who cares. Some people are going to be for it and some people have it in their heads that western medicine is the only medical practice that exists.
Iām sorry, but this is just fubar. Most if not all the recoveries on this board are based around JNās 19 pointsā¦ Itās not about finding the root cause to PFS, but rather finding the root cause to our other issues such as adrenal fatigue, hypothyroidism, leaky gut. Itās about optimization of health. There is just so many root causes to underlining PFS conditions that you sometimes just have to get lucky to find one. I personally havenāt hit the right button yet, but when I do I know my health is going to bounce back in a big way. Do not care what you say Mew, Leaky Gut Syndrome is a legitimate condition. If you google āIs leaky gut fakeā you will find 100s of articles telling you why and how it is legitimate. I cant speak for everyone but I know I will cure myself before you find any kind of proof in your studies with researchers. You can take that to the bank.
How many people have done live blood analysis, out of curiosity?
Some of the critiques against it are valid, but I also find it hard to believe that you can āinfectā a slide within seconds of collecting the sample with parasites, yeast, etc. and that you can completely distort all blood findings. Is there someone with expertise in this field that can weigh in beyond the severely biased and silly quackwatch talking points crowd?
Thatās your opinion that you present as fact.
Even more concerning is that you ignore people who have proven you to be incorrect.
Parasites, yeast or anything else in that direction can be a part of inflammation that could well be root issues of sexual problems that many of us have. Or it may just be one of many elements of the puzzle in many.
But for sure thereās something in it. Ihatepropecia702 is practically recovered at this point. Other guys have made very notable improvements etc from similar initiatives.
ā¦
Iāve seen you post this very argument before and iāve let it slide, but I think i owe it to the rest of the PH community to address this misinformation.
The āvarious clinical trialsā are all in respect to androgen deprivation [Size=4]whilst taking[/size] finasteride. So please stop mis-selling the relevance of these ātrialsā to our plight.
All bets are OFF for PFS when guys get worse, much worse, after going off the drug. Hell, i was practically normal for the year i took finasteride, i didnāt crash immediately after, either. I didnāt even crash at all, i just got continually worse for a year after.
PFS is a whole different monster and itās sides are much more pronouced, profound and unrecognised by western medicine (how ironic eh???) than the sides reports in these trials for people using the drug.
Of course this is where you jump in to promote YOUR theory about AR which is inexpliciably more unfounded both anecdotally and otherwise.
So, i cant tell for sure how useful live blood microscopy is but i can tell with certainty that right now, having liaised with hundreds of finasteride sufferers, that outside of sex hormones and adrenals etc, one of the most important things to look at closely is the less recognised things like inflammation, infection etc be that fungal, parasite or whatever. Al elements of immune health is vital here. Itās definately not a coincidence that many of the people ive came across who have had some or even very good levels of recovery have looks into these areas and embarked on things like anti-candida diets and other hollistic diets. The connection may be more indirect that we realise but even if that is the case itās an important element in PFS that you foolishly ignore.
The body works in unison. Hormones, hormone metablism for instance is intrically connected to immunity for instance. Medicine only knows the half of it and this is why it struggles to help us right now. Our lives are too short to simply accept this as a defeat.
Dexamethasone drastically altered my symptoms. Iām not sure why. Copper and progesterone is currently helping me. Itās a mindfield for sure - the last thing we can afford to be is closed-minded.
I guarantee you that in 100 years the relevations in medicine in areas as discussed above will blow current medical misunderstandings so far out of the water that it makes the current knowledge look so amateur itāll be embarrassing. Thatās jsut a fact of life for the times that we live in. Bare that in mind.
Can you name some of these people that have recovered please?
I have spoken to ihatepropecia702 myself and 1. he apparently wasnāt as bad as many of us and 2. he is just one guy, getting better from using Nystatin and has used a few other anti fungals, he doesnāt even know exactly what the drugs are treating.
Also, a lot of guys experience very severe sexual dysfunction and cognitive problems ON the drug, resulting only from androgen deprivation caused by finasteride and nothing else. No mineral imbalances, no over mastrubation, no porn addiction - no absolute bullshit theory that was put into someoneās head by the internet. PFS isnāt an exclusive club for severe side effects, although side effects persisting off the drug are the main issue obviously.
I will always keep an open mind towards other peopleās ideas but i am afraid that those of you who are talking about ālive blood analysisā and āgut infectionsā are going to have to accept that you will come under harsh scrutiny. For good reason in my opinion. Firstly because a lot of that stuff is complete nonsense and secondly because the side effects/ symptoms that we have as PFS sufferers resemble the symptoms of androgen deprivation. It doesnāt take a rocket scientist to figure out that the best area of investigation is androgens or whatever you brainy guys find links with.
I think many of us have probably felt irritated by Mews attitude towards other peopleās ideas that are, shall we put it āalternativeā? but to be honest, i donāt blame him at all. You have to draw the line somewhere. I have spent a fortune on supplements that would have never done ANYTHING and far, far too much of my time thinking and stressing over what could be wrong with me all because i read something on the internet.
Fucking hell 
Firstly the general PFS sufferer doesnāt appear to fit into this category.
The oneās that do however and havenāt recovered demand much more closer consideration than youāve given before making such comments. Given that they didnāt recover having stopped the drug how do you know that it was āonlyā androgen deprivation that gave them these serious sides? Rather, it would appear that they are far and beyond the general āandrogen deprivation suffererā given that their sides are more pronouced than a 70% reduction in DHT should ever cause.
More than likely itās the feedback mechanisms that have caused severe endoctrine disruption to a point that itās been unable to reset itself even after cessation of the drug. Such alteration is likely to cause stress signals throughout the body and disrupt other mechanisms of the body, including immunity. The body finds itself in a profound and compromised state that in many cases has caused all sorts of weird sides far beyond what finasterideās basic āandrogen deprivationā could have have done. It was simply a catylst of destruction.
In some causes it can be as simple as estrogen dominance as a result of finasteride usage. 1750 was a guy who had this issue and it took him over a year AFTER fin to fix this. Heāll now completely fine despite having ED, watery semen etc at one point. The body doesnāt seem to react well to such HPA disruption for some guys, clearly. 1750 seems lucky that he didnāt develop more problems from this estrogen dominance.
Anyway itās the other mechanism of finasteride that also requires consideration - itās disruption of dihydroprogesterone and allpregnenolone sythesis, the latter being a crucial neuro-steroid found in the brain. Fin crosses the blood-brain barrier and this shit is no joke.
As for the guys who get severe sides whilst on finasteride and recover on cessation - they are the lucky ones. Their bodies were able to successfully reset. Ironically, many guys on here were these guys before using fin a second or even third or forth time before getting themselves in a state that their body was no longer able to self-repair.
This is obviously also very likely to be a cause of severe side effects ON the drug also. Sorry, i forgot to mention it but i was thinking it when i used the term āandrogen deprivationā quite loosely.
Anyway, if we can just come away from all the fancy talk and you going on as if you are some sort of PFS specialist. Basically, what i was trying to say is that the major effects of finasteride - androgen deprivation, allopregnanolone suppression and whatever else that poison does, is more likely to have seriously messed up our hormones or brain i.e a condition such as androgen deprivation rather than caused an imbalance of minerals or a gut infection that is then causing our penises to shrink and sex drive to disappear.
I will now opt out of this discussion because itās getting on my nerves.
Yes, very obviously the drug has caused it. The drug has caused everything either directly or indirectly. Itās the distinction between direct and indirect effect that Mew and many of this board seem to have complete incredulity about which is bizarre given that we are subjects and therefore living proof of this whole syndrome and itās far reaching effects within the human body!!!
Your not even making sense now. Itās not bizarre at all; Mew and whoever else that writes off alternative therapies are simply trying to remain concise in there thinking/ theorizing. Just because the effects of PFS are seen all over the body and mind doesnāt mean that we have to start promoting ālive blood analysisā and looking into āgut infectionsā and the like. You just said it yourself, finasteride alters very critical neurotransmitter and hormone levels. Low testosterone or high estrogen, for example is more than enough to cause body wide symptoms.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING?
Stop talking as if you are a doctor or PFS specialist and stick to the point at hand for godās sake.
I genuinely am very tired of all of this in general. Both you and i are sadly nothing but victimās of the internet that have had ideaās placed into our head. In recent months/ weeks you dropped vitamin d supplementation due to marshall protocol recommendations, you announced that you believe porn/ masturbation addiction could be the cause of your issues and many of ours, you are now taking copper in an attempt to balance your mineral levels (i assume) and have also started using progesterone.
Have you ever sat back and realized how fucking mental that is? this is a bit of an off topic rant but you and the way you are talking has just reminded me. Yesterday i sat there for about half an hour in pure shock and dismay as what taking finasteride has lead me to. Browsing the internet for hours on end viewing things that mean NOTHING in the real world, spending hundreds of pounds on supplements, self medicating with cancer medications. WHAT THE FUCK?
I am tired. I am going to bed.
This is plain wrong. IHP was completely sexually decimated by finasteride. Iāve been in regular touch with him for a year and his sexual function has steadily improved as reported by me and IHP elsewhere on this forum. Additionally, his libido, sensitivity, ejaculate have all come online. He still feels he has a little bit of brain fog, and about 5-10% libido left to gain to feel 100% whole. Heās holding off making the full recovery report (complete with his list of things he used in addition to Nystatin to fight yeast and pathogens a la JNās theory and approach) until he has sustained recovery for a few months (heās now at one month of being med-free).
In fact, just in case I missed something about his complete lack of sexual function, I just e-mailed him for him to clarify:
This was his response to me:
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Ah, fair enough. Well thatās good to know. I am not entirely sure why he was brought up though? i am very familiar with his story; used nystatin and other anti fungals as well as eating like a chimp (literally) with very low calories. However, treatment was based on nothing? or did a doctor find candida? actually, yeah, was it a live blood microscopy?
If you say so. I believe being dismissive of such āalternativeā therapies is a combination of apathy (which i completely understand given the toll PFS has on someone and all false dawns etc etc) and rigid thinking.
I wasnāt promoting any one particular thing im promoting open mindedness. You are stuck in a time warp if you think PFS is as simple as finasterideās documented mechanisms. The body doesnāt work like that!!! If you mess up your hormones you are causing stress all over the body. The possibilites thereafter are endless. How does one even begin to undo this mess? Well, good living has proven to help various people thatās for sure. If im right, which i truly believe i am, then this explains why some people have perfect hormonal profiles but all the symptoms of someone with low T etc.
TIME is one thing that has helped many - also no surprise here (there would be a surprise of AR was to be believed).
So in answer to you question - yes i certainly understand what youāre saying, but iām also telling you that you donāt grasp the scope of PFS if you think PFS is all about neurotransmitters and hormone levels. Try drive your car with a blown gasket. The root cause might be the blown gasket but if you drive it thereāll soon be 100 new problems. Replacing the gasket (going off fin!) isnāt going to fix indirect problems caused as a result of the blown gasket. The body is no different - infact, its MUCH more complicated.
Our bodiesā intorance to fin is a result of various triggers being pulled. Stopping fin didnāt rectify this.
True to an extent (not to PFSās more strange sides) but weāve long established that such simple hormone problems are relatively easily fixed or atleast treated with notable success via the conventional treatments (e.g. TRT, Clomid, Arimidex etc). We are not simply individuals with basic hormone imbalances.
Yes but having had PFS for nearly two years i tend to work my own intuitions. Theyāve got me MUCH further than any doctor has, thatās for sure. Trial and error is necessary. Look at how many things JN did - itās no surprise heās having a better quality of life than the naysayers.
Youāll soon learn to think for yourself when you get to know your own body a little better.
I donāt even know where to start on your last post; itās made me feel ill and so i wonāt even bother. However, i just need to say āNO SHIT!ā to the above. I was using it as an example. Yet again you use it as an excuse to come out with a completely moot point that is meant to sound clever.
Myself and Mens Rea have gone off topic here. I would like to just go back to my first post in this thread and clarify that the only point i wanted to make was that i personally donāt blame Mew for being reluctant to believe or accept in these alternative theories even though i am on the fence and remain open minded myself. Good luck to the lot of you. If i were located in Australia i would certainly approach Greg Emerson myself. There is no way that anyone will get anywhere with this sort of stuff without professional help. Unless they just have candida or something, in which case a strict diet and the odd supplement might solve the problems.
Well hereās my parting shot -
Itās your health do whatever you want. Iām more interested in getting better than trying to work within the realms of modern medicine (the very thing that told us PFS was impossible).
So am i. If i knew of a very reputable/ good naturopath or doctor in the UK and had enough money to consult and receive treatment from them then i would 100% do it. I just came into this thread to say that i donāt blame Mew for being skeptical or even completely dismissive of alternative theories.
These points are so on the money. I couldnāt agree more that in trying to solve this puzzle weāre often stuck on the first trigger (finasteride) and its first set of known/obvious reactions instead of saying āWhat other effects would messing with hormones have on the immune system? Prostate? Liver? Pancreas? And how does this all connect?ā
Exactly! Endless possibilities. Think BEYOND hormones. Think of hormones not coming back online as a SYMPTOM. Think of people who have very unremarkable hormones but are ill. Something else is BLOCKING normal function and recovery. Perhaps some people are stuck a few levels deeper if their hormones are in total disarray, compared to those with average values.
Exactly! Since not everyone experiences these pronounced, indefinite side effects, you canāt know that ONLY androgen deprivation in and of itself is the culprit, and not OTHER things that changing hormonal pathways affects in the select group that develops PFS.
Exactly! Are you going to only try to replace the blown gasket? Are you going to keep referring to the manual which states not to drive with a blown gasket? Or are you going to attempt to diagnose and repair each other part that got affected since the initial blown gasket? Excellent analogy.
Exactly! I stopped finasteride BECAUSE I realized (with the help of the first doctor that I went to for the matter) that finasteride was the culprit. But since the onset of the first failed sexual episode, things just kept getting worse and worse. I didnāt quit and just crash. I just steadily got worse since noticing that something was wrong. I quit to hopefully reverse things, but it made no difference, the downward decline just continued.
Finasterideās collateral damage has been done. Letās try to reverse-engineer ourselves back to health. To that effect, letās stop hijacking JNās thread. If youāve had live blood analysis done, post your results. Myself, Iād still like to know, in all earnesty, for those that dispute the validity of the collection/staining method of this stype of analysisādo you believe that itās possible to contaminate a slide with fungus and parasites and ill-formed blood cells and so on within a matter of seconds of pricking a finger and collecting a sample and applying it to a slide? Totally honest question, here! I have my doubts about the collection method and practice for sureā¦but given IHPās progress and unofficial but functional recovery (would love to see him sustain it for a few months w/o the meds to officially declare it), could his diagnosing live blood analysis have been that rigged or wrong? I scratch my head, because conventional labs and blood analyses do not reveal anything. But he escalated his treatment based on this live blood findingsā¦and has been successful. If the analysis was wrong, then he is a very lucky man.
Leaky gut is -by far- relevant medical issue. It is (also) postulated by group of London immunologhysts in thesis of āmolecular mimicryā. This theory stands for the best possible explanation for internal auto-immune diseases, such as: morbus chron, morbus bechterew, rheumatiod arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatic fever. There is very strong connection between bacterial/viral cause of altered bowel flora, following immunological response and auto-immune reactions what consequently results with tissue-damage of human host. Difference from healthy subject who carries certain HLA antigen and the person who carries the same antigen and actually get sick from thereinbefore named diseases is only health of digestial trackt. Environmental cause such as microbial owergrowth (of intestinal habbitants) could attack hosts collagen tissue and HLA tissue and hence provoke immune response, only with present condition called leaky gut.
D.
Too much bullshit here. Just get your live microscopy results in chaps. Letās rock.
JN
hey doc, molecular mimicry is not bullshit. If your are in UK, check the work of immunologhyst prof. Alan Erbringer. Think about it.
D.