Three weeks in. No dramatic adverse event. What I have is what I'm calling glossy fatigue — not sleepiness, not cognitive impairment, but a subtle polished quality to my reactions, as if there's a thin coat of something between me and ordinary sensory experience.
I've seen this term used before in the forum without much precision. I'm trying to pin it down more carefully because subjective reports without biomarkers are nearly useless for anyone trying to understand whether this is a real physiological effect or a framing artifact.
Bloodwork from this week: ferritin 84 ng/mL (normal for me), cortisol AM 18.2 µg/dL (slightly elevated — my baseline is usually 14–16), HRV RMSSD average over the past week 31 ms (my pre-protocol baseline was 44 ms). The cortisol elevation and HRV suppression are the most notable findings.
These are consistent with mild, sustained stress — the kind that doesn't feel acutely distressing but shows up in recovery metrics. Whether the cause is the device, anticipatory monitoring, disrupted sleep architecture, or something else entirely, I can't say from this data alone.
If anyone has matched ferritin, cortisol, or HRV changes across the first month of protocol use, I'd like to compare. I'll post follow-up numbers at weeks 6 and 12 regardless.