Male problem: reduction in ejaculation amount, congealed semen

[anonandafraid]

Hello,

Sorry about the embarrassing problem. Here's a history of how I've got to this stage:

At the beginning of this year I started having severe health anxiety about my vision and anything different in my body whatsoever.

Beginning of April

Started to notice a slight reduction in the amount I ejaculate. Normally I would have masturbated at least 4-5 times a week. Tried again the next day and noticed a similar amount - very hard to tell if there was a reduction or not.

I spent April testing every couple of days and losing all of my enjoyment and sex drive.

May

I'm down to not doing it very much at all - once a week at a push and that was to test. Seeing a definite reduction now and noticing a jelly-like, congealed result each time. I've heard that semen does that though when your body is expecting your usual rhythm (excuse the pun) and mine was 4-5 times a week so I tried not to worry too much.

At this stage it was pretty much dribbling out instead of shooting like it used to. I put it down to stress, not being excited by it anymore and the congealed nature of it.

June

I had pleasurable experiences with my wife which produced more than I have been doing recently, shooting once again and everything. Still not sure if it's back to my previous amount, but it's a start I guess.

This morning: decided to test 2 days after those pleasurable experiences to give my body time to regenerate sperm, I drank plenty of water yesterday in case it was a dehydration thing. Didn't enjoy getting to climax at all as per, and produced one of my smallest amounts to date.

I tried masturbating last week to see what my volume was like, it was more than today, still less than I used to be able to and it almost felt like it was stuck and didn't want to come out, that I had to milk it out. (So sorry, this is wayy TMI). I reckoned that might have been the congealed nature of the semen currently.

I've been worrying about retrograde ejaculation as it seems the only causes are a nervous system malfunction or diabetes. Both of which TERRIFY me. I'm scared of going to the doctors about it in case he runs all sorts of tests that might reveal something sinister. I have no other symptoms:

* it doesn't hurt to pee
* there's no blood in my semen
* I'm not running to the toilet all the time
* I'm not seeing any symptoms of diabetes
* no lumps or anything that I've noticed

I'm terrified of it being something terrible. It surely can't be stress related as it's such a noticeable effect now. I'm frightened of getting it investigated because as a person with health anxiety I'm worried about all sorts of things coming up, operations, surgery, being told I left it too long and it's too late.

I'm so scared.

Update:

After masturbating an hour ago, I have since peed and noticed no sign of cloudiness in my urine. Concerned that means now that there's a blockage somewhere.

[Noivous]

Honestly I don't know anything about the physiological reasons for sperm amounts. I would imagine there are a lot of factors involved...diet stress rest level of excitement... but I do believe you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

N.

[iPodClassic]

Well, the question is not so much if your semen levels did drop or not, the question is why do you obsess so much about it?

Try not masturbating for 4-5 days and then tell me if you have enough semen to satisfy your needs (gosh, I can't believe I'm asking another men to tell me about their semen, lol).


Try not to worry much about it. What could be the worse? That you're barren? Even that has a fix.

Do you have sex as well as jerk off?


Regards,

[anonandafraid]

Thanks for the replies, I'm sorry this is all TMI!

My fear is that even when I do leave it for about a week or two weeks, the semen seems to get more congealed and even less comes out. It's almost like its drying up as the months are going on. My dilemma is I don't know whether it's anxiety/stress/lack of arousal/perfectly normal between breaks or whether something sinister is blocking it.

I have no other symptoms which is weird, I've had my kids and I'm done with having more at the age of 31. I'm happy to leave it if it's nothing serious :(

[iPodClassic]

This is not TMI, man. You are stressed about something completely normal as masturbating and your penis.


I think you're paying too much attention to it, and I know how it is. I do that about many things in my body too, even my penis.

I just got a penis ultrasound and am about to get another (but I do have a real blood vessel problem in the cock, long story) so no worries.

Things from the cock cannot kill you. Remember john bobbit, he got his dick cut off and survived. What's the worst that can happen to you? Blockages, injuries w/e, they're not life threatening.

Relax.

[anonandafraid]

Thanks mate, why is it so hard for us guys to talk about this sort of thing? It really helps just getting it off my chest and hearing your responses :)

Update: things are looking better. I spoke to the doctor over the phone and he said it really didn't sound like anything serious at play, that hydration, diet and arousal levels all affect volume. So after a couple of days of trying to properly hydrate myself, dare I say things are starting to look a bit more normal again! The volume isn't as much as it used to be but virtually all the congealed stuff is gone and it actually felt like the amount coming out was relative to the amount my body thought was going to come out.

I had read about water and keeping hydrated everywhere else online but really didn't think it affected me because I have always barely drank any water during the day. Now I'm trying to do about 8 glasses and I've got to say I'm noticing a definite difference. Here's hoping it continues.

And thank you all for your help :)

[anonandafraid]

Ok, last update on this because I really hope it'll help another bloke ending up in a similar downward spiral of Googling, worrying, Googling, worrying, etc.

My volume has seemingly (no phonetic pun intended) returned to normal after months of panic. Here's the symptoms I had followed by how I fixed it:

* Reduction in volume
* Congealed consistency
* Feeling of it being blocked coming out
* Semen didn't "shoot" out like it used to

In short, the answer is hydration. I read all over the web people saying "just drink more water" or "you're dehydrated". Well 1) I didn't really drink much water to begin with and it wasn't a problem for me and 2) I had no other symptoms of being dehydrated.

I realised through a bit of research, calling a doctor and talking to people here that basically my body was congealing semen because I wasn't doing it as much (masturbation, sex etc) because my sex drive hit a low on the initial realisation that the amount wasn't as much as usual which led to a downward spiral of self tests and diminishing sperm counts etc.

This last week I went from literally about 0.5ml of a volume back up to a good 3ml+ by simply:

* Drinking more water (even though I thought I wasn't dehydrated I thought "why not at this stage?")
* Masturbating every 2 days to get my body back into its old semen regeneration routine

Both the above steps have improved the consistency (no congealed semen!) and the amount back to how it was and I'm shooting as I did before.

The other note I'd mention is arousal levels absolutely play a role in it. So the following is going to knock you back:

* Stress
* Lack of arousal
* Caffeine (I cut it out this last week just to be safe)
* Not drinking at least 2 litres of water a day (doctor's recommendations)
* Diet (although I haven't been great food-wise this week)
* Lack of your usual frequency in masturbation - mine was 4-5 times+ a week, after feeling there was a problem, my sex drive took a dive and I basically stopped altogether. This caused my semen to congeal and basically trickle out

So yeah, sorry about the TMI again but it's a bit late for that if you've read this far :D I just hope this helps some other poor lad like me who thought they were drying up or something more serious was at play.

[iPodClassic]

Glad to hear things are back to normal/better.

Remember, these things cannot do any substantial harm!

Take good care.