Hi guys.
A 7 page thread on eating a shit load of spinach is enough.
It is highly embarrassing for all those involved.
You think finasteride as caused a disorder of glycosylation. It hasnt: ALL OF THE SYMPTOMS ARE DIFFERENT!
bye.
Helpful post that one, cheers!
Since this thread has gotten pretty long and a lot of the data weāve found has been spread rather thin, Iām going to be working on adding the most relevant information to the first post.
Iāve also read that cooked spinach has more nutrients in it than raw, but the spinach diet does not aim to address general nutrition, only dolichol supplementation. Unfortunately there isnāt any information regarding the dolichol content of cooked vs raw spinach, but considering dolichol is a type of alcohol, cooked spinach probably doesnāt contain any, as cooking foods containing alcohol will remove the alcohol from them.
There are myriad of diseases that stem from the disruption of dolichol, so we probably wonāt know for sure until accurate testing can be performed. I wonder if itās possible that the telling signs of a known condition may be getting masked due to the PFSās unique method of action (sort of like how a psuedo-CDG-If cannot be detected through CDG blood test screening).
If you have relevant scientific research which contradicts the research and concepts in this thread, then feel free to post them. Diatribe is not constructive.
First of all, there is a huge difference between a congenital disorder of glycosylation and a psuedo-congenital disorder of glycosylation. CDGs affect infants (some of which are fatal), and completely disrupt their development. These people are born with defects (such as defective SRD5A3) which cause the disease. A psuedo-CDG affecting a post-pubescent adult would have a radically different outcome, as they have already fully developed. Additionally, we do not have defects which would cause a CDG (functional SRD5A3), but may have acquired an imbalance due to finasteride.
Second, CDGs have been known to induce an extremely broad range of disorders, including endocrinopathies, secondary hypogonadism, small testicles, muscle weakness, muscle atrophy, poor motor skills, stroke-like episodes, cognitive impairment, speech difficulties, vitamin D deficiency, and many more. The symptoms of PFS correlate to many of the symptoms of CDGs, and many of the other disorders CDG patients have are caused by their stunted development (mental retardation, severe physical deformities), which cannot be the case for us. If we were born with PFS, we would probably share more similarities to CDG patients.
Were you aware that Finasteride inhibits SRD5A3, in addition to SRD5A2? Do you know what SRD5A3 does? Do you know what SRD5A3ās role in glycosylation is?
As you can probably see I am new to this forum, I find it disappointing the amount of posts I read where users get shot down for taking the time and effort to look into this and make suggestions that could potentially help all of us! I personally have been studying this thread closely and following the regime and as mentioned before I feel I am benefiting from it, which I am very happy about and very thankful to the person (tryingnottoworry) for the amount of time and effort he had clearly put in. I would hate to think he would read posts like the one above and think why do I bother and we never hear from him again, I know I would feel that way, as you could see he feels he is in a state of recovery at the moment (fingers crossed it remains) so he has no real need to come on here and waste his valuable time!
I am not looking to take this off topic or get into an argument with anyone. I just wonder why it seems we are not trying to pull in the same direction!?
Anyway back to the point
19 before consuming a bag of Spinach per day around 2.5 weeks ago I had very little energy, bad brain fog, concentration and very low mood/depression plus most of the sexual sides, ed low libido etc etc. Since being on the diet My mood has lifted massively, I feel stronger, and I am feeling much better in myself in general for example I went for a 4 mile run last night and I felt good after itā¦ I could not have done his a couple of weeks ago, I am finding work alot more manageable and life in general, I just feel much happier. That said I donāt have much improvement on the sexual side if any at all. Hope this helps, any other questions please ask.
Cheers.
Thanks Tpenf!
I agree with your sentiments. We need to stay positive and realise that there are people on the other end of our computers. I honestly believe tryingnottoworryās improvements to be true. Why that is is up for debate. The dolichol idea is a big leap and Iām not convinced about it but Iām always open to new ideas. I eagerly await to see if tntw retains his improvement. I hope you do too. I had some improvements in mood and energy at first too. Hopefully youāll retain it.
Oscar likes to stir things up a bit. His style is very confrontational. I donāt think he used to be. Weāre all frustrated. I imagine he sees this idea and donāt think it makes any sense so makes sure we know all about it.
Personally i think at the moment the epigenetic idea of androgen receptor downregulation or silencing of the AR signal is the best bet but that doesnāt mean tntwās improvement contradicts it. It might have simply changed something else as by supplementing dolichol you are likely to change the expression of SRD5a3 which could have a knock on effect on other things.
fyi since i made that post that i was second day in i have kept with this diet. Thatās 16 days.
170g of spanish spinach at the late evening to late night. There are two seperate days when i couldnāt get any spinach and unfortunately, i canāt eat today or tomorrow as i hadnāt planned out my spinach reserves. Likewise, for the past two days i have been eating whopping 250g of spinach in one go.
I donāt understand why i donāt get the symptons you guys do, not even with 250g. Mal-absorption? Three times i got very, very small headache though and thatās it. Maybe my body isnāt absorbing all of it in one go, especially so late in the evening. I havenāt cut the leaves in any way, i just eat them all in one go which takes about half an hour.
Itās hard to say if this has benefitted ME - my fatigue and brainfog has been getting easier regardless as the summer has approached, even before starting the diet. I think my little fella is faring a little better during this month? Itās been better than for some time but still, could be anything. No change in sexuality really.
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For anybody trying to conclude whether this is useful, you might as well just take my post with grain of salt as my body, diet, excercises and routines with spinach are vastly different than to anybody here. So far to me it seems that the biggest improvement comes with mental clarity (an effect which might or might not go away if the diet isnāt continue (19ās trials with spinach)) with the downsides of overdose of SOMETHING, be it lutein or A-vitamin or Iron. All i can suggest is to decrease the dosage to a tolerated level where you donāt get worse in time.
I recommend everyone to at least try the diet if only for the benefits with energy and mental clarity! Will continue this diet from monday and forward.
If you get overdose symptons then decrease amount until you get none i guess, just avoid stopping. Itās fantastic to hear your energy problems are improving!
I too seem to be able to stomach alot of this stuff without a problem i have done days of around 250g also.
Yeah okay. Just be mindful of the lutein, if you even can be. Spinach is especially rich of it (the A-vitamin TNTW mentioned earlier) and it has a habit to bronze your skin when in excessive amounts. I donāt know how quickly it happens. You can read it about in luteinās wikipedia article.
So itās reversible. Itās a pretty small price for mental clarity imo, especially if it lasts. Itās rich in iron but you can only make it dangerous if you have a good C-vitamin pills or source alongside with it and most of c-vitamin sources in pill form arenāt good enough to my understanding.
self-reminder, kale is anti-flammatory, rich in antioxidants.
I did some more editing to the first post of this topic to make the dolichol deprivation theory as concise as possible. Feel free to read through it if youād like some clarification of what this topic is all about. Iāll be adding a FAQ section soon.
You may also notice I colored this article purple:
Honestly of all the things weāve learned in this thread, this should be the most substantial thing to take away from it. Many of the ideas proposed here have been theoretical, but this isnāt theory, this is SCIENCE. I really wish Mew would add this to the Finasteride Studies section, and talk with Dr. Irwig and Dr. Traish about it (Iāve PMād him twice concerning it and havenāt gotten a reply). I really believe this is a glaring piece of the PFS puzzle that has been sorely overlooked.
Yes, I will add it to the section, just been busy of late. Will also forward the abstracts you highlighted. Thanks for your hard work.
Great find! Thanks tntw!
Man this stuff is brutal
Will be lucky to get 100g down me tonight and will make 3 smoothies a day for the next 30 days.
Do you mean the spinach is brutal or the research? If spinach what effects are you getting?
Lol, i just mean the taste of it. Wasnāt too in a smoothie though!!
Ok, iāll put yesterday down to a warmup
Officially first day today. Eating/drinking a smoothie as I type. Got about 130g in one container, maybe 150g. Tastes fine with strawberry, appple and orange juice. Actually i would go as far to say it tastes VERY nice. Letās hope this doesnāt detract from itās effects. Itās a costly enough job:
Bag of spinach 200g: Ā£1.50 (Roughly one bag a day)
Small box of strawberries: Ā£1.99 (Lasts about 3 days
Apples: Ā£1 (6 days)
Orange juice: Ā£1.50 (2/3 days)
So iād say itās about Ā£3 per shake. Obviously im incurring the extra expense by making it a smoothie but thereās no way i could take a bag a leaves without doing that so ah well. Iāll be adding ice next time, should top it off nicely. 
Will report back on my progress after the 30 days.
Im doing shakes with just 1 banana and a small amount of water and ice cubes with around 75g ish of spinach, 2/3 times a day Tastes good, cheaper option.
Thank you very much for your support Mew!
I only just realised that you only took 2 pills and have previously had a very long recovery man. I donāt think we will see anyone else recover from eating spinach.
Iām sort of an unusual case. I didnāt take fin for hairloss, I took two 5mg pills in July of 2009, and crashed with extremely severe side effects only a few days later. My body fluctuated symptoms rapidly within the first month of being off, and the symptoms gradually fluctuated more slowly from then on. By December of 2009 I slowly started to recover, and by around March I was feeling nearly back to 99% (and occasionally 100%). For almost a year I had felt mostly recovered; penis was still mostly numb, orgasm barely felt like anything, lack of energy, weak libido, and a few other lingering issues, but I was able to maintain a decent quality of life. Around December of 2010 problems started to come back, and by February of 2011 things were beginning to become unbearable once again. After a month on the spinach diet my symptoms quickly resolved.
Most of us took fin for hairloss, most of us took it for longer, most of us didnāt take as high a dose, and most of us didnāt crash as fast as I did. I guess my body is weird, but itās the only one I have, and the only one I can share experiences from. Iāve been cautious to not start screaming everywhere āHEY GUYS I FOUND THE CURE!!!ā because I know itās not as simple as that. We may all share the fact that fin screwed up our bodies, but at the same time our bodies are all different. We still donāt know for sure what this drug did to us, and why weāre the unusual ones who got sick from it.
The bottom line is that each of our bodies were broken through 5AR inhibition, but each broken in their own unique way. You canāt say for sure that the spinach diet (or better yet Ropren) wonāt work for you because my body seemed different, just as I canāt say for sure that it will work for you because it seemed to work for me. It entirely depends on your body and no one elses.
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Just for info my story is quite similar to yours tnwt in the fact that symtoms started very soon, a week or 2, unfortunately i stayed on it for 2.5 months hoping the symptoms would go, they didnt, i crashed arond 2 weeks after stopping. I i am still feeling gains on the diet, nearly a month for me nowā¦ Rightly or wrongly i decided to have a few beers last night for a friends birthday (5 or 6) and i feel ok today, this would not have been the case before the diet, again still not much change sexuallyā¦ For now i dont have plans to stop the diet as i seem to be able to stomach it no problem, fingers crossed thing continueā¦ And others feel gains