Hey everyone,
I’ve been trying to piece together what’s driving my POIS symptoms, and I’m starting to suspect a strong pelvic floor / nervous system component rather than purely addiction, hormonal or immune system.
A few things I’ve noticed:
When I’m already calm and relaxed, symptoms are way milder or sometimes almost nonexistent If I’m more “wired” going in, I tend to get the full 2–5 day crash I’ve realized I unconsciously tense my pelvic floor during arousal/orgasm Actively relaxing it (reverse kegels, breathing, anxiolytic compounds etc.) seems to reduce symptoms noticeably
So my current working theory is: There’s some kind of pelvic floor overactivity + nervous system loop where tension during arousal leads to a bigger systemic response afterward.
I’m curious if anyone else here has experienced:
Clear improvement from relaxing the pelvic floor during stimulation Symptoms being highly dependent on your baseline stress state Relief from things like pelvic PT, trigger point work, red light, TRE, etc. That “wired but tired” feeling being tied to pelvic tension
Also wondering:
Has anyone tried trigger point injections for this and had lasting success? Any specific techniques that helped you actually get the pelvic floor to let go when it feels stuck?
Would really appreciate any insights or similar experiences—this feels like a piece of the puzzle that isn’t talked about enough.
I saw a few old posts about POISers getting big relief by avoiding tensing their muscles and treating inflammation in the pelvic floor.
https://reddit.com/r/POIS/comments/wwlmqm/cause_pelvic_floor_muscles/
https://reddit.com/r/POIS/comments/v9hxa4/finally_diagnosed_with_something_concrete/
https://reddit.com/r/POIS/comments/1qx5966/pois_related_to_pelvic_floor/
Curious if anyone had similar experience to share.
...
Edit: So the reasoning is something like: Symptoms resolve with abstinence → the activity itself is the trigger → the body part most involved in that activity is the pelvic floor → therefore the pelvic floor could be an important lever to address.
This article supports this theory as well: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8392034/