Has anyone ever looked into growth hormone level in PSF/PSSD?

Science
#1

I know this post may come off a bit of topic. But I see some similarities between TBI (traumatic brain injury) / CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) and PFS:

  • both share symptoms like fatigue, memory impairment, sleep and mood disruption, changes in personality
  • both show that the gut-brain-axis is affected (disrupted gut bacteria)
  • both show disruption in hormone profiles

In this article:

They showed that GH (growth hormone) is reduced in TBI and that it may account for fatigue etc. Also it should have a protective effect on the brain. It is responsible for muscle and tissue growth (PSF has muscle and tissue shrinkage), it protects against osteoporosis (PFS has increased osteoporosis risk). Growth hormone is mainly released during high intensity exercise (which could be the reason why some PFS patients had some success under exercise). The article also stated that hormone replacement with GH would stop the fatigue as long as it is given.
They also said the TBI patients had lowered or different amino acid values in their blood (amino acids are also raising the growth hormone. They think it is the altered gut bacteria are the reason, why the gut can’t absorb the amino acids well and that this may lead to the low growth hormone.

Now the question:

  • did anyone ever look into growth hormone levels in PFS and PSSD to see if it may be low?
  • as the gut microbiom is also disrupted in PFS (and maybe in PSSD), are the amino acid levels also altered and how does that affect hormone levels and muscle mass?

Has anyone heard of GH ever been tested in PFS/PSSD?

#3

That’s impressive!!

I just Googled the symptoms of low GH. It strikes me how 1:1 the symptoms are with PFS

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Vision impairment is also part of PFS btw. probably lack of one of there hormones that are produced by help of the 5ar.

You are right, to fix the gut is a good idea, but as the hormones, the mood and the lack of sleep affect the gut too it may be difficult.

Look into prebiotics, everything that has a lot of fiber, inulin is fine. Exercise is actually affecting the gut positively, just like meditation.

One of the best microbiome researchers Tim Spector says a healthy, diverse microbiome is mostly associated with the number of plants we eat. He says a healthy microbiom sees gets about 30 different plants a week. That seems a lot but if you count spices, tees and so on you can easily get more that 30 different plants a week. That’s what I do.
Bad for the microbiome are medication especially those changing the pH of the stomach, hard alcohol, McDonald’s (can reduce your microbiom diversity by 40% in less than 2 weeks if you eat fast food only), hard alcohol etc., antibiotics, you get it…
I personally stay away from suplements that contain living bacteria. It is just a few strains and for your body it is like an invasion of trillions of alien soldiers.
There is evidence that probiotics could also be harmful or less effective than prebiotics.
If you want cheap probiotics that have past the test of time go for joghurt, Kefir, temphe, pickles… People have eaten this for a long time and it’s more than just single strains.

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#4

@anon5006275 and at @zzz123 an endocrinologist told me that the gold standard of GH testing was the GH stimulation test. It isn’t the blood draw that @Hiel got.

If you’re truly interested in determining your GH levels, you could try to get it measured that way! It’s the most accurate and probably the only one an endocrinologist would actually act on.

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#5

My HGH came back at 0.1 as well. Doctor said you aren’t a teenager anymore so it’s fine. Same doctor who said “finasteride is a great drug it reduces my sex drive and keeps me out of trouble”.

I should mention this was a fasted test so my GH should be sky high.

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#7

Yes my prolactin was very high considering my TSH was on the lower range. It could explain why fasting and sprints make us feel better as those stimulate HGH.

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#11

There’s probably something to this.

I took pharma HGH for about 3 months at 2-4IU.

1st/2nd month I felt amazing, all symptoms cured and I put on a ton of muscle, my dick was like teenage level too.

3rd months started developing alot of health issues from the GH, knee pain, insomnia, terrible digestion.

GH does work, but the human body doesn’t respond well to just pinning in some hormones, especially if you already have compromised health.

It doesn’t matter if it’s T, GH, or whatever else. Pinning some hormones is never going to be completely healthy. Hormones are finely balanced things, and we simply don’t have the technology to alter them correctly.

EDIT: I was 21/22 when I took the GH

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#12

That’s pretty insane we have the same TSH level and high prolactin. I too have low vitamin D and interestingly, double the recommended level of b12. My genetic test predicted that I would have high b12 capabilities and low vitamin D retention.

I have been taking forskolin and I have only had positive effects with it. In terms of our prolactin, we should look at increasing dopamine and/or taking b6 (pyridoxine not pyridoxal).

#13

It is not much conclusive to measure growth hormone levels I recommend Indirect measurement via IGF-1 levels.

And yes mine are also low.

#14

Bro high prolactin induces strong inhibition on erectile function and libido. Fix it as soon as possible.

#15

I also had a little bit too high prolactin (finasteride), vitamin d was 22 ng/mL although it was summer and I was in the sun without sunscreen every day for 2 ours (although I don’t see the link between 5ar inhibitors and vitamin d). The link to GH is easier to explain

#16

Yes, that would be the next step. But if the problem lies in the microbiome disruption (resulting in less arginine reaching the blood) - the stimulation test is probably going yield normal results.

A) Interesting therefore would also be the amino acid values in the blood of patients.

B) Whether high dose arginine supplementation could reduce some of the symptoms fatigue, cognitive problems etc.

#20

Diving into GH deeper. Ther stimulation test is done with Arginine i.v. Which is pretty interesting as some people in this forum described short-term improvements on Arginine (especially brain fog). GH has a protective effect on the brain. Brain fog is most likely caused by neuroinflammation. So it makes perfect sense, that the microbiome dysbiosis in PFS is causing problems in the uptake of certain amino acids and therefore resulting in low GH (which may play a role in some of the neurological symptoms). That arginine supplementation is giving only short-time relief may be due to the little GH increase that takes place under arginine.

I think more research should be done to validate whether GH is somewhat lower in PFS, PSSD patients than in healthy young individuals!

#21

I’ve had two GH and to IGF-1 labs

GH was low then low/mid

IGF-1 was high them mid/high

#22

Did you feel any improvements with GH being higher the second time?
Note: GH is fluctuating. If you had protego-rich meal or exercise before, it’s shooting up a bit

#23

This study compares the b6’s and it states that pyridoxine increases 5AR but pyridoxal inhibits 5AR. Also, pyridoxine seems to increase growth hormone and reduce prolactin better than pyridoxal.

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#24

No

I don’t think GH has much to do with PFS tbh.

#25

Agree, sucks he’s still banned Just my thoughts and ongoing hypothesis...continuously changing and in draft mode so please do not take any of this information as a recovery treatment

Mods also haven’t given us a solution for us to contact him. Hope he reads this and lets us know how.

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#26

i’m on prescribed growth hormone replacement, so i can tell you a bit about this. these days it’s a real pain to get it prescribed, i had to do a 6 hour test where they hook you up to an iv inject you with glucagon and keep taking your blood. having a low GH value isn’t a big deal, you aren’t really going to see that go up unless you just inject yourself with GH and take the blood within an hour. it’s one of the popular ways that bodybuilders check to see if their gh they order is real. igf1 value is the real indicator which you tested and have a good value, fasting is also another good way to raise it. if you have high prolactin, sometimes you can have a pituitary tumor like i have, but you have good testosterone levels, and the prolactin is just top of range and that can vary a bit. i know you want an answer but the labs look pretty good.

#27

Can you tell us how HGH has impacted your condition, please? In regards to libido, energy, brain/neuro symptoms, muscles, etc.

Thank you!

#28

i was on hgh prior to the pfs, but it hasn’t helped me in any way regardless of dose. to be fair though, in my case nothing has ever helped me. i wouldn’t have even called myself normal before the pfs. lifelong fatigue, depression, anxiety. i had the testosterone of a 90 year old man, low vit d, no hgh, severe sleep apnea, high estrogen. fixing all of that stuff made no difference for me, i even always had thick good hair, but i was doing a bunch of extreme dieting/fasting and my hair was thinning out which was probably just temporary but i tried the finasteride anyway. so now i’m all of the stuff i always was, less hair and now a whole host of problems that fin brought on. life is great.