Update:
I’m removing the B-6 and B-12 at dinner or before sleep. It’s lowering my quality of sleep. I still take half of a pill of vitamin B complex in the morning, before eating.
I’m also removing the fish oil. For some reason, it seems to make me depress.
I’m feeling depressed, apathetic and demotivated although my life is going rather well and I have plenty of good news that should satisfy me. That is, if my dopamine and dopamine receptors were working properly because that’s where the satisfaction feelings come from.
It’s a strange thing to know the emotions I’m feeling are not connected to reality, but to a disease. I’m still rational so I know my feelings have no reality behind them. I try to just dismiss them as empty.
It doesn’t make me feel better, but at least I’m not worrying about what’s wrong with me. I know perfectly well what’s wrong with me…
I haven’t received my aminos from the states yet. I could really use some L-Tyrosine and L-Dopa right now.
Can’t wait to start experimenting with those. (at least I’m enthusiastic about that !)
A high fat diet, especially saturated fat promotes DHT and 5α-reductases, (ketogenic diet! ha ha ha !)
So lard, tallow, coconut oil, butter, ghee, palm oil.
Coffee. I was keeping it in my diet for progesterone production, which turns into allopregnanolone and regulates the GABA (A) receptors but it turn out it help produce DHT. Quote:“caffeine acts as a catalyst to the 5 alpha-reductase enzymes”. Guys, if you have insomnia do yourself a favor and drink it only in the morning.
No Soy or Phytoestrogen like in soya milk. We all know about the soy boys…
The article also says more carbs and less protein, but I can’t apply that, carbs helps the creation of glucocorticoids like cortisol (the stress hormone) and causes anxiety and insomnia. That’s why I eat less than 10gr. of carbs a day and if I do eat more, I get instantaneous anxiety.
Believe it or not, there is flour called “Bob’s Red Mill Sweet White Sorghum Flour”. I read somewhere a long time ago where this stuff raises 5AR naturally. I put a tablespoon in my oatmeal every morning for 2-3 months and raised my DHT by 8 points.
@Ozeph@Pete1989@axolotl@Scott.H@Scotsman@Baz44uk Y’all were talking about a thread for amino acid efforts only, not to get bogged down with a bunch of comments. Why don’t we start one named what ever we decide to come up with. Have an admin pin it to the top of Therapeutic Efforts so it stays at the top and whoever is experimenting with acids can start their own post in the comments. Rather than making comment after comment, they can only come back and edit their original comment. Hopefully this will keep the comments down, and it only gets tied up with our regimen efforts for people to read and see results.
Amino acids needs to be taken with specific vitamins and minerals to work. Plus it seems a low carbs, high fat diet is at least as beneficial as the aminos.
You know I’m all in for experimenting with the aminos, but I’m doing it in the broader context of a complete diet, specific for pfs, .although I know it varies from people to people.
Aminos are food supplements afterall.
But alright, I’ll cut the crap about stuff that are not related to aminos, diet and exercise.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m just responding to this and making a suggestion. I really appreciate everything you are doing and helping bring attention to this. Keep up your work and keep getting better and comment on here as much as you want. I read them all!
Also, nothing wrong with showing the connection of healthy eating, vitamins, and minerals as related to amino acids. That’s helpful, keep it coming.
All sounds great to me guys
I just wanted to find a way of making things straightforward clear and easy to understand without all the comments on comments on top of comments and the scientific blah blah turning things upside down.
We just need to nail down what helps people then people can pick-up on what’s really worth trying.
Also doing things this would make things stand out more as in if we can easily identify 10 guys have tried X and noted that it helps with Y
Or on then the flipside 10 guys have tried X and noted that it did not help at all with anything.
This would save time shuffling through Post after post reading debates / arguments for and against X.
Saving time money and possibly keeping us all safer.
We are all here to help each other and learn how to help ourselves simplicity is key where possible.
Quote: "Master neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine) do not cross the blood brain barrier. The only way to increase central nervous system levels of neurotransmitters is to provide amino acid precursors which cross the blood brain barrier. They will then be synthesized in the brain into neurotransmitters.
If you keep the system topped off with amino acids, will keep things functioning optimally."
Quote: "I came in and sat down and explained the situation to him. You guys know the story, I told him I don’t feel the sensations or emotions and feel like I am biochemically unable to. I have no desire, love or motivation, emotion, no sexual function, no libido, and am not able to recover no matter what endocrinologist do with my hormone levels. I also told him I have all kind of trouble thinking, concentrating and remembering things. The last few years of my life have been a complete waste. I don’t know who I am anymore because I’ve been anhedonic for so many years.
It could have been any one of us describing our situation. The doctor looked at me and said “You are a classic case of someone who has a neurotransmitter problem. Your neurotransmitters are fucked up”
If this is the key to recovery, it surprises me that doctors haven’t explored this already or that there isn’t a clear step by step method for
working out what people need to take and in what quantity.
Who would be a reputable authority on amino acids?
Quote: “It has been over 20 years since our research began with treatment of serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and/or epinephrine deficiencies.”
Quote: "Master neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine) do not cross the blood brain barrier. The only way to increase central nervous system levels of neurotransmitters is to provide amino acid precursors which cross the blood brain barrier. They will then be synthesized in the brain into neurotransmitters.
(It’s a long post, read it only if you don’t mind spending 20 minutes on it)
People use amino acid to balance their neurotransmitters. I’ve read many threads where amino acids were used with success.
People get near 100% recovery and then crashes again. If this happened to you. Please tell us what you did briefly, how you felt good and your crash.
If anyone tried something that made him feel good and never crashed from it, by all mean share with us. This is gold.
It just crashed lately. I was at 95%, took too much aminos and crashed.
I’m on carnivore / ketogenic diet with exercise (Diet and exercise seems to be part of many recovery stories) and I was taking a protein shake in the after noon. I felt better. I started taking more and more of this protein shake, including one before sleep, I increased coconut oil intake and ate less as a result of all those extra calories. My sleep became heavier which I thought was good but I ended up crashing. Yesterday, I ate more meat and veggies, took only 1 protein shake in the morning (It’s pure whey protein isolate. only 1gr carb). My sleep was lighter, I woke up more alert and today I’m feeling better.
People have tried hormone therapy with little results, probiotics with some result (97% of the body’s serotonin is in the guts. Only 3% in the brain. Shocking isn’t it ?. The guts are the second place after the brain with the most neurotransmitters). What seems to have worked the best is the amino acid approach.
I think that all the symptoms comes from unbalanced (or low levels) of neurotransmitters.
And I mean all neurological, physical and sexual symptoms.
Unbalanced neurotransmitters will also unbalance hormones and the guts flora.
As “Master neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine) do not cross the blood brain barrier. The only way to increase neurotransmitters is to provide amino acid precursors which cross the blood brain barrier.”,. So we take aminos and feel better.
But people crash after a while.
What it tells me is that it’s the regulating mechanism of the neurotransmitters that’s not functioning properly.
The neurotransmitters balances and uses each other. On a healthy person, there’s an automatic mechanism that keeps those in check.
I think for us, the neurotransmitters are not regulated anymore, which would explain why we have different symptoms from a set of common symptoms to all pfs sufferers. The symptoms we get depends on which neurotransmitters are out of balance, which may be different for each person.
When some neurotransmitters are depleted, we feel bad. We then take the aminos that will fix it and we feel good again, until that (or those) neurotransmitter are too abundant, have interacted with other neurotransmitters and made them depleted. Then we crash.
(By the way, I say neurotransmitters but I also mean the corresponding neurosteroids, enzymes and hormones)
On Joetz thread, (Is Neurotransmitter therapy the key to recovery?) he says he had to do urine tests every week or so and the resluts would indicate which aminos he should take next. But I don’t think we need blood tests, urine samples and all that shit.
The moment a neurotransmitter is too high or too low, we feel it right away. We just need to recognize how each neurotransmitter feels like when it’s too high or too low, than we can take the appropriate amino acids.
a few weeks ago, I was also taking large quantities of a herbal tea called Jiaogulan (Gynostemma pentaphyllum), like 1.5 liters a day. Google it, it’s an amazing plant. I stopped but will start again.
Amongs its many properties, “Gynostemma protects and enhances the function of the centrals nervous system through its antioxidant properties and its ability to regulate nitric oxide production.” (Nitric oxide = erections)
"The saponins in Gynostemma exert a regulatory effect on the central nervous system, the immune system, the reproductive system and the endocrine system. "
This plant helps people live well over 100 yo. But I’m not sure I want to live that long in this condition.
Nonethelses, if it helps regulates the brain and hormones, it may be beneficial.
I will research other supplements that may potentially help regulate neurotransmiters.
I’ve listed earlier a list of aminos I was going to test. Some of us have decided to join me in testing those.
I can predict the effects it will have on us: some of them will make us feel better for a while, others will make us feel worst and some will do nothing.
I think the key is not to try them all, but to find out which one you need, and if you need to slow down or stop and switch to another one when needed. When we were pre-pfs, we were on autopilot. If we try this approach, we’re now driving with a manual transmission. We need to shift the aminos ourselves as our brain does not regulate anymore.
There’s this story of a guy taking only L-Tyrosine 1500mg once a day fro a year and a half. For all that time he didn’t crash and it looks like he could have gone on doing this the rest of his life and be symptom free:
L-Tyrosine, by the way, is an important amino for all those suffering from brain fog.
So I will repeat the advises on which aminos to take in which case:
• When you are feeling anxious, stressed or tense, take GABA, tryptophan, 5-HTP or taurine.
• When you have low energy, or feel apathetic, take tyrosine.
• When you are having difficulty concentrating or you have memory problems or feel mentally ‘fuzzy’, take tyrosine.
• When you are feeling hypersensitive to noise, lights, touch or pain, take DL-phenylalanine (this is a combination of D- and L- phenylalanine).
• When you are having trouble sleeping, take tryptophan or 5-HTP, GABA, and/or taurine.
• When you are irritable, take tryptophan or 5-HTP.
• To offset cravings, take glutamine or GABA.
• When you are depressed and apathetic, take tyrosine. When depressed, tense and agitated, take 5-HTP or tryptophan.
And I will finish with the 1 million dollar question: Does anyone of you knows of people who have fully recovered and never crashed again ?
Can you send me links so I can try and figure out what happened to them ?
Thank you to you all. I send you my best wishes for your recovery.
I agree with a lot of this information and can vouch for some of the claims made. I recently switched to a plant based protein shake (as opposed soy or whey) which contains many of the aminos mentioned above. That was 4 days ago. I have to say these last two days have been the best I’ve felt ever since quitting Fin. This is a relief considering I had a pretty terrible day last week. I also want to note that the previous protein I was drinking was soy based - very big mistake that I wont be repeating again. Soy really does mess with your hormones whether you have PFS or not, I don’t recommend to anyone. I also have a bottle of orthinine/arginine but haven’t used it yet since the protein Im using seems to have me at a good baseline. Still continuing the cartinine/tartrate in addition to the protein shake - 5 days a week, 1-2g a day.
I also realize that it has Glycine and Lysine in it, and a couple people have mentioned they have had negative reactions to these AA’s, such as @axolotl. But I’m taking my chances since I’ve read mixed things.
Hi guys, please remember to take care to not present your therapeutic ideas as definitive advice. I know you’re enthusiastic but what’s being said here is often not scientifically literate nor reflective of the long recorded patient experience here, so asserting you can predict this or that or saying things like benzos will prevent penile damage seen in severe phenotypes is untrue. It’s fine to give your opinions and sharing your results is always a good idea, but please make sure it’s obvious they are your expectations or opinions and review this section of the guidelines on theories and presenting them. Thank you guys and good luck with your therapy attempts.
