as i continue on with my recovery I realize that xyrem will only take me so far. It has helped me tremendously in terms of being able to function again, and also has brought me back sexually maybe not 100% probably around 70-80, but it’s made a world of difference with that as well. Anyway, I’m here to raise a question/theory paul walters brought up that the more i look into i highly agree with. Firstly, many guys here including myself have high progesterone or high normal progesterone blood results while some also have low progesterone etc. I think the main issue at hand is before we all jump the gun and try to do whatever it takes to lower it we have to ask the question as to why it is high to begin with. First, off I feel whether progesterone is high or low for any guy the bottom line is our body is trying to produce it for some purpose and is trying to tell us something. as all know finasteride disrupts the progesterone/allo-preg synthesis in the brain. Many men report lousy sleep while taking finasteride that remains when coming off. In my experience with finasteride my first couple nights on it I was sleeping fine, in fact I was getting great sleep only to have it come to a head one night where I literally felt like my body wasn’t asleep when it really was, it’s a hard feeling to describe but some users on here may be able to relate to it. and as the story goes my sleep since finasteride hasn’t been the same since. also right away from finasteride i was chemically castrated which upon ceasing did improve, but I also was affected with ed that got worse as this went along. I’ve been trying to piece it all together over the course of the past year, but just recently came across a study that tied it together just bare with me.
The typical profiles of many guys on here are as follows: High progesterone (sometimes low as well), low fsh and lh, low testosterone, and high or low seemingly varying levels of dht. Now this study or more of a thesis ties it all together: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1566 … d_RVDocSum
it states progesterone is not only a key hormone in men for sleep and other organ system functions, but also spermogenisis, and even testosterone production as well. and guess what it’s mediated by…5AR!
To me this would mean that not only is 5AR crucial to the progesterone synthesis process of various processes, but it also serves as it’s regulator. When 5AR is present in full the brain/body are able to function fine with everything working. Now enter finasteride something that takes 5AR out of the equation let’s look at what this does and what happened to us.
since 5AR is a crucial part of so many progestin conversions and it’s mediator making sure it’s functioning properly, there are various progestin process ie sleep, spermogenisis, immune function, behavior, testosterone synthesis, etc that aren’t happening as smoothly due to 5AR being cut off etc. However, the brain doesn’t understand that 5AR has been cut off simply by finasteride and all it sees are these vital bodily processes not functioning properly so in turn it raises progesterone production from the adrenals. So the adrenals get chronically taxed from having to keep churning out progesterone to keep up with the lack of 5AR that they eventually give out and get fatigued. This reaction also leads to the body taking away from other sex hormones to keep producing progesterone at the levels it needs to. When the user stops taking fin 5AR comes back, but the brain still doesn’t realize that and stays with the reaction that progesterone needs to be raised so in turn the adrenals get possibly even further fatigued from pumping it out. With low reserves of progesterone to go around since the adrenals are too fatigued etc obviously bodily functions that depend on it can’t function as well ie the low lh and fsh, the low testosterone, the out of bounds estrogen (as progesterone counters estrogen), behavior, sleep, sexual function the list goes on. Now I think cortisol gets raised as well be it because of the initial reaction from the chronic raise of progesterone or the long term lack of sleep so that further hurts the situation.
With me the xyrem isn’t improving 5AR i feel, it’s putting me into stage 3 and 4 sleep taking the stress off my adrenals that keep having to produce progesterone day in and day out at a chronic rate just to get me by. Based on this I feel that the key isn’t trying to lower progesterone when it’s high, progesterone isn’t the bad guy here, the key actually is supplementing with progesterone so that we can take the load off of the adrenals because they need to recover from the chain reaction finasteride caused. It doesn’t matter if it’s high or low because the reserves are low and the adrenals are overworked in the process. take it for what it’s worth but i think this is a pretty big time theory. paul walters suggested supplementing with 5g of progesterone, but i’m hoping he meant 5mg because there’s no possible way anyone especially a guy would need 5g. I plan on supplementing with it and seeing what the effects are as I feel its key.