Hi @irishguy754,
Is this the Emtricitabine/Tenofovir combo? Please keep us updated regarding your symptoms progress. Is your case mostly sexual function? If you have other symptoms, if you could give a little explanation of what they are, their severity and how you feel prep has affected them that would be good too. Thanks for reporting.
This is not the first time I’ve considered reverse-transcriptase inhibitor. This is in regards to the RTI drug Nevirapine, used for HIV treatment:
"…the presence of the androgen receptor blocker bicalutamide, completely inhibited the ability of NVP to induce the AR gene, suggesting that the differentiating activity of NVP results in the reestablishment of sensitivity to exogenous androgens…These results suggest that the NVP-dependent remodeling of gene expression correlates with the reestablishment of AR signaling.
Thus, it is notable that NVP is able not only to up-regulate AR at the level of transcription, but also to restore the sensitivity of AR signaling to extracellular ligands. This suggests that endogenous RT may be involved in the regulation of genes responsible for the response of cells to extracellular stimuli."
– Nevirapine restores androgen signaling in hormone‐refractory human prostate carcinoma cells both in vitro and in vivo
However I didn’t pursue the line of thought as it was likely to be carcinoma specific:
“There is evidence to suggest that endogenous RT, which is encoded by retrotransposons and endogenous retro-viruses, two classes of genomic repeated elements [8], is involved in the regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation [7] since it is highly up-regulated in embryonic, undifferentiated and tumor cells [9–11], while it is silenced in differentiated, non-pathological tissues. Indeed, both the down-regulation of endogenous RT expression by siRNA against RT-encoding LINE-1 retroelements and the inhibition of endogenous RT by pharmacological means result in the reversible inhibition of cell proliferation, arrest of the cell cycle in the G0–G1 phase and in the induction of cell differentiation in several human carcinoma cell models[12,13]. Efavirenz (EFV) and nevirapine (NVP), two agents used in the treatment of HIV patients [14], exhibit a differentiating activity in human tumor cells which is mediated by their ability specifically to reprogram gene expression, thereby restoring cell function lost during tumor progression [7,13,15].”
– Biochemical characterization of a reverse transcriptase activity associated with retroviral-like particles isolated from human placental villous tissue
