I think there are a lot of clues to be learnt from victims’ symptoms (example below), experiments and similar diseases (e.g. SSRI-related). A gold mine of data waiting to be used by someone. I know my comment goes beyond the topic of gut biome, I hope that’s okay.
Some of the more interesting observations in myself:
- Why does abstinence no longer drive sexual tension/libido?
- Why does abstinence still lead to a stronger alertness/focus response in my brain to sexual stimuli, but not in my groin? Does that mean sexual problems are entirely in the groin, not the brain?
- Why is the sensitivity to erogenous pleasure fairly well preserved in some parts of my penis (frenulum), but completely destroyed in others (the tip)? The very lower shaft is somewhere in between.
- Evidence that lacking pleasure sensitivity is the root cause of our ED: stimulation of my tip no longer drives/maintains erections, while pressure/pull on my frenulum (area) still does. This is in line with claims that pleasure sensitivity decreases with age (in healthy men), as does ED.
- Lacking pleasure sensitivity may also be the cause of our libido loss. Wikipedia says libido = dopamine hitting the nucleus accumbens in the brain. They do seem linked in my body (they are both up if I’m lucky to have morning wood, especially if my underwear has put pressure on areas of my penis that have some pleasure sensitivity left).
- Why can’t I get an erection from either looking at porn or touching myself, but I can with the two combined?
- Why do I still get (some) nocturnal erections and morning wood?
- Why does morning wood give a temporary boost to erectile function, pleasure sensitivity, and libido, and why does it plummet after that, and disappear as the day goes on? Pre-PFS, these things would noticeably increase for me towards the evening.
- What can we learn from the speed (hours!) at wich finasteride anesthesized my perineal region (loss of sense of erogenous aliveness in that region and in penis) and how fast it was reversed (hours!)? And from how fast it increased my refractionary period (days, possibly hours).
Imagine you’re a researcher trying to solve PFS but unaware of cues like these and others.