Can you tell how long it took before you noticed your muscle loss stopping?
What 5-ari foods do you usually avoid in your daily life?
It was probably around 6 months after I stopped taking Fin that I noticed the muscle loss had stopped.
All of them really.
These are the ones that I’ve been able to Research or note my self:
- Chocolate
- Soy
- Green Apples
- Tea
- Coffee
- Mushroom
- Broccoli
- Pumpkin
- Rosemary
- Soybean Oil
- Soy Sauce
- Soy Milk
- Protein bars
- Peanut
- Cashew
- Walnut
- Peanut butter
- Sugar (except fruits)
- Canola Oil
- Tumeric
- Fries
- Ice Cream
- Brown Rice
- All bread (Except Rye)
Best thing to do is when you are about to eat a food, search for it on this site. That will usually tell you if people have bad experiences with it or not.
I have also created a list of heaps of food I can eat.
Includes meats, Dairy, Sweet Potato, Rye bread, white rice, majority of Vegetables, and fruit.
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hi How is your muscle pain and fatigue now any tips??
Hi Abc, thank you for checking in. And yes I do have some tips.
My muscle pain these days is gone and basically none existent, and my fatigue is improving. It’s probably 80% better since this my original post. I feel like I am not too far off from recovering, and lots of my old symptoms are starting to subside.
I put this down to 2 different things, the first is avoiding 5ari foods, and the second is taking a particular supplement: Acetyl L Carnitine.
I started taking this supplement based off a recovery story on here by @Livid171. This is his recovery post:
Livid171’s official post on his recovery
If you look that supplement up on this forum (or even just search “Carnitine”) you will see a few people now who have taken it and recovered.
Livid171 took 2 x 500mgs capsules a day. But he would cycle them, so 2 weeks on, and 2 weeks off. He would always take weekends off, but I have been taking them on weekends anyway. They are better taken on an empty stomach, and you can eat food 1 hour before them, or 2 hours after them. He had PFS for years, but after taking this supplement he started to feel like he was recovering within months. He took it for years just to make sure. The brand that @Livid171 recommended is NOW Foods, which I take as well. Very popular brand of supplements.
(He also took Rhodiola Rosea, but he eventually stopped taking that. (It’s a 5ar inhibitor, so I wouldn’t recommend taking this).
As I said, there have been others who have taken Acetyl L Carnitine and have recovered, and have only come back to the forum a handful of times since. It seems to be that the key is to keep taking it, and not stop.
While I have only started taking the supplement again in the last couple months, I originally first took it in August of 2023. Once I got to November 2023, I believed I had recovered, so I stopped. Within a month or so, all my symptoms had come back in full again. So I have started taking it again, and am noticing great results. There was another user who took it for 6 months straight, cycling it. But a few months after he stopped, a lot of his symptoms are back as well.
And as I said earlier, the other thing I have been doing is avoiding 5 Alpha Reductase Inhibitor foods and supplements. If you want a list of things to avoid, I have compiled a list based of searching on here, so I can definitely give you that. Most people who avoid 5ari foods find that they get relief with their symptoms, but it doesn’t fully cure them by itself. And some find that by taking some Supplements, they crash. That is usually because that Food or Supplement is 5ari. I wouldn’t recommend taking any supplement without searching it up on here first. It can hinder your recovery if they are 5ari, or if people have crashed from them. People have not crashed from Acetyl L Carnitine, so it is a good supplement.
Funnily enough, @Livid171 did not change his diet at all, and kept consuming 5ari foods and even supplements. I think this shows how great of a supplement Carnitine can be for our recovery. It’s up to you if you want to avoid 5ari foods, but I definitely recommend starting on Acetyl L Carnitine. Don’t take my word for it, just search it on here. Plenty of people have taken it, come back to say they recovered, and then never returned.
If you have any more questions, please let me know.
And good luck.
Congatulations, Can I ask what foods you ate, are eating
Thanks @LazarusRy, I’m mostly eating roast chicken/grilled chicken, grilled fish, some fruits, and lots of vegetables (except Pumpkin and Broccoli of course as they are 5ari).
Since starting back on the Carnitine, I have noticed that 5ari foods don’t impact me as much. What used to crash me heavily before and bring back all my symptoms, now only give me one small symptom, or almost nothing at all.
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Great to hear… Best of luck
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Interesting I might wanna try it again to see how I do with it now, I do remember it giving me some baseline shapness mentally but at the time I had it I was also severely blunted in multiple ways, those benefits with it didn’t stick either very short term. Think when I get the chance I’m gonna give the cycle a go thanks! I haven’t had any negatives with it either myself.
I am a lot confused.
I have muscle pain , weakness and fatigue…
No one is able to give any answer is muscle pain weekness and fatigue equal to Atrophy…
How to determine that
Definitely give it a go again!
Before I tried it for the first time, I had already been avoiding 5ari foods for nearly 12 months, so a few of my symptoms have subsided/lowered in severity.
However as I stated above, once I started on Acetyl L Carninite, and even during the 2 week off cycles, all of my symptoms disappear.
And judging by the searches on here, the people who keep taking it long term, either never come back, or they post to say they’re recovered.
Hi abc,
Muscle pain, weekness and fatigue are extremely common symptoms for PFS.
It is hard for me to say if those symptoms are the same as atrophy. But some people on here have found a way to stop these symptoms from being so severe (including fatigue, weekness etc).
Do you know what a 5ari is?
People who avoid 5ari foods find that they have less symptoms, and that the symptoms they still have don’t affect them as much.
I believe if you stay away from things that are 5ari, the fatigue, muscle pain etc won’t effect you as much. This could really help you.
Please tell me if you don’t know what a 5ari is, and I’ll explain it to you.
Thank you for the detailed response, please help me with 5ari foods that you ate and you avoided
I am trying to get Acetyl l carnitine . Of NOW brand as you suggested… you didn’t face any side effects from it right
I ordered it and it should comes in next friday or sunday at the latest. Kind of a long window on Amazon, usually things get to me faster. I avoid what I can comfortably avoid but I feel like based on how random whatever I react badly to is that there is some other component to foods that often just comes with foods that are stronger 5aris. Like I just realized that tomato and yesterday after trying a some of curcumin in food that I react about the same to each but I eat foods looking at the list that are 5atis all the time, sometimes I went out during this and ate a ton of them at that with little consequence. Thankfully though I still retained night and morning wood but just tanked my energy and baseline libido a bit. Though there is a theme I noticed here, when the libido tanks at all so does overall brain signalling, I feel more dull and things that would normally make me excited or are just enjoyable aren’t so much but it’s still there so no actual crash and I’ll get back.
Other people though are just fine with curcumin though, same with tomato even. I think what happens in most cases may actually have 2 major components, what happens when a 5ar related function breaks down and what happens after that in chain reaction with excitory neurotransmitter cycles as a result of that weakened state that in normal conditions have nearly no possibility of breaking down. Since this is likely related to a epigenetic shift the differences in ways people respond to things could be due to whatever happened under the epigenetic change umbrella that changed how a bunch of systems in the body not even entirely related to androgen receptors works and the individual reaction could also be due to an interaction with any of these systems that got disturbed and had consequences in the main systems originally effected directly. It could be that just so many processes in the body funnel into the androgen and dopamine related neurotransmitter cycles that a lot of processes even vaguely related to them if altered in a certain way could have profound effects in cascade on them. The things that tank me now appear to only have lessened reward/drive, libido, and sexual responsiveness as a casualty but it’s likely not the main show based on how I’m feeling. The things that make me better seem to show that everything is all still there as it was but the wires are just still weak enough to be disturbed very easily with the right compounds that otherwise wouldn’t happen before in a pre-pfs state.
Yup agreed totally
hi man, is it necessary to be ALCAR? Or normal carnitine could di the trick?
also, can you link me the other guys who recovered by it? I just know the @Livid171 story
I’d start with normal carnitine to see how you respond to it at a baseline, I’m one of the people it takes energy from.No crash in the PFS sense but I didn’t feel good for a couple days.
Hi man, I’m not sure tbh. I’m obviously not an expert, but I did hear from someone today that the difference between ALCAR and other Carnitine is that ALCAR crosses the Blood Brain Barrier.
This could possibly be why people get good results on it. I’m not an expert, and just go by what I read on here.
In terms of the other members who recovered from it, type in Acetyl into the search bar. Lots of different guys said they took it. A few said they recovered, and a few never came back, years and years later.
I will definitely have to get a list together of links, for when people ask.
I am seeing great results on ALCAR, almost all of my old symptoms are disappearing, and I feel better and more like my old self each day.
Definitely give ALCAR a chance I think.