NIK

Age: 37 | Greece

“In December 2020, I was 32 and given doxycycline 100mg per day for 10 days for an intestinal issue I had. On the 7th day of treatment, I suddenly developed a dramatic change in my body and mind: Complete loss of libido, skin numbness, anhedonia, and intense cognitive fog. It felt like my brain was “shaken” and disconnected from the world.

After stopping the medication, the symptoms became even worse. From December 2020 through spring 2021, I felt emotionally and sexually dead. I had no motivation, no sexual urges, no normal sensation, and I felt like a different person. I asked my doctor about it, and after evaluation he told me it's psychological and not induced by doxycycline. He told me to visit a psychologist (which I never did because I knew it was pure pathological), so I first went to a urologist because of urinary issues that the numbness was causing me, but he found nothing. My next move was to go to a neurologist, in which she ordered a brain MRI. She examined me and told me it might be paresthesia from stress and anxiety, which I never had.

In summer 2021, I started noticing very small signs of improvement — occasionally some morning erections and genital sensation returning — but the core symptoms never fully resolved. Today, almost four years later, there is some partial improvement compared to the beginning, but persistent anhedonia, very low libido, skin numbness, and ongoing sexual dysfunction remain, though they are not as severe as they used to be. In September 2025, I tried Wellbutrin in hopes that it might reverse something, I tried 3 days only because the side effects were unbearable, but thankfully they went away.”