Has anyone tried estrogen therapy or heard of the estrogen hypothesis?

Therapeutic Efforts
#1

Has anyone tried, or considering trying, estrogen for PFS? Alternately, has anyone heard of this estrogen hypothesis, I believe it was mainly linked to this youtuber/PSSD victim who has speculated that using estrogen may somewhat (counterintuitvely) help with syndomes such as PFS/PAS/PSSD?

As a hypothesis I admittedly found the idea somewhat intriguing. I was curious if anyone considered experimenting with estrogen, or estrogenic supps such as hops. There’s a paper with a lot of references and citations, I’m sure it’s available online, but I don’t think I can attach it to this post here.

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#2

If I understand correctly, the hypothesis seems to be based partially on the observation that the worst crashes happen when people with PFS/PAS/PSSD take estrogen inhibitors and lower their levels of estradiol, even very briefly. The guess is that estrogen is necessary for proper androgen signaling.

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#3

Don’t listen to gurus who speak so confidently without any clinical markers or studies. This theory comes from a reddit user (sweaty_literaute) who has narcissism problems and had a reddit server where he acted as a sort of guru or leader telling people what to inject, lol. Some people ended up in hospital. He even charged for consultations. Whenever there is a chronic condition there are always people who want to make money or get the attention they have never received in their lives at the expense of people’s desperation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PSSD/comments/14wtka5/a_note_about_sweaty_literature/
https://www.reddit.com/r/PSSD/comments/15pjxpn/sweatys_theory_no_hate_just_a_warning/

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#4

Yeah, that was my impression too. He wrote a paper “PSSD, PFS, and PRDS: An perspective for aetiology and treatment,” which I skimmed. And I agree even if his anecdote is truthful such “bro-science” should taken with a grain of salt. It doesn’t look like anyone here has attempted or had positive results with this. Although the reverse has occured, where individuals have been grievously harmed by aromatase inhibitors, which his theory is partially based on.

Still, I wonder, is there any reason to think high estrogen might be helpful, or preventative, when it comes to PFS? Either high estrogen itself or a ratio of estrogen to testosterone (or DHT, or similar male hormones). Maybe this explains why women never get PFS (obviously, not the male reproductive system effects). Likewise, I wonder, do transgendered people transitioning from male to female take finasteride or dutasteride, but similarly never get PFS?

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#5

Perhaps @mdshrinkgirl can answer this question. Jim

#6

Women get PSSD regularily, women don’t get PFS because they androgenic alopecia is a male disease. SSRIs are psrecsibed for both men and women and PSSD occurs in both

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#7

I’ve seen cases of psf in women.

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#8

Transgender M2Fs don’t usually get prescribed 5ARi drugs because they wouldn’t usually come with feminising effects.

One sign of PFS in a trans woman would be increase in male like effects from the anti-androgens (they would become more masculine from further therapy with the same anti-androgens that once feminised them).

Estrodiol could make sense as treatment if we look into the line of research PFSNetwork study lead is part of - prostate cancer research. Within this research it is well documented that the body adapts to the androgen deprivation therapy and causes a new equilibrium between tissue response to hormones. The tissues themselves change (mutation).

The equilibrium is highly important for health especially in the nervous system. It is yin yang between AR and ER.

As a cure no, estrogen is not likely.

As a treatment it works well for me.

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#9

Seriously? Tell me more, does estrogen actually work for you as a treatment. What symptoms does it help

#10

I’ve taken E on/off since 2021 and consistently for a few years now.

It helps with every symptom to some extent and some it has gotten rid of. I had extremely severe PFS and so in the past it has been insomnia, shrinkage, brainfog, prostate pain, frequent urination, loss of libido and digestive issues amongst other things.

When E is working my brain works extremely well, I feel a deep connection to life and everything is better including how I look.

Unfortunately I’m very susceptible to changing response to hormones, so it’s hard to maintain all the good effects consistently, although I am for the most part consistently 70-80% better than before E.

I don’t respond as one would expect to E. I get both some female typical effects and also some male typical effects…

It certainly feels like a mutation; the actual response of tissues is all off and different.

If I stop E or increase T then I’m back to PFS nightmare as expected. The response to T is very unusual to say the least

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#11

Regarding the hypothesis that guy makes. His opinion keeps changing and so it seems more experimental and a working draft than anything else. I’m not part of it but I hear it’s basically ran like a dictatorship and he takes advantage of vulnerable people for his own benefit.

The theory now includes mifepristone. Some limited improvement is also expected based on mutation theory for PFS. It has even been used in research for CRPC with limited success.

If you’d like to read about a risky approach and also a more realistic rational why this could work take a look at Bipolar Androgen Therapy and understand why that can work. I of course want to believe but wanting to emotionally and seeing the evidence are two different things. BAT would be slightly different anyhow, it usually would involve extremes in testosterone levels to shock the mutation and to destroy it.

As treatment estrogen alone can do multiple things including reducing testosterone levels to castrate, it can bind to ER which is likely underexpressed in tissues with AR overexpression and also it can bind to mutations. All of this can create an environment that meets the new equilibrium needs and ultimately treat some PFS symptoms in theory. There are many questions that come from this, such as do we want to relieve symptoms at the risk increasing the growth / spread of the mutation.

I don’t recommend taking risks.

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#12

I’ve often noticed that some of the symptoms we have , are similar to women going through the menopause (dry skin, heat changes , severe insomnia , palpitations , anhedonia etc)
Of course this happens because their estrogen crashes …. I’m sure estrogen has something to do with it ……

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#13

It is not a male disease. Female pattern hairloss is caused by the exact same thing as male pattern hairloss. Anyone who knows my story- I have entirely disintegrating skin and cannot stand by a sunny window ever again/ knows women can get PFS. please do not spread misinformation. I’m going to die of skin cancer because of these medications. I have not found anyone whose connective tissue was destroyed by minoxidil and dut/fin to that level, if anything these drugs are even more dangerous to women.

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#14

I’m very sorry to hear that. Out of curiosity, is this a story you’ve shared on this forum?

#15

That’s very interesting, thanks for sharing.

#16

Thanks for sharing the information. Curious - and dangerous - stuff going on out there.