine is the next best thing, but both have to be cycled, after 14 days of coffee the effects are already very weak...
 
Joined
May 26, 2016
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Get lots of sunlight, lots of nutrient dense and antioxidant rich foods (milk, oj, eggs, coffee, cooked kale, etc.) and try visiting somewhere new. If that's not doable, try listening to some new music.
 

zztr

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Nov 2, 2016
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Isn't anhedonia practically just another name for depression?

If you have the means to take on risk (i.e. you're not stuck providing for kids) the path out of depression is to take risks, execute, and win.
 

TubZy

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Sep 30, 2016
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Thanks for the tips

I didnt take drugs for 5 years but my anhedonia still worsened with time

dont you fear losing you hair again since you stopped fina and started?

I use finasteride too but i won't stop it because it's not the cause of my anhedonia

How do you increase you androgens?

Dude..drop the fin, I know you don't want to hear that b/c you afraid for your hair but I guarantee that is the cause of your anhedonia.
 

Queequeg

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Sep 15, 2016
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I agree. Lots of better ways to save your hair. Lots of posts on it in the forum.
 

Thoushant

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Mar 2, 2015
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I would suggest you look into what changed in your beliefs before the period.
I guess it's a form of CBT, but it's more for exploring your values, beliefs, etc etc

One thing I've realized is human nature is damn complex, and it's daunting to see how emotional states end up being used for economical purposes.
IE, different times different cultures would have an integrated understanding of what you might be going through, and through religion, rituals etc you would take on new meaning of the experience

Me personally, I had trouble empathizing with myself and my emotions, due to closed introverted personality mixed with special family circumstances. I ended up bottling emotions and their cause without having an outside source to keep me in check, so to speak

I would suggest Karla Mclaren's blog when you eventually do find a troubling emotion, and don't know what the take home message is. She has different posts explaining emotions,

Then there's Emotionalcompetency with several concepts about human mind, beliefs values, paths of emotions and all in a logical way.

There's this saying "no highs without lows" ~, and it's true, if you don't process your negative feelings, you positives one fades away

Also, emotions can be subtle, so if your in constant stress, overwhelmed or hyperventilating, stuck in your head, you might miss out on them. What works for me is planting my feet in the ground, and sternum close to body(keep a hand on your sternum, breath in without it moving, maybe you have to apply force to, breath out and try to let the air out of your chest, sternum to your heart), It's a bit of shifting focus from the mind to the inner body sensations. so Chakra meditation will give you good places to start, eventually you will start to recognize blocks along you spine, which you have to decide to break free of(it's as simple as relaxing excessive lower back tension)... Or just take a drop of Progest-E with thyroid, that works too lol, although side effects etc.

So about the CBT. Start a journal and write most event you hold significant where you see you lack an emotional response you whish you had.
Then ask yourself with no judgement, what went through your head, where was you focus right the milliseconds after the event, this might let you uncover what might be holding you back. what body was especially tight/active during the moment. Give yourself time, eventually you will be more in tune.
Try to find a common belief you have come to accept as truth, that you are acting upon subconciously. when you find one, sit down and take a look at the evidence and try to incorporate a more healthy belief. A wrong belief might give you excessive fear or anger that you are unaware of, for me I've learned I can block a lot of emotions by unconciously tensing certain body parts.
I also realised that emotional hygeine is a hard work, and you should set up goals, when your write an event, what were you expectations when you got in, how did you respond, what should you expect next time. You need to set healthy expectations and then revisit and give yourself credit when you met them. So next event you goal is at least not worry about not feeling anything, you feel content for w/e reason etc, cultivate positive and manage negative emotions. It's the small stuff in life, many good feelings makes for a good mood etc, so you need to get ball rolling, I think.
Here emotionalcompetency is good, for several outlooks in life, you may be unaware you have.

This was my experience anyway, and I wrote this to remind myself again. Hopefully something can help you out. There's some other stuff to breathing rate related to emotions etc, if there's anything ask and I will try to find sources or explain more.
Ex: recently I realized I was influenced by a lot if the media I see, after watching "David Foster Wallace - The problem with Irony" by Will Schoder on youtube.
 

REOSIRENS

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Jan 4, 2017
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Thanks for the tips

I didnt take drugs for 5 years but my anhedonia still worsened with time

dont you fear losing you hair again since you stopped fina and started?

I use finasteride too but i won't stop it because it's not the cause of my anhedonia

How do you increase you androgens?

my friend... my friend... finasteride is destructive drug... but I will not tell you what to do...one day you will see and I hope is not too late
 

mrgmcmn

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Mar 22, 2017
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I have been through the psychologist/psychiatrist wringer. Parents put me throught it because they were convinced I was depressed even though I'm like joyful all the time. Long story short they were projecting their issues on me. Anyway, I can speak from personal experience that you have to get off those psych meds and do a RP protocol for at least 3-6 months before you feel better. Stay away from meat for a while and supplement with caffeine, vitamins and high quality Indica dominant cannabis. That's my 2 cents.... So do you like, never laugh? I'm just curious because your case sounds extreme. Peace.
 

DaveFoster

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Jul 23, 2015
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Portland, Oregon
I have been through the psychologist/psychiatrist wringer. Parents put me throught it because they were convinced I was depressed even though I'm like joyful all the time. Long story short they were projecting their issues on me. Anyway, I can speak from personal experience that you have to get off those psych meds and do a RP protocol for at least 3-6 months before you feel better. Stay away from meat for a while and supplement with caffeine, vitamins and high quality Indica dominant cannabis. That's my 2 cents.... So do you like, never laugh? I'm just curious because your case sounds extreme. Peace.
Care to elaborate on the Indica-dominant cannabis recommendation?
 

IhaveAnhedonia

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May 12, 2017
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rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)
iTBS (intermittent Theta Burst Stimulation), or
Deep TMS ,
could all be neuromodulation techniques that you could try. Just make sure to get a diagnosis of major depression: If you talk to a good doctor, he will right away recognize anhedonia as one of the 2 possible core symptoms of major depression and will diagnose you as such. In my case, anhedonia is a negative symptom of my schizophrenia, but in both cases the research as shown that it's most likely caused by to a dopamine malfunction in the areas of the brain associated with reward and motivation. rTMS, iTBS, and deep TMS all send magnetic stimulations to the prefrontal cortex, which will subsequently "tell" deeper brain regions to release more dopamine and resume normal activity (at least that's what I believe to have understood from the readings I've done on the subject).

Your insurance will most likely cover the treatments. Unfortunately, not if it's a diagnosis of schizophrenia (such a shame...). But if you haven't had a psychosis then you don't have to worry about that. I also just want to plug in that, unlike in North America, in Israel and Europe deep TMS is officially approved by health authorities as a treatment for the negative symptoms (anhedonia,etc.) of schizophrenia, which makes it the ONLY official treatment for neg. symptoms in the world. Antipsychotics and antidepressants usually don't do anything for neg. symptoms and anhedonia; rarely, Abilify or Wellbutrin will help some people.

The thing about those brain therapies is that, depending on which mental illness you suffer from (e.g. depression, schizophrenia, PTSD, etc.), the parameters, e.g. frequency, intensity, number of trains, etc., on the brain stimulation devices will be different.

If anyone has tried such treatments, let me know if it worked for your anhedonia (even if your anhedonia is not caused by schizophrenia, I'd like to know because I want to try it in the future)
 

wildworld1992

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Nov 12, 2020
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165
Eh personally I eould get off the prescription drugs that influence your neurotransmitters. I dont know much about drugs because I will never take them, but I have heard that wellbutrin can help with some people. Personally I have dealt with severe anhedonia as a symptom of postfinasteride syndrome, and the things that helped me the most are increasing androgens/dht, increasing thyroid levels with either supplemental t3/t4 or what I am now doing which is simply coffee+niacinimide +aspirin and eating plenty of sugar and protein. You know the strength of your thyroid by resting pulse and temperature.

For dopamine the best thing for me has been to fix your gut health. I would start with the saple of Ray's carrot salad every day . You can add in activated charcoal with it as well as niacinimide or even methylene blue. Stay away from uncooked starches or fiberous fruits or eating too much starch in general. The gut is the primary source of serotonin and esteogen which will lower dopamine levels. Coffee will lower sorotnin and increase dopamine too as long as it isnt irritating your gut or bile production...
How's your PFS now?
 

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