stop eating carbs. (seriously) only veggies and meat.
What do you recommend for fatigue? Did you have this problem? How did you deal with it?
Yes, I had fatigue - but i never tackled fatigue as an isolated symptom. I just knew that it would go away like everything else if i continue to do healthy things and tackle the root causes. I did loads of running, even when it was a big struggle. I forced myself to do exercise by joining a squash league or a yoga club - these things will help you get your mind off the problem too. That said, I found the best lifestyle change that gave me more energy and less fatigue on a day to day basis was to get out of bed early in the morning - between 5:45am and 6:30am. Plus get out of bed as soon as your alarm goes off. I almost always felt better throughout the day doing this and it is a lifestyle change I have kept up even today. I did take AdrenoMax which is a good adrenal supplement and appeared to give me more energy at times.
How to get required energy from a healthy diet that does not make my gut problem worse. Any thoughts?
I think we have been over this many times, but the prevalence of carbs in the modern diet is much higher than our ancestors. Look at todays commercial cereals & breads - they are bloody everywhere. Our ancestors lived on animal meat and fats + plants/vegetables. Sure rice and potatos may have existed in a primitive diet too, but you need to realise that carb turns to sugar in the body and because it is very starchy it is hard for the body to breakdown. I would go completely carb free - it’s not so difficult. You can break the rule occasionally with a very very very small portion of buckwheat or quinoa, but when i was at my worst my body couldn’t even handle that without the brain fog coming over my head. So in the end everything carb went. There are plenty of foods to eat that are nutritious, unprocessed and will fill you up like: eggs (omelette/scrambled/poached), fish, pork, all varieties of vegetables. Get into making different soups from scratch and huge batch loads.
How about vitamins and minerals? You did not mention anything about them? What kind? How much? Most of multivitamins contain Magnesium Stearate. Are they bad? Isn’t magnesium a necessary supplement for PFSers?
As previously mentioned, I took a lot of Vitamin C up to about 4000mg per day, and as and when i felt the effect of die off. I’ve been through several brands now but I became very loyal to Viridian products because they are well documented to contain quality ingredients and don’t have any of this additional crap when you look at the labels and compare them with others + I genuinely felt like they were working, especially the digestive enzymes. The capsules are made from natural ingredients too, instead of plastic! So Vitamin C + digestive enzymes (30 per day cost £16 every 3 days). Those were my 2 base line supplements. You can read around the internet in relation to magnesium stearate and stearic acid, but in effect these are found in many (if not most) supplements as result of the machinery that packages the supplements. These substances are used to ensure they run fluidly. However, the result of this means that these compounds get into the supplements and have been found to cause allergies, block the absorption of nutrients among other things. I did read a very informative passage of text in a book from a health food store one day and it convinced me that magnesium stearate and stearic acid had no place in my recovery program.
What do you think was the most important part or parts of your recovery routine?
There is not one single thing but a multitude of different things - key ones being Enema’s morning/night, Nutritionist supplementary program for tackling pathogens and healing the gut/liver/adrenals, running and working on sleep from whatever angle I could. Things only came together when all of these things were happening simultaneously - don’t expect to see benefits in isolation, at least i didn’t! I just noticed all these things appeared to help a bit, then when i combined them things really started to improve big time.
To be honest with you, I have been having a very healthy diet (as mentioned above) and regular exercise for last 6 months with unfortunately minimum results. I have not done any fasts, enema, sea salt or digestive enzymes. I am looking for that piece. Do you know what that is?
You have not done any fasts, enema, sea salt or digestive enzymes. You answered your own question - you need to try things, keep working at it. I can’t give you and you won’t ever find a magic bullet in your life time. Believe me. I can only advise you as sincerely as I can, that what I have already wrote my posts comes from a genuine sufferer - the angle you need to approach CFS (PFS) comes from within this thread, JN’s thread, ihatepropecia’s thread and some of cdnuts thread and nowhere else. Read all of those and John Coleman for massive inspiration and warmth.
How about dairy products? Milk, yogurt, cheese, and butter. Should I cut all of them or only milk and yogurt? Doesn’t yogurt have a lot of digestive enzymes that are helpful? I see some bad reactions from milk if I drink it a lot, but not too much from yogurt, cheese, and butter. Can I keep consuming yogurt, cheese and butter or in your experience they are all bad?
I started making massive strides when i cut out all dairy - particularly milk which i realised i was addicted to (that’s the pathogens). It took about 2-3 weeks of abstinence but i then slowly noticed my body was struggling less in general, it could cope more, somehow. I used to love Raw Milk - it was very tasty - but the sugar hit you get from milk is very high. Lactose is bad news. Other forms of dairy are potentially less bad - but i appeared to have an issue with all forms. Whatsmore, I had my biggest crash after drinking a pint of milk and eating chocolate during that 1 week recovery phase after 1 months cessation. I always had that in my mind throughout PFS - why was that, what happened. Well what happened is propecia blew holes throughout the gut wall during cessation, somehow, it also allowed pathogens to thrive and then i poured 1 pint of milk and chocolate down my neck. Can you imagine the frenzy? All your eating habits should aim at starving pathogens from fuel. What they like and don’t like you have to learn yourself, it’s a slow process but one that can progress fast if you pay attention and listen to your body. Sometimes the signals are very slight or almost unoticeable. See a bit more fog after eating? That’s because you have fueled pathogenic growth. If you can’t stopping pissing in the night it is usually because the infection in your bladder is high, something fluid in the bladder is fueling pathogen growth - perhaps a sugary drink? There are many more examples like skin rashes or feeling of coldness etc. after eating.
How long did you stay on this regimen before you see significant improvements? Are you still on it?
The process has been 3 years (i started suffering 24th January 2011).
[] 1st year 2011 I couldn’t do anything, was completely destroyed and felt horrific - but stayed positive.
[] 2nd year 2012 started to focus heavily on sleep and exercise. Towards the end of 2012 started focusing on eating.
[*] 3rd year 2013 was spent focusing on food ingested while keeping up sleep and exercise techniques. Last 6 months of 2013 was spent working with my nutritionist
I recovered to a sufficient point around October last year. At that point i started to feel properly good again, i actually felt normality had returned, as in i was connected to the world properly again and felt the normal urges of excitement and lust. Since then i’ve had a couple of dips but nothing worth noting as it has gone within a few hours or days and usually a result of hitting my body too hard with something (alcohol / bad food). Today i am so lazy - all i am thinking and doing is work related, but i enjoy my new job a lot. I spent the last 2 weekends lounging around in a park with my girlfriend soaking up some sun with a picnic. Gone are the days that i would exercise all weekend etc. I live normally now. I’m not sure it is 100% perfect, but then i intend to return hardcore to the regime at some point soon just to polish things off. However, i’m not sure I really need that to complete the process, I personally think the last piece of goodness can only come once I leave this forum and close the lid on CFS (PFS) altogether. You only need to think about CFS (PFS) to make you feel mildly worse than you otherwise would. Hope that makes sense.
I’ll post in the recovery section when i get my testosterone results.
Cheers
Chi
Chi- you stated a couple of things 3+ years ago, physical symptoms such as penis curvature to the left and thinning skin. Can you now honestly say, after 3 years, your penis/erection are perfectly normal, hard and straight with absolutely no curvature? That your skin is thick and you can’t see any veins like before when you reported thinning skin?
Thanks
Hi mate,
One thing that is really noticeably good about my penis today is that the twist at the base is completely gone. That was a sure good sign when i noticed that around Christmas time. I believe the curve is because the pathogens are in the prostate too causing all sorts of issues in there, that’s what makes it twist like that. No idea how or why. I have a very slight curvature to the left still, but it is probably only noticeable to me now whereas before it was like a banana. My erections and libido are excellent. Regarding the thinning skin, I can’t recall the symptoms exactly but I noticed i bruised and bled much more easily, plus in the beginning it took ages to heal things. I also had these blue bulging veins on my penis in the early days and for quite a while afterwards. I also had blue spider veins on the insides of my thighs and in the palms of my hands. That for me was a sure sign that something had chemically changed in the blood - either lack of oxygen or something else, infection or disease. There are a myriad of other things I could go into that showed up in various blood tests that hinted towards disease or infection - e.g. low WBC and low iron. They are being used up very fast and the body is depleted. Thirst and dry mouth is another sign of infection or disease.
By the way I described above about how you can feel worse when eating foods that the pathogens like etc. However, you can also feel worse when cleansing and killing the pathogens off. That is why this problem is so hard to recover from, because when you eat shit you feel worse (pathogens multiplying and dying/being fought off by the body with what reserves it has) and when you do healthy things you can feel worse (pathogens dying releasing toxins when it dies/herxheimer reaction). That is why you get caught in this vicious circle and do not know which way to turn. The key lies in persistence with the healthy eating no matter how bad it makes you feel (even for weeks going on months at a time) and hold on to the belief that it will work. When you notice your sleep start to improve that is a really good sign. The hardest thing then is keeping to the plan - because I know when you have felt bad for so long and get some relief you instantly want to do something normal, like go out for a meal or drink something unhealthy etc. I believe my success came from having an armoury of resources to use once I got into this recovery phase - making it easy to stay on track with the plan instead of resorting to live normally. Bare in mind the pathogens have not gone until you have really eliminated them properly. Otherwise, they will multiply and rise again as soon as you start putting the fuel in for them and start the wildfire and you will be back to the start! It’s a case of belief in what is right and persistence. The more correct resources you have to help you along the way the easier it will be.
Hope this helps
Chi
Ok so the buldging veins on penis, palms, inner thighs are now completely gone? In other words your skin is thicker?
No these are unrelated points that i rambled on about. Thinner skin is just one of the smaller symptoms and not worth getting hung up about while you suffer with CFS. I don’t remember exactly where my skin was thin at the time i made the observation, I think mainly on the backs of hands/fingers and cuticles. The issue with veins is unrelated.
Issue with veins is unrelated with finasteride? Um I think thousands of us would disagree. After taking fin for 9 years, my final pill, then a week letter skin was thin, veins emerged, my legs got thin and forearms from loss of subcutaneous fat (what some refer to as muscle wasting), or is curved to the left overnight. These are not small things to get hung up over. They are major markers of PfS. Now if you want to say you still have all these visible markers but ignore them then that’s one thing. I would imagine that by having such your hormonal profile has not changed but soon you will find out.
Chi,
Can you explain how these pathogens cause us to get PFS only after we stopped taking the fin ?
Why dont the pathogens attack us while we are on the drug ? granted I did get mental and physical sides while on fin but I only got the sexual sides when I came off it. The sexual sides happened almost over night I dont see how pathogens could of caused that.
I think we may well have a problem with pathogens but I believe that is probably a side effect of PFS and not the cause.
Hi finatruth
Can i just point out it is not the first time you have completely misinterpreted my posts and then further still misrepresented what i had actually posted. Please re-read the last few posts more carefully and you might realise.
Hi Mark
I really don’t know the reason why it happened when it did to be honest, but I really wouldn’t under estimate the power of these organisms that reside inside the body. They drive your moods and feeling’s on a day to day basis, always have done. That’s partly what we feel shit if we eat bad and good if we eat well. Bad foods grows bad bacteria i the gut, good foods grows good bacteria in the gut. That is a very simplistic explanation for what is ultimately a hugely complex topic on the human body. When the opportunistic pathogens proliferate and get out in to the body in this way you really should not underestimate the impact. Think of how powerful these things are in your gut your whole life, digesting and breaking down all sorts of shit you put down there and you keep on living for like almost 100 years. Think of alcoholics and drug takers, all this stuff goes into the gut and these organisms have to be resilient to cope with it and break this stuff down. Mostly these people go on living absolutely fine due to the power of these organisms. Now think that one of those organisms that is supposed to be in balance and only represent say 5% of your gut flora proliferates to say 50% or more and then starts spreading around the body. This is when it become poisonous/toxic. The resultant impact is a syndrome and the cure is to contain the problem, reduce it and keep it at safe levels while healing the leaky gut.
That’s the best way I can try and get it across, I hope unlike some, you can take the time to read it properly.
Cheers
Chi
Chi i remember feeling like shit from the first pill like survivingpropecia also describes in his blog. This does not indicate any correlation with bacteria and pathogens, nevertheless i believe your theory as pfs has triggered insane symptoms in our bodies and anything is possible. Did you ever experienced slow metabolism and bloating?
Chi- forgive me I am not intending to misunderstand you. 1) do you still have the spider veins on inside thighs and thinning skin? I thought what you were saying is that you still have those effects but you are not hung up on it, in other words still there, but not a concern of yours anymore.
Hi finatruth
Let me keep it simple for you. I am completely normal as I was before propecia. All side effects including thinning skin and spider veins have gone.
Hi Costa
This is the point I have mentioned before and am trying to get across to you all. There is a huge variation in everyone’s gut and immune health plus individual diet before starting to take propecia. What is common to all of us is that we had weaker than optimal guts to start with. Some will be affected after just 1 pill and for some it’s during withdrawal of the drug. Now i am not saying we were all unhealthy or already ill, what i am saying is that we had weaker than optimal guts than individuals that take propecia and don’t have issues. You can still have a weaker than optimal gut and feel completely normal - at least if that is the way you have felt your entire life - but the reality is we weren’t as resilient as others due to a variation in gut health. We are a minority subset of people, don’t forget that. Most (potentially millions) take propecia without issues. This is the only plausible reason why we suffered and others didn’t and given my experience I believe it to be true.
Cheers
Chi
strange, i also have low WBC , and i don;t know why.
my doctor also has no explanation for that.
chi, what should i say my nutritionist to prepare a diet list? I should say ı have a gut problem or lleaky gut or something? How does she believe it? And ım almost convince that nutrıtıonısts ın turkey dont suggest lıke barberry, wormwood herbs. And ıts dangerous to take wrong dose. And ıts dıffıcult to fınd.
And last how can you sprınt 5km ın a day? I mean ıt so so hard? How long ıt takes sprınt 5km ın a day?
You might wanna watch this very interesting documentary on genetically modified organisms that talks about gut problems and other health issues resulting from GMOs consumption: youtube.com/watch?v=GGnRNYSvp0M
I didn’t know much about the subject, but wow, this is crazy.
It’s very obvious in the video (if you didn’t know already) that the kind of damage done by Merck with finasteride is not an evil act that happened in a very innocent world. I do believe that Merck considered they could get away with it in a world that gave more importance to economic and political power than actual facts. But still, I don’t want to take the attention away from the fact that eating GMOs, you might get into serious problems concerning gut functioning. Well, judge by yourselves.
Hi Depressedguy
If you find a good nutritionist just tell them openly about all your symptoms and how you exhibit the typical signs of CFS. You can also explain how a pharma drug did this to you, because there are lots of cases where other pharma drugs have destroyed peoples gut/immune system and had similar disastrous consequences. If you look back through my thread you’ll see the cases of women who took the contraceptive pill Yasmin and then ended up destroyed AFTER stopping and for years later. Their symptom complex is very similar/the same. A good nutritionist may not understand why all of your symptoms are occurring but if they are good and qualified they will know straight away that brain fog = pathogens/candida/leaky gut problems for instance. They may also understand why other specific symptoms are occurring due to pathogens. She didn’t understand and still doesn’t understand how pathogens/gut issues causes low T and sexual issues et al but she was very open and said she is not surprised. She has had 30 years experience treating people and health problems of this nature and said they can manifest themselves in all sorts of horrible ways. She actually said to me that she had recovered people in worse states than me which i was quite surprised about!
I never sprinted 5km in a day. I used to do 5km runs with intermittent sprinting. Believe me when i tell you the whole process back then was a severe struggle, but I knew deep down that this type of program couldn’t not work in the end. I’d echo cdnuts in saying that when you embark on a recovery program with as much spirit as you can that is focused on eating healing foods, healing exercise regimes, positive thought and the right supplementation to heal the gut and kill pathogens, it can’t not work in the long term. Yes it is hard, every day was a struggle, but the drug really whacked the body hard and the process to repair it requires hard work and dedication. Don’t be put off by set backs too - I had plenty!
Cheers
Chi
I find it quite incredible how such a simple marker on a common blood test cannot be interpreted by a doctor. It just goes to show how doctors and western medicine is all about known and classified/categorized illnesses + the medicines to suppress the symptoms. Anything grey or uncategorized is out of their remit because it has not been learned about in a textbook. As time moves on it would be enormously reassuring to see the world start to move towards a health system which uses complimentary, holistic and ‘alternative’ practices which look at underlying causes in order to heal the body, and in much safer and natural ways than modern western medicine.
My nutritionist explained that low WBC is a result of infection. WBCs exist to fight disease and infection. An absence of these cells is because they are being used up faster than they are being produced. It’s just another marker indicative of the root problem.
Wow thank you man.
But i realy don’t know what could i do about it.
You and all PFS sufferers have an infection due to pathogens and that needs to be removed. Only then will WBC return to normal levels and stop being used up.
From Wikipedia under the word Infection
Infection is the [Size=4]invasion of a host organism’s bodily tissues by disease-causing organisms, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to these organisms and the toxins they produce.[/size][1] Infectious diseases, also known as transmissible diseases or communicable diseases, comprise clinically evident illness (i.e., characteristic medical signs and/or symptoms of disease) resulting from the infection, [Size=4]presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism[/size].
Infections are caused by infectious agents such as viruses, viroids, and prions, [Size=4]microorganisms such as bacteria[/size], nematodes such as roundworms and pinworms, arthropods such as ticks, mites, fleas, and lice, fungi such as ringworm, and other macroparasites such as tapeworms.
Hosts can fight infections using their immune system. [Size=4]Mammalian hosts react to infections with an innate response, often involving inflammation[/size], followed by an adaptive response.[2] Pharmaceuticals can also help fight infections.
The branch of medicine that focuses on infections and pathogens is infectious disease medicine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infection
Said it once but I will again - [Size=4]The resulting syndrome is CFS.[/size]