I think this is the point people are trying to make.
Sounds to me like you ate something, it might not have agreed with you, you had an upset stomach. It could have been a number of things over those days that caused a change in your stools. Its completely normal.
I’m throwing the salmon debate in to the box along with nose boogers, ear wax & my testicles turned into ovaries
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with this specific thread. But what I will say as someone who has been suffering from PFS for ten years is that I do react in extreme ways to things that normal people would not react to. I took amino acids in SAMe recently and stayed up for 9 days, lost ten pounds and experienced shrinkage. So in my experience with this anything is possible.
My hard flaccid / pssd was brought on by Sam-e ( granted I have previous SSRI usage) - what do you mean by amino acids in Sam-e?
Also, on the salmon - just throwing out an idea - salmon is very high histamine - could that be causing it? I would expect if that was it - you would have only temporary crash not permanent. I also belive vitamin A is a issue for many - I’ve used to take a lot of fish oil and it gave me horrible exhaustion.
Good explanation. Salmon used to give me bad issues too. It’s high in histamine if it’s not fresh and this is problematic for histamine intolerant individuals.
A bit problem here is that PFS is a real condition that nobody understands well and the symptoms can change from time to time.
Hypochondria is the “obsession with the idea of having a serious but undiagnosed medical condition”. Given that the condition is fluctuating and there are always so many health variables changing at any given time, it’s really hard to say that eating salmon or tomatoes or using whatever supplements help or hurt. But even though PFS is real, this obsession with the smallest unprovable changes, fits the definition of hypochondria and definitely reflects on the community. I’m not going to tell you what you should say or do or think, but its worth it to appreciate this fact when you consider how to conduct yourself.
I had a urine neurotransmitter test which gives you an idea as to how much of each neurotransmitter your body is producing. I explored this path because the handful of people on this forum who explored this path had pretty good results. Also recently I learned that certain neurotransmitters such as GABA bind to the GABA receptors and react in a way similar to how certain neurosteriods such as Allopregnanolone would react after binding to the GABA receptors. This path felt relevant giving joekools recovery which he contributes to increasing neurosteriods with HCG and thisisarealbummers recovery which he contributes to “balancing” the GABA receptors.
Specific amino acids convert to specific neurotransmitters through specific pathways in the body. This is why amino acids are predecessors of neurotransmitters. SAMe is a cofactor that assists with dopamine’s conversion to norepinephrine. SAMe also does other things. Another example I’m aware of is that SAMe may impact glycine levels. So I took specific amino acids and SAMe for 64 days and then had a follow up urine neurotransmitter test to see if I was now peeing out higher levels of the neurotransmitters that I was trying to increase
During this 64 days I cured my constipation and relapsed into severe insomnia. I relapsed into insomnia on November 25th 2020. It was bad and very similar to what happened to me when I first got insomnia issues from taking Saw P seven years ago. This time I stayed up for 9 days and even when I started sleeping my sleep was still very limited for weeks. As of right now I’m continuing to recover back to regular base line with the relapse insomnia and I’m about 70 percent recovered back to baseline with the relapse insomnia specifically. So I’m successfully knocking the shit out of it haha. If I recover back to full regular baseline with my sleep I’ll be back at about 80 percent pre PFS level sleep which I can happily live with.
Unfortunately during this recent relapse I also took a hit on the sexual sides as well which I’m currently noticeable below regular baseline in. Note that my regular baseline on the sexual sides is not good to begin with. I’m going on a trial of 4 DHEA today in hopes to at least get back my losses in sexual sides from it and if I am real lucky get some gains above regular PFS baseline with these sides.
But yea I believe everything stated in this thread. No way amino acids and SAMe puts a balanced person into that severe of insomnia and causes shrinkage, loss of sexual function and lean muscle loss. So I believe everything being stated here about salmon. Lastly I believe the loss of lean muscle this time in my case was specific to not sleeping for that 9 straight days. I could literally feel the muscles in my legs wasting away while I was in bed completely physically exhausted while my brain was completely alert and wired unable to sleep. I look at this like it’s worth mentioning because I think the muscle loss was in result of the insomnia and not “something else” that the amino acids and SAMe did to provoke my imbalance
What symptoms did you have prior to SAMe and what symptoms did the SAMe cause and or make worse ?
One of the moderators on this site here said he got worse from SAMe and ended up in similar insomnia to mine after taking SAMe
My urine neurotransmitter tests show I’m peeing out highish amounts of histamine. This suggests that I have more histamine then what my body needs
Just like I’m peeing out highish amounts of Allopregnanolone suggesting my body wants to get rid of a lot of my Allopregnanolone. As well as Epitestosterone which is a 5AR inhibitor. Peeing out flagged high amounts of Epitestosterone suggesting I’m producing too much Epitestosterone and my body wants to get rid of it
I would need to see simpler patterns in the labs of others to build on this theory but I think all the excitatory neurotransmitters such as dopamine, epinephrine ,Norepinephrine are responsible for normal sexual function and for some reason my whole system goes off the wall when I try to increase anyone of these things. My body also binds high amounts of DHT evidenced by comparing my plasma DHT to my saliva DHT. And then my body keeps aromatase activity low like we are discussing in the other thread. So it’s almost like everything my body needs for normal sexual function is being purposely kept low in the body. I call it being in “survival mode”. It makes sense that in “survival mode” your body is not trying to digest food well or reproduce. It’s just doing the minimum to survive. I try to force my body to do these things well with amino acids and it starts to do these things well by turning digestion back on but then crashed. There has to be reason for this. A missing element resulting in this occurring
I’m going to make a new thread soon outlining every test I had and where others can get them done. It’s just taking me a little while because I’m insanely busy. I’m hoping once I outline them people will spend the money and get them done.
Are you saying salmon no longer gives you issues?
Farmed salmon is known to have high amounts of pollutants. I saw a docu on youtube (link below) where they analyzed it and the researchers stated that it is the most toxic food you can eat and they would never eat farmed salmon. I always eat wild salmon and never had issues. If there is a link with issues then it has nothing to do with salmon itself but with pollutants https://youtu.be/RYYf8cLUV5E
Nope not anymore. I used to ask the restaurants about the freshness of their salmon but I’m fine now. My food sensitivities are 99% gone.
You draw many useful observations that helps us get closer to conclusions. Kudos to you 
Now onto your your “survival mode” hypothesis. I’ve been trying to look at PFS from a different view angle that’s different from classifying everything as either anti-5AR or pro-5AR. My answer to this “survival mode” is “excess/chronic inflammation”. See, when ever the body is put under stress, it reacts through this “survival mode” mechanism. Imagine being starved in a desert or in life-or-death situation, then it stands to reason that sex is the furthest thing from your mind. I’ve another term for the “survival mode” that I call “sickness behavior”. It’s caused by releasing inflammatory cytokines that leads to hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA axis) overactivation. This is body’s way for adaptation and is infact healthy when it occurs over short period of time. However, problems arise when this adaptation mechanism shifts from short to long-term.
Sam-e can lead to higher levels of histamine through the negative feedback loop mechanism on the HNMT gene - if your taking too much then it can raise histamine - this leads to insomnia and feeling wired. Histamine has many jobs in the body but one is that is causes alertness and wakefulness- thats why too much and you feel wired and have insomnia. Many poeple with MCAS or histamine intolerance have insomnia issues. So that could explain what happened - cant be sure 100% of course.
Intersting
Here is my 7/29/2020 and 12/05/2020 urine neurotransmitter test results. In both tests my histamine production is highish. Also the Histamine N-methyltransferase enzyme (HNMT enzyme) is shown on the chart to convert Histamine to N-methylhistamine via HNMT enzyme using SAMe as cofactor. So if I have highish histamine in my urine this could also be because the HNMT enzyme is not converting enough histamine into
N-Methylhistamine because maybe the HNMT enzyme activity is low. And this results in histamine building up and the body needing to pee out highish amounts of it in the urine. But if what I’m proposing is correct we would think that my introducing more SAMe the HNMT enzyme would now have more of its required co factor to work and more of my histamine could convert into N-Methylhistamine and my urine histamine would drop to a lower amount resulting in me feeling better. This did not happen in spite of taking SAMe for 64 days in between the tests so leads me to believe that the SAMe did something else responsible for my recent crash.
But you are proposing the idea that SAMe can lead to higher levels of histamine through the negative feedback loop mechanism on the HNMT gene which is different from the HNMT enzyme. So I would like to learn more about this. Although my histamine actually went down a little in the second test compared to the first test and around the time of my second test is when I crashed. But I still would like to learn more about your proposed mechanism so that I can include it into my calculations.
I messed up earlier when i said that SAMe is a co factor involved in dopamine to to norepinephrine. SAMe Attachment (2) chart actually shows SAMe being used as a co factor for norepinephrine to epinephrine conversion
I included SAMe attachment (1) and (2) showing all of the conversions that SAMe is involved in. I think it’s important that we analyze SAMe’s co factor capability’s so that we can figure out why three of us here including Dubai get worse from SAMe. If we could figure out why SAMe makes certain PFS cases worse we will be one step closer to cracking the code.
On an unrelated note I believe that my increase in natural serotonin production into the optimal range is what cured my constipation of seven years. 80-90 percent of the serotonin in the body is produced in the gut which stimulates intestinal contractions. Upon comparing both of my tests it can be seen that I increased my natural production of serotonin into the optimal range. After reading about Serotonin it is clearly needed for normal gut functioning. On another unrelated note I am suspicious that in spite of successfully increasing my natural dopamine into the optimal range that the extra dopamine did not subsequently convert to Norepinephrine and Epinephrine even though I was taking both co factors required for Dopamine to convert into Norepinephrine and Epinephrine. SAMe attachment two shows SAMe and vitamin C being the required cofactors for these conversions. So why did my body purposely lower the enzymes responsible for Dopamine to go to Norepinephrine and for norepinephrine to go to Epinephrine? This question haunts me especially if Norepinephrine and Epinephrine are responsible for sexual function like some think.
! !I used to eat mushrooms with abundance without any ill effect. A year or two I read how it negatively affected a few guys on the forum and then I started to feel the full gamut of effects such as dizziness, anxiety, compete loss of libido, etc.
Took me a while to realise that my mind was playing tricks on me based on what I’d read and now I eat mushrooms without any issues whatsoever.
Goes to show the power of the mind and the placebo effect.
Interesting
Do you know which inflammatory cytokines we could get tested for to explore this further ?
HNMT is not the only enzyme that breaks down histamine but also DAO. Having low DAO activity also leads to histamine building-up. I was supplementing cofactors to support DAO and that includes Mg, Cu, Zn, Ca. However, I changed my strategy and focused on supporting bacteria known to breakdown histamine and block histamine receptors and reduce strains known to convert histidine into histamine. I also link histamine intolerance to potential microbiome dysbiosis because mine came about after mega dosing Xifaxan (for SIBO) followed by ingesting Lactobacillus reuteri probiotics that are histamine producing.
Well, not exactly. Mushrooms are the preferred food source (prebiotic) for lactobacilli bacteria (lactic acid based bacteria). If you have very low level of these then mushroom can help them grow but it would possibly cause initial reactions known as Jarisch– Herxheimer reaction.
I do think we grossly underestimate this.
Interesting you mention a complete lack of libido after eating a mushroom. I’ve had such an experience where I took x supplement, started reading about it, read something about possible 5ar interactions, saw my shrinkage worsen as I stressed about it, had to forcefully calm myself down and tell myself to stop. To stop acting like a fucking lunatic. Shrinkage got better after I calmed down.
I think there’s a lot of good info here, but the constant overanalysing, especially about foods, is driving me nuts. And maybe it’s also keeping my body from recovering?
Good question. Inflammatory markers include CRP, high antibodies IgG, IgE, IgA, & Inflammatory cytokines IL-6, IL-1beta, TNF-a, IFNγ, IL-12, IL-18 and probably others but these are the ones on top of my head. It’s also good idea to get CBC test and check for WBC particularly eosinophils.
