Any older members of fourm reading this (Did we ever solve the abnormal autoimmune response to androgens)

General Discussion
#1

Hi all,

I lurk on here from time to time to see any updates.

I am trying to figure out a way to take supplements like vitamin D or Boron or even try Sorghum to boost my androgens without my immune system reacting in an abnormal way causing inflammation around my joints

There used to be an Italian chap who posted here, his dad a medical director of a hospital and he has said some of us have an abnormal immune response to stimuli

He no longer posts here, I have DM him as he has recovered but no response

I would say the only option I have to allow my body accept stimuli would be to take immunosuppressants which I don’t think is practical in the longterm

Tribulus with high strength protodioscin triggered an autoimmune condition in me and I am two years on front it and my immune system still overreacting

** I know Vitamin D and Boron improves my penal shrinkage. For example in January took Vitamin D for four days and improvement good but started to get inflammation in hands and knees
Likewise Boron helps penal shrinkage, but will get inflammation in spine after few days on Boron

I need to try figure out how to stop the abnormal immune response

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#2

Hi Irish,

What you are saying is very interesting.
I also suffer from an autoimmune disease: alopecia areata. It started on my bear when started finas, and suffered from it very hard when crashed, and during years it has been “stable” in my bear only. Now it has “jump” to the eyebrows, when I am in the best shape of my life and having quite good sex.
I made the same reasoning you did, we have a reaction when androgens are high.
I also heard from a PFS guy who suffer also alopecia areata after HCG cycle. Therefore, it makes perfectly sense.

I wonder even if PFS itself is an autoimmune disease itself, and that is why their symptoms are usually alleviate with the generic remedies of any autoimmune disease, and that is also why we may “crash” when trying to elevate androgens. Also, autoimmune diseases may happen suddenly (for example the alopecia areata thing), like the “crash” itself.

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#3

One thing we can do is to “hit hard” our immune system with high dosis of immunosuppressants, to “reset” it luckily will keep calm after that. This is what I did for the alopecia areata back then and worked.
I also wonder it that helped with my recovery and it was not only natural.

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#4

I took Fin though most of all my twenties and stopped for couple of years.

I restarted finasteride at aged 31 and within three months got alopecia areata and alopecia on my beard too

Perhaps some of us are predisposed to have our immune systems affected

Anyhow now I am 45 and three years off finasteride and left with an abnormal immune response to stimuli

My Endocrinologist wanted to try testosterone treatment but I told him in my opinion far too risky and my immune system may do permanent damage to joints as has happened to someone else on this forum who took testosterone gel for a month

If there was a way to reset our immune system

And my problem too is that I am extremely sensitive to anti DHT foods and extra virgin oil

If I eat too much mixed peppers, celery, broccoli for example my DHT will drop and I will get inflammation and my penal shrinkage get worse

The autoimmune angle is there for some of us, trying to solve it would greatly help

#5

My immune system also has very wonky reactions to things in general but soemtimes I can’t tell what is going on under the hood with my adverse reactions because I have so much multi-system chaos going on in this genetic train wreck from birth I cal my body. I haven’t tried boron and it seems quite risky to me as well as isn’t something I think I need so I’ll leave that one alone. My reaction to “vitamin” D is the opposite of what it should do like almost everything people generally take for more energy does to me (horrible recent reactions to carnitine and coq10, felt like I was in the twilight zone for days), I get extremely tired but it relieves some symptoms mentally. People say you just need to power through for a week or so but with my body everything is a little different and that might be dangerous to just power through to find out if it’s only a start up reaction. Sorghum does the same thing but feels different, makes me very sluggish and brain foggy for a while. You’re reaction to boron is very interesting though because one common thread with me between almost all bad reactions I get is spinal pain, sometimes it’s at the base and sometimes a little further up. It can’t be an injury because nothing happened to it and when I’m feeling better it just disappears.

If I take anything like quercetin to calm my immune response I crash. Almost anything that calms anything down at all risks crashing me these days but like I said I have more than just PFS, I also have CFS with severe immune dysfunction to the point of multiple chemical sensitivity. If I don’t keep my environment as consistent as possible overall my immune and nervous system throws a fit and from there anything is possible.

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#6

Very interesting

I think I may have mildish CFS but with big immune dysfunction

I took carnitine and reacted quite bad, sleepy and just on edge
For example also I tried to have an Epsom bath salt to relax, ended up getting heart palpitations and much worse shrinkage, took me a week to recover back to base

I tried L Glutamine 5g for three days and got heart palpitations and aches all around my body. Took me weeks to recover.

Before Tribulus with high strength protodioscin I could take any supplement

I do suffer from fatigue and have low free cortisol output in saliva test

Perhaps I need to accept I have screwed up my immune system even my nervous system and have to live a life as healthy as can be without trying to fix things with more supplements

I seem to have chemical sensitivities

This condition for some of us is so complex.

I think experimenting with stuff some of us have developed things which are not exactly PFS just a consequence of our bodies being in a fragile state from developing PFS

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#7

Yeah see that’s the thing about those weird reactions to things that should give more energy like carnitine in general, I’ll also get very on edge under the crushing fatigue and brain fog. Like bordering on panic attack edge but it never happens because of the main side effects, whenever I have one I usually just avoid going outside anywhere but the forest for a quick walk because I get so mentally sensitive and panic attack-y. Just interacting with other people will cause my brain to go haywire and I know it’s all chemical anxiety because I’m not actually anxious I’m just being forced into the position. Never tried glutamine myself but I don’t think I have a reason to.

So with you this immune dysfunction all started after high amounts of protodioscin? I can’t trace back any specific point where things started going south but there was a couple points in my life where I got really sick and never totally recovered but that was wayyy before all this PFS garbage began. I can’t remember ever being entirely healthy. Supplements are tricky, it’s taken me over a year to get my stack right because my body has such unique needs that there is no guide for, I essentially just had to keep trying random stuff until eventually something clicked and I was able to move on. I keep things minimal though, only what I need and at the lowest dose I need it. I know it’s also just a bandaid though but unfortunately I’m never going to be a normal functioning person so this is just what it is. Though if I keep things steady then I can live a decent life, like I still go out and do things and enjoy myself often but I have a lot of periods where things just go wrong and I’m isolated to my living space for days at a time especially times like this where I’m trying new things and haven’t quite got them right yet.

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#8

So I finally decided to try Sorghum as it is meant to increase 5ar, took it for four days and had to stop.

I experienced fatigue, increased titinus, anxiety, and my penile shrinkage worsened

Which all leads me to be 100% convinced I am dealing with an autoimmune condition

Vitamin D and Boron cause me to get widespread inflammation

It appears taking Tribulus containing Protodioscin nearly 3 years ago triggered an autoimmune issue

My last resort is either hope time resolves autoimmune problem or see if a doctor will prescribe an immunosuppressant, perhaps it might put it into remission

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#9

Guess it was a good thing I stopped too because I might have gotten there if I also continued eating the sorghum, increasing 5ar is probably not what some cases want to do or possibly not even what we should be targeting. At this point based on all my experience, I think it just got caught in the crossfire. Protodiocin gave me mixed results and if I kept at it I was gonna crash. I actually just made a post about my continued experimentation with vitamin D. I tried topically applied D and it was a disaster but based on what happens I know I’m hitting the right systems based on what gets modified but I don’t specifically know what is going on under the hood. You can’t just open a human body error report of diagnostic menu. Thankfully today I’m just really anxious but not much else, the whiplash is wearing off.