No, I don’t believe that 30 was from ultra sensitive.
What is the ideal level for ultra sensitive E2?
It’s the same range … men and women are different and the test used for women is just Not sufficient for men. Measuring estrogen is a tricky thing and the “normal” test for women is not as accurate in men for some reason. You can google “trt and estrogen testing” and I’m sure there are a bunch of articles why but I’m not going to go find them. It’s literally a more sensitive and accurate test. Your ultra sensitive test may be fine but this was an issue for me for years. I get tested every other month on trt just because I like to map my hormones and it’s sometimes close together and sometimes wildly different. … no matter what, if my ultra sensitive e2 test is at 20 Or below I feel like crap … if your getting blood tests then do a full work up with prolactin, e2 ultra sens, shbg and you should get a psa just to baseline for later in life
I started with symptoms but it proved to be such an ambiguous way to do it. I had microbiome assay done and turns out I had several undergrowths and overgrowths. For example I’m very low in Akkermansia muciniphila, which is correlated with mucosal thickness. Increased leaky gut worsens systemic inflammation. My Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio is 1.5:1 (ideal is 2.1:1). I’ve non-existent lactobacilli and low Bifido phylum. There’re diet recommendations, fortunately.
Did you run a lot before TRT as well? What did your exercise look like.
Elliptical machine but yea, I went to the gym daily. I had trouble losing weight, or adding muscle even dieting
no it doesn’t and it is very bad
I don’t think you had PFS, but had hypogonadism. There might be a million people with hypogonadism for every person with PFS. One of the sad things about this forum is that people with PFS will read recovery stories from people who didn’t even have PFS and derive a sense of false hope, leaving them worse off than they otherwise would have been down the road.
You claim these are entirely distinct phenomena. If so, how can they be easily separated without a person with PFS symptoms trying androgen replacement therapy?
People with low testosterone like that (350) should try TRT.
No he had PFS. Stop dismissing people’s experience because they do not fit your false narrative that PFS is some uncurable disease.
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My hormones were normal until fin
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PFS is when people have symptoms despite normal hormone levels. You were a lucky one. You could have had PFS but instead only had hypogonadism, for which a relatively simple treatment was available. Correlation does not imply causation.
Are you serious? He took fina and had the typical side effects, he had PFS no questions about it. And hypogonadism in most cases is caused by steroid abuse.
The irony in all this is that you’re the one who does not have PFS, you took accutane.
What he is trying to say is people who take fin end up getting PFS symptoms but ultimately are able to treat it with TRT if you look into my experience with TRT it did nothing but make me feel like crap. Most of us on this forum don’t respond to any type of hormone treatment and were labeled as hypochondriacs, but there’s somthing seriously wrong with our endocrine systems as opposed to the guys that are responding to hormone treatment. Plus look at other guys on the forum that were already on TRT and notice how after they took Fin none of them respond to their treatments anymore.
I somewhat agree … there is no true diagnosis of pfs. Half the people in here may not hace true pfs. I know many never even get true bloodwork. I do know I had a lot of problems after I stopped fin. I also saw a chronic fatigue specialist. I will say my endocrinologist in Manhattan believed it was fin and he has successfully treated pfs sufferers with hormones. Is there proof? Nope! I have chatted a lot of guys on here over 8 years and an enormous amount have low estrogen issues which ultimately was my problem. Increasing T increased my estrogen and resolved my problem
Yes, in my opinion everyone here should have their hormones tested. If any are off, that may be their problem rather than PFS. It’s sad to think how many people might go for years assuming they have PFS/PAS/PSSD when in fact, had they bothered to do blood tests, they might have discovered they rather have something eminently treatable.
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@Cornwellsb, did you experience anhedonia/emotional blunting before starting TRT? If so, did it resolve upon starting TRT?
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Yes 100% but my estrogen was low teens. That’s all a side effect of low estrogen. Literally almost all of the pfs symptoms listed here are all low estrogen symptoms. My penis was tiny and cold. Horrible ED. My cock didn’t feel real. Night sweats but Iwas sensitive to cold as well. Bright lights killed me. Horrible vision issues. Brain fog … I’m an engineer and it was a nightmare.
Strangely, the normal estrogen test showed as normal but I had a doctor run an ultra sensitive e2 test and it was always low. I’ve written about this many times. My testosterone was technically in the acceptable limit. Most doctors would not give me T. I finally went to an online clinic called Defy medical which will prescribe T if you are under 450
Im curious what your testosterone protocol was? How much were you injecting and how often? We’re you using an anti estrogen? HCG? It took me over a year to get my testosterone correct until I felt good. It’s not a magic pill that works overnight. It was a ton of tests and a ton of changes. My biggest problem was adding in HCG and anti estrogens like aromasin
I have some questions. @Cornwellsb, you wrote previously
Seriously, how bad were things for you if you were that blase about throwing another pill of finasteride down your neck again? From my perspective, that is an insane thing to do. I only took 1 mg total of the drug and developed extreme symptoms in PFS.
You wrote
which doesn’t sound untypical of PFS. Of course, one of the unknowns of the syndrome is why some use a tiny amount and experience the “crash”, immediately developing a severe phenotype thereafter while others can use the drug for years, apparently without ill-effect, only to then eventually develop symptoms. Did you experience a crash or was it a frog-boiling-in-the-water-slowly type scenario? Considering what you wrote here
do you think long term use of finasteride caused damage to your endocrine system, perhaps in a different way to typical PFS patients here? The reason I ask is because, from my extensive reading of the forum, many PFS patients over the years tried TRT in various forms, most to no avail. I believe it’s cited in some of the PFS literature and case studies too (don’t have the citations to hand currently). You’ve written things like
Which is in stark contrast to the reports of PFS patients when trying TRT, some here for example
There’s also @AaronF in this thread
and there are of course others. You also wrote of proviron
which doesn’t sound like the experience of a lot of the members here who have tried that, at varying doses. Anyway, hope it doesn’t feel like an interrogation, you of course don’t have to answer, just some questions I have on your experiences.
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