@Joekool, could you do the community a favour and please post your lab results? I am curious as to where your LH was sitting prior to starting Hcg, during Hcg treatment and post Hcg treatment. It would interesting to see how those values varied.
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HCG is immunosupressive and shifts immune system towards TH2 domination over TH1, means it can be useful in case if autoimmune condition somehow involved in pfs/pas/pssd
Expression of T helper (Th)1 cytokine mRNA in pregnant women is known to be inversely correlated with serum human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). Type 1 diabetes is a Th1-mediated autoimmune disease, in which intervention at an early stage of the autoimmune process can prevent disease progression. We hypothesised that immune modulation by treating young NOD mice with hCG may prevent diabetes.
Unfortunately, no one knows. I really wish we had an answer. I agree with @AaronF that five weeks isn’t definitive. I think I slogged on for about 2 months and then had a recovery that lasted 3-4 months before coming back down and staying there for over five years now, though I have made significant progress since the nadir. I think some people rebound and stay there though.
Just adding a little bit of fuel to this fire. This doc (below) talks about low-dose hCG added to TRT protocol helping patients with refractory libido issues (see the 6 minute mark). Members who are on TRT and aren’t on hCG might consider it.
How is Joekool’s story of recovery any different from any other who have claimed recovery.
Joekool I do not think you present the most logical case or have brought forward very much useful information.
You added a few links in which everyone has seen a million times before. Copied and pasted your short and to the point story from Raypeat and now everyone is all excited. 64 posts in total 5 of them being from myself. Doesnt seem like this protocol gas gained much traction, there are 1000s of unlucky souls here on propecia help that are very clever and health savy that aren’t chiming in here, if this was a legit recovery for everyone to try.
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man why so negative
hes recovered and is spending his spare time reporting back how he did it to help us
he has no obligation to any of us to prove anything to anyone
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What would you want @Joekool to do exactly? Just because he doesn’t fully or adequately explain the mechanistic underpinnings of his recovery doesn’t mean he’s being dishonest.
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No need to insult each other boys. Joekool’s theory might work or it might not, only one way to find out if it works for you. But remember that everything has the danger of making things worse.
So I salute the brave souls that are willing to try this out, and based on their experience we will know more.
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He is one of the greatest persons i have talked with. I pm’ed with him many times before all of this.
I would say just go out and try HCG if you want to see the results yourself, or wait, for, what?
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I chatted with Joe after seeing his recovery on the raypeat forum. He was very generous with his time and very friendly. Seems like someone who just wants to help others. But he’s not a scientist, and I don’t he (or anyone else) will be able to explain exactly why hCG was effective, or whether it will be effective for anyone else.
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I really can’t understand what happened with me when i tried HCG For ome and half month
From the second injection i got a sever hot flashes , loss all the muscle mass rapidly .
Developed a small Gyno . Very weak erection . Severe brain fog .
It’s like im injecting myself with estrogen . I really got a horrible sides . The only good thing happened to me is my eye floaters disappeared when i was on HCG and already came back again . And my libido was over the roof when i was on HCG .
If someone can explain to me what happened exactly in my body that time i will be appreciated
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It sounds like you were hormonally high and had significant aromatization, but you don’t mention any bloodwork or even how much hCG you took and on what schedule, so it’s hard to say.
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I’ve had an unrelated setback, due to a back injury requiring steroid injections. The steroids seem to have built up my appetite and I’m up about 10lbs.
I’ll also add that after several months on hCG, my testosterone is up from under 400 to about 550, but my estradiol is up too, with those typical symptoms. My endocrinologist suggested and prescribed 1mg anastrozole once a week while continuing the HCG at 250iu m/w/f. Instead, I’m only cutting back to 125iu hCG (Joe’s advice, which makes perfect sense to me).
I’ve enjoyed really decent improvements with hCG and hope I get past this high estradiol period. Even with that, I’ve had the best sleep of the last 15 years, and wake up refreshed. Not 100%, but I am feeling less lethargic. I had felt even better last month, and am hoping with the reduced hCG dosage, I get back on track.
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Great to hear. Sorry to be a drag, but could you please care to elucidate the areas of improvement, perhaps on a scale of 10?
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Glad you skipped the anastrozole.
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Wouldn’t be surprising if your feeling better is more than placebo effect since your T was in the 300s so you were hypogonadal. TRT might be safer treatment for hypogonadism long term, however. If you have PFS then you will still have all our side effects anyway, no matter what your T levels, however. Good that you are finding out whether you have hypogonadism alone or hypogonadism + PFS. Let’s hope it’s the former.
I definitely have PFS and wonder since I’ve had it for so long, about 15 years, what else it may have affected. For sure, it absolutely shrunk my testicles, and since the hCG, they’ve come back to “normal” size, as per a doctor’s evaluation and a cat scan/mri that was taken for my back. This “normal” size is 2x what they were before hCG.
After hCG, I have much more hair all over my body, but after a haircut yesterday, it’s actually much thinner on my head. If the hCG gains keep, and the estrogen goes down, hair is a small price to pay. If only I knew that years ago, before that first finasteride poison pill.
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Listing areas of improvement below, in no particular order, so please excuse the free flowing nature of the list.
Body hair: returned to hands, chest, and lower legs. Eyebrows are thicker and longer
Ear wax: there is significantly more
Sleep: I can sleep again, with much less interruption, and if I don’t pick up my phone, I can return to sleep. I am waking up earlier, and more refreshed
Muscle Wastage: it reversed a bit, then stopped. I no longer see my chest bones, even before the recent weight gain.
Appetite: I can eat anything, and developed a sweet tooth, like I have pre pfs, but can’t work it off like I could before.
Testicular size: back to normal most days, and descending normally most days. Occasionally, much larger than “normal”
Ejaculate: it had turned to water during pfs. It’s now a little thicker, with a little bit of white color. After 15 years, I don’t remember what normal was, but it’s not there yet. This is an undeniable change in its texture. After intercourse, it would embarrassingly “leak out”, but this thicker ejaculate seems to be staying put more often.
Orgasm: under pfs, it was absolutely gone. It was a zero, sometimes with slight sensitivity after ejaculating. Orgasm got to 5-10% of normal since starting hCG, but after what seem like high estrogen symptoms, it’s back to zero, but with consistent sensitivity after orgasm.
Emotional effects: after getting out of my depression, I’ve regressed a bit. Definitely not like before, but not “happy” either. The joy of being depression free was a couple of weeks of bliss, and gives me hope to get out of it again.
Memory: it was tied to the emotional effects. It was good to remember things and form sentences more easily. That too regressed a bit, but better than baseline.
Morning erections: they were gone almost all days under pfs and pre hCG, except for days with that daily viagra type pill (I’d only take it if there was a chance of intercourse). Under hCG, morning erections returned, being much firmer in the beginning days, until they stopped a couple of months later. After a one week pause and a reduction to 125iu, they have returned again. I actually had an erection that sustained even as I got out of bed.
Penis size: it became tiny after pfs. Embarrassingly tiny, to the point of almost not seeing a shaft at all. It’s about 3x larger now when flaccid. It was never really large before, or even normal, but clearly an improvement from what it was. When erect, it’s still not at its prior peak, which did happen on several occasions over the past decade. I never really found out why or how.
Random erections: lots before pfs, zero after. With hCG, I’ve had two or three, always either sitting or in bed, and they are short lived.
Breast tissue/size. I’ve gained weight, so there is more there, and it’s come on slowing, so it’s difficult to gauge, but they seem larger. I distinctly remember during a high school entry medical exam, the doctor noted “feminization of the breasts” and that I would outgrow it. I always wondered how many of us may have had something like this, and if it could be an indicator of pfs risk.
Desire: it seems to have improved from zero to a tiny bit in the first couple of months of hCG. I was really hopefully to “make up for lost time”, but it’s back to almost zero again.
Dreams: no dreams of any kind during pfs, except for a short time when I tried Wellbutrin for 90 days (it helped, but I stopped it before hCG, to not mix up results). For some reason, I found not having dreams frustrating and depressing. They occasionally returned under hCG, and I’ve actually had a couple of sexual dreams of women I’ve been with.
I’ll add that many years ago, before PFS, I got worried about prostate cancer (relatives had it). One of the things I read was that men who ejaculate daily/regularly had less likelihood of getting it. Having not been a person who ejaculated regularly, I made it a habit to do so, to keep the potential for prostate cancer at bay.
Since PFS, I’ve continued this, at the rate of about once every other day, really more to keep everything from atrophying than to prevent prostate cancer. For what it’s worth, the mri/cat scan showed a normal to large size prostate.
I’ve got about a month and a half to go for being on hCG six months. So far, even with the setbacks, these are the best and longest lasting improvements I’ve had since pfs started. It’s nowhere near normal, but so much better than before.
My new endocrinologist says I can stay on hCG 12 months at this low dose. I suspect if the estrogen goes down to normal, I can stop the hCG and see what happens. I am hoping and praying for relief from this curse, and that this helps us, even if only partially.
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seriously man what is wrong with you, your contributions to this forum are absolutely toxic
man decides to post positive feedback on a potential treatment option, your go-to response is to tell him that he is simply hypogonadal and he doesn’t have the condition. How arrogant and condescending
And for the last time, your thesis on androgen supplementation not helping pfs victims is simply incorrect, there are literally 100s of examples on this forum of where it has helped people. Just because it didn’t worked for you (possibly because you never took finasteride in the first place) you have incorrectly assumed it doesnt work for anyone
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