Hey man - your consistency throughout all of this is a complete inspiration. We crashed around the same time…. But I haven’t made the same progress you have. Do you mind sharing your T boosting protocol?
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There are many ways but my personal approach was first cycling Tribulus Terrestris 500mg, Horny Goat Weed 500mg and Tongkat Ali 250mg (It felt very strong to me).
Those did seem to increase androgen but were dose dependant so I chose a more persistent solution and went through an HCG course, at only 300iu 3x a week so I don’t have to take an anti-aromatase or exogenous T. I did 9 months. My balls grew in size and T went to 1209. It seems to stick, my T is still above 1000. I used Boron to reduce SHBG and increase free T. I tried various doses with blood tests after each one and it did lowers SHBG in my body substantially. Effective dosage was 6mg a day for minimal effect, 12mg for overwhelming effect I couldn’t hold for long (I had Free T 230% above max range) and a sustainable dose was 8mg. Doing those things made me sicker, with more brainfog, demotivation and sexual sides but after stopping all those symptoms were lesser than before I went through this.
IMO, I was flooding my AR with more free androgen and I was doing it in the hope that my body would desensitize them. I can’t know if that’s what happened, I have no way to tell, but I believe it did because I’m better. So now I’m working at rebooting 5ar using Butea Superba 500mg. So far I get results I’m satisfied with. It seems to target more specifically my PFS symptoms, mostly for good but sometime it exacerbates them. I keep at it because it enables me to taper my benzo addiction without insomnia or withdrawal symptoms. If I can sleep naturally, I would no longer have benzo induced brainfog. That’d be a plus in my life !
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Well I overshot Butea Superba. I strongly suspect it increases both 5ar and DHT. While using it, I managed to rapidly decrease benzodiazepine by half without withdrawal symptoms (no insomnia or anxiety). On the contrary, I would take naps in the afternoon and feel completely relax and empty-headed. It had both a calming effect on me and an androgenic effect. I was good for a while and then ended up with strong PFS symptoms like muscle weakness, speech slur, cognitive problems and heavy brainfog (not to mention zero sex-drive and lack of genital sensitivity, both of which had disappeared before). It was like traveling back through time to when I was really sick. It seems this herbal extract plays right along the PFS axis.
I stopped taking it 19 days ago and my condition got gradually better although after a week I started to have benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms even though I kept benzos leveled (insomnia, muscle spasm, anxiety). This also went away and I’m doing good now. I was doing good for many years but wanted to try Butea Superba to reduce benzodiazepine, which I did with success.
I got my blood tested two days ago and compared the results to the ones 3 weeks after my initial PFS crash 7 years ago. My total testosterone is now more than twice what it was after crashing. It went from 513 to currently1082. I’m waiting for my DHT results. After crashing my sleep was 3 hours of actual sleep plus 5 hours of anxious turning around between shallow dreams and reality. It’s now 8 hours of straight sleep, barely waking up to turn around a few times. I think we can say sleep is at least 2 or 3 times better. I also decreased sleeping drugs by a factor of 4 or 5. Sex-drive is normal but not as high as before PFS, with normal sensitivity and erections.Considering I have twice the testosterone I did before I think we can come up with at least a 95% recovery with maximum 5% of symptoms remaining, mainly the need for a small dose of benzos to sleep well and avoid anxiety. Percentages like these are subjective but I calculated 4 times less sleeping drugs multiplied by at least 2 times better sleep = 8, multiplied by twice the testosterone = 16 times less reactive to androgen. 1/16= 0.0625 so roughly 5% remaining and 95% recovered (again, this is just to give an idea, it’s not a real figure.)
Before I tried this herb, the only reminder of PFS I had was the need for drugs to sleep. Sex was fine. I thought I was 98% recovered but I now realize it’s still there and it comes back if I take pro-androgen supplements. If I don’t, it’s lurking bellow the surface without any serious effects on my life. I can’t take androgenic supplements like my non-PFS friends without having some PFS symptoms coming back (but never as bad as my initial crash).
I documented my whole journey on this forum. I think this post will put into context what “recovery” looks like for me.
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Glad to hear you were able to cut the benzodiazepines further, seems like you’re still making progress after all these years. Congrats on what you’ve accomplished.
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Thanks Henchman !
I’m still pushing on my AR while taking breaks in between to recover from high androgen. Each time I do I get sicker and then, when androgen eventually go down to normal levels, all symptoms have further decreased compared to before. You can call that a sick way to try and recover.
I just got my DHT results. It’s slightly above average for a young man 18-30yo but 50% above average and slightly above maximum range for a man 50-65yo (I’m 57yo). It’s what I had 7 years ago when I crashed, so no change in DHT but a big difference on how I can tolerate it.
DHT was lower when my T was at 1209 two years ago and I didn’t crash as bad then as I just did. An AI query tells me it shows I now have robust 5ar activity with high T conversion. Can we trust AIs yet ?
SHBG is high whenever androgen are high unless I lower it with Boron. I documented 5 months of testing SHBG each month with various doses of boron and in my case lower levels of SHBG seems to relate to higher doses of Boron, resulting in higher free T. 8mg of Boron is my highest tolerable dose. More than that and I eventually can’t stand it.
Anyway, I stopped Butea Superba a month ago and as my androgen are going down to more normal levels my sex drive is going up and so is sensitivity and depth of felt orgasm. Having raised my androgen multiple times in the last 3 years, it’s been my experience that the higher my androgen, the more symptoms I get (particularly sexual ones). It seems to show that too much androgen shuts down my response to it. When androgen go down, so do the symptoms. Each push against my AR sensitivity seems to yield greater well being when androgen come down to more normal levels. It seem to support the theory of using androgen supplementation therapy to fight androgen deprivation therapy (fin). It’s anecdotal of course and I do get sicker before getting better. It could also just be time passing by. I wish I had the tools to properly measure the differences.
I will stop fooling around with pro-androgen substances when I have normal sleep without benzos as well as a normal sexuality. I’m almost there.
I’ll keep documenting my journey. Who knows ? It might be useful.
I always said there was hope and I still believe so. Don’t give up guys !
I didn’t post here for some time. I did a lot of work on the AR over the years and things did get better. However, I still had low motivation and overall life had lost some of its colors. Sex drive was still low and if sex was Ok, it was not amazing. 6 months ago I decided to go back at it but this time work the neurosteroid axis while keeping a mild pressure on the AR.
I took 25 mg of Pregnenolone to promote Allopregnenolone, 5 mcg of T3 thyroid hormone to promote 5ar, 40 mg of Butea Superba for 5ar but also for DHT, 3 mg of boron to prevent too much SHBG and some Estrogen gel to help enhance sex drive, sensitivity and empathy (oxytocin, bonding). All of those in very low doses compared to how much are usually taken so I had to crush pills into powder and made capsules with 1/4 to 1/10 the dose of the pills.They seem to keep neurosteroids and DHT elevated. As a result, I really went through a roller coaster with old symptoms reappearing, flaring up and disappearing again.
I had periods of very high motivation. energy and crazy sex drive like I didn’t have for a long time. Sensitivity and genital connection have improved. It still comes and goes but I had days of mental clarity that almost felt like a spiritual experience, probably because since I crashed in 2018 I got used to some form of mild to medium brainfog as a regular thing in my life. Intense clarity is quite a contrast compared to that. Empathy has got better and I got closer to my children. I think what I missed the most was spontaneous motivation and it’s coming back. I can feel joy and I’m playing songs in my head just like before.
Like I said I have fluctuations and my body is still adjusting but that’s a good sign for me. in 2024 I did stabilize in an incomplete state and although I could have lived with it, life was dull.
I hope this state of flux I’m in will stabilize in a better way. Yesterday I was feeling the androgen push on my AR. I was irritable, aggressive, full of energy and very motivated but a bit anxious. Today I felt the GABA: mellow, a bit tired, no anxiety at all and I took a 2 hours nap in the afternoon, something I couldn’t do without benzodiazepine just a few years back. Altogether, despite the resurgence of a few symptoms, it’s nothing compared to the first 2 years with PFS.
I intent to keep those supplements and hormones for around 2 years and a half and then slowly tapper them off one by one. They all do things my body can do by itself if it chooses to and I bet it will do the easy thing and replace only one thing, say, the tapered down Pregnenolone instead of doing a hundred things to adapt to lower Pregnenolone. Same for 5ar, DHT, ALLO and E2. In fact I think it’s possible I got sick because it was easier for my body to shut down the 5ar, only one thing, instead of changing thousands of adaptations it had made to deal with low 5ar when I was taking fin.
I’ll post the results here. So far so good and at least it’s not boring !
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Very interesting results Ozeph. I find that when I’m in my crash/recovery phases I have alternating symptoms like what you describe. I have aggressive energetic days followed by days where I fall asleep for long naps, all accompanied by general anxiety when my body is changing the most. The brain does not seem to like change.
I wish you the best of luck with your experiments. Just be careful not to throw away any of your hard fought progress.
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Why Butea Superba?
I wish you success.
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For a long time I was looking for a substance that would specifically increase 5ar production.
Butea Superba is known to raise DHT but there’s not much studies as to how it does it exactly. When I first tried it, nothing happened. I then gradually increased the daily dose up to 750 mg before I started getting an effect from it. That’s a very high dose but it seems my 5ar was simply blocked and wouldn’t be produced in much larger quantities. My main remaining symptoms are/were Allopregnanolone related so it appears my 5ar was blocked indeed.
After a while on 750 mg a day, I started having very sedated days. I would have zero anxiety, my brain was feeling turned off, I would talk very little and I was taking nap in the afternoon / slept 10 hours a day in one shot. Those are all manifestation of GABA, the neuro-transmitter regulated by Allopregnanolone. It seemed Butea Superba was indeed increasing 5ar production and my ALLO was getting higher. I had to reduce Butea Superba gradually and all the way down to 50 mg (currently only 40mg). At the same time, I managed to cut by half the benzodiazepine I was taking for sleeping. DHT was also produced as a result of more 5ar and I had some of the high DHT symptoms as well, like feeling irritable or aggressive but at low dose it’s mostly ALLO that I’m getting.
So why Butea Superba ? Because in my opinion, it raises 5ar specifically and is the substance that acts the most in the opposite direction of finasteride, increasing 5ar instead of reducing it. I think more research should be made on that particular substance.
I first tried with very low doses and I expected PFS symptoms to get worst before they get better. I had to find the effective dose. Symptoms did get worst and now I’m better than any other time since I crashed in 2018.
Better be safe than sorry.
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It takes trials and error for the body to find the right balance. IMO that’s why we have those fluctuations as the body tries and eventually does adapt the best it can at the time being.
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