Has anyone been treated by Dr. Shippen, the author of “The Testosterone Syndrome”?
I spoke to a man via another support group and via detailed analysis including pathology found the cause of his finasteride based problems.
I wrote a letter for one endocrinologist he saw but the endocrinologist did not understand the issues involved. I spoke to another endocrinologist he saw in Canada, phoning him from the UK. The second endocrinologist told me that I had no idea what I was talking about and that his patient had no hormonal problem at all despite his use of finasteride based products.
I told him what his hormone problem was and what medication was most likely required in order for him to get his life back and gave him the contact details for Dr Shippen.
He saw Dr Shippen.
At first Dr Shippen though his issues were in another area ad tried him on various medications. He then decided to try the medication I suggested.
The patient is now in great health and his problems rectified.
Dr Shippen now is suggesting that the medication that I though proper might be something that the patient should be on for life.
It took months and months and months of help, convincing and detailed explanations to get my this guy, a lovely person by the way from A to B. I had to steer him past poor endocrinologist who did not understand the nature of his condition to the point where he could get what was required in order to regain his health and life. In terms of hours spent it was literally dozens of hours- it was nothing short of a pleasure helping such a nice guy get what he deserved.
In answer to the original question;
I have read the Testosterone Syndrome, helped patients obtain referals to him and been in touch with him via email.
He is a world class andrologist- in case that was a quenstion?
Hello Hypo is here,
I just want to know what is tht medication that has that patient nearly fully recovered? Is that a treatment for life? Sorry if I am making the same question someone else did but although I´m an old member of the former yahoo support group I´m relally new to this site. thanks for your response.
Guillermo
The person concerned ended up with elevated SHBG as a result of Propecia use. The SHBG was binding a high percentage of his testosterone and rendering it useless to the body. This meant his total testosterone looked fine but his crucial free testosterone (that which can be used by the body) was low. TRT would not have helped too much as the production of testosterone was not the issue. Aromatize inhibitors or anti estrogens wouldn’t have helped either as the problem was not elevated estradiol. He needed a medication that would lower SHBG. In his case I though it was worth giving Danazol a go to see if it helped. Dr Shippen prescribed this medication and he is now very well. If SHBG is high or at least elevated enough to result in low free testosterone it may help other men as well. Not everyone who has used finasteride products ends up with this problem and so this medication is only appropriate if indicated by pathology that shows high or elevated SHBG. Finasteride affects more than one hormone and appears to have multiple mechanisms of action, so this is not a magic bullet that answers everyone’s problems.
This patient has been told that he might need to take Danazol for life.
If you have blood pathology I can take a look at it for you and see if SHBG is likely to be an issue in your case.
Hypo, I would really appreciate if you could take a look at my hormones and tell me if my situation is becoming similar to the one of that guy who felt better with danazol (http://www.propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=19897). As you see, my SHBG has been increasing after stopping propecia, but my E is low.
I wouldn’t hold your breath for a response from Hypo; his last post was January 2008.
Oh. Haha I guess that’s good for him.
Anyway, I found this patent: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/EP1079836.html, which describes how to use danazol, possibly combined with T supplements, in order to treat hypogonadism. It also reports some interesting examples that are worth looking at.
I think that people with increasing/high SHBG, low T, and low E should print it out next time they see an endo
I have been reading old posts by @Hypo-is-here, who seemed to know what he was talking about. He was confident that problems caused by Finasteride (PFS) could be treated. In the case described on this thread, he recommended Danazol to someone with PFS, in order to bring down his SHBG and raise free Testosterone. The treatment seemed successful.
Does anyone remember @Hypo-is-here and what do you make of his recommendations? Has anyone tried Danazol?
Hmm.
The person that Hypo is referencing in your quote appears to have been having a run of good luck with Danazol, but it began failing at some point.
.
Another member didn’t appear to have much luck with it (he eventually stopped):
.
What I thought was interesting is that danazol has been used to decrease T in an acne patient without significant sexual disturbances:
It is a competitive inhibitor of DHT at the AR and has a mild androgenic effect, being responsible for virulization of female fetuses.
I wonder if the symptomatic relief @almost_recovered was seeing was partly due to an anti-androgenic effect of replacing DHT with this weaker androgen? Not so sure if that is a good idea, although neither PFS patient who took it mentioned eventual worsening of symptoms.
1 Like
I know the theory that correcting hormonal imbalances can cure PFS has been tried many times with mixed results. However, lately I am beginning to believe that PFS may vary along two different axes - one is the extent of epigenetic changes that have happened, and the other is the extent to which hormones have been messed up. While epigenic changes may be irreversible, hormones may be re balanced - naturally or medically.
If one’s hormones are out of whack following androgen deprivation, that will have an effect on sexual function and other symptoms even in the absence of, or with little, epigenetic changes. For those people, restoring the HPTA axis or waiting for hormones to re-balance may provide temporary or permanent relief.
For those however, who don’t have any hormonal imbalances and still have severe PFS symptoms, messing with the hormones may provide little relief. On the contrary, they may get worse.
Ultimately, the people with messed up hormones (and few epigenetic changes) recover slowly - usually within 1-2 years. The others don’t recover.
What do you think about that?
2 Likes
If this is true, there must be a sparse few of the hormonal cases considering the number of those who claim permanent remission of symptoms with hormone modulation of any kind.
As a person who spent far too much of his life reading this forum and related I’ve seen a handful of (what I consider trustworthy) PFS patients claim this worked, 2 PAS patients (davek22 and a guy named Babis on acne.org), and I think there are a few PSSD patients as well. That’s a terrible rate of long-term recovery with hormonal manipulation.
The vastly more common anecdote is for one to find a hormonal disturbance, treat it, and either relapse, or only experience limited improvement. If you noticed, the two who tried danazol appeared to relapse.
Just the sad fact of matter that it can “generally” be said that hormonal manipulation isn’t effective in treating this condition, if those rare cases are even considered to have the same condition.
Sure, my point was not so much about supplementation but about letting hormones rebalance naturally with time - for those whose hormones are out of whack. It seems a sizable percent of people improve naturally in the first 1-2 years, and these may be the ones suffering primarily from hormonal imbalances. In other words, improvement or recovery may be dependent on restoring compromised hormonal balance. If, on the other hand, one’s hormones are OK and there is nothing to improve, there is no room for recovery as the symptoms are due to epigenetic changes.