Prostatitis treatment as a novel insight into Finasteride related problems

My last post wasnt posted here originally but in boston332’s thread, he had it moved, because although he has testicle pain, “he doesnt beleive in prostatitis”…
Please dont let solonjk misguide you, “abacterial prostatitis is a myth” has NOT been proven AT ALL.
Also the stamey test is FAR from perfect and its worth is being questioned but it still is the best thing we have for the moment when confronted to TRUS+color doppler (what I did at institut fournier), and when the lab analysing the prostatitic fluid expressed from the massage (one of the 4 glasses of the stamey test) is having extensive cultures of many pathogens. Which is what the institut fournier does (they test for candida, chlamydia, ureaplasma, mycoplasma, trichomonas vaginalis neiseeria gonhonrrhea, grm+ and gram - bacteria and some other parasite too among other stuff. I wished they tested for cryptococcus that can also be the cause of some prostatitis cases. Check pubmed). They acknowledge that a negative culture does not mean an absence of pathogen but its fucking pointless and harmful to take broad spectrum antibiotics anyway because of the BELEIF that “abacterial prostaitis is a myth”. Ive listened to solonjk and georgiadis and I deeply and irreversably hurt myself, please learn from my mistake. And solonjk, please γαμήσου.
Just look for the latest prostatitis research reviews on pubmed. Do an “autoimmune prostatitis” search on pubmed too…
Also the exact same symptoms of prostatitis can be caused by other diseases, like pudendal neuropathy. There is also interstitial cystitis, pelvic floor myoneuropathy… Stop listening to people obsessed with a single theory like solonjk (or dare I say it, mew and his “molecular level”/epigenetics obsession with no established proof. The presence of abnormlities of the AR observed by awor’s little study do NOT prove that the cause of PFS is solely to be looked for at the “molecular level”, sorry. And again, discouraging brainstorming/research of other angles is just wrong on every level )

EDIT
Plus talking about IBS, check this out. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21854715
Confront this little, not very significant study with the reports Ive read over the web of ppl improving/curing their pelvic pains by ACCIDENT, to their surpsirse, when adressing colon/bowel issues (such as crohn’s , IBS) with their GI specialist or by themselves. I can give you links to these stories (some in french) if interested. Also see IHP who got rid of his pelvic pains while targeting gut health.

Also, some (major?) news :
You can now add me and JG as positive for pudendal neuropathy diagnosed by the modified EMG/pelvic doppler test blasé has been talking about. So far 6 out of 6 PFSers positive for this test. The doppler shows that the neuropathy stems from what is probably inflammation in the pelvic area on the pudendal nerve trajectory (leading to a form of entrapment syndrome). For some of us its focal (blasé, recently PFS’d) for others more diffuse (me, JG and others, longer standing PFS cases). Worth reminding is that me and JG also have some degree of intra-prostatitic inflammation=prostaitis (diagnosed by the competent ppl at Institut Fournier). But pudendal neuropathy by itself, even in the absence of intra-prostatic inflammation, can lead to very similar pelvic pains (including the testicles and the urethra). Note that none of the doctors we are in contact with (including Dr Virag), unlike mew (hint: NOT a doctor) are excluding the possibility of a fungal overgrowth as the cause (at this point), especially in the face of a few successes with antifungals.
More about his to come in the near future.

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=5661&start=0 The original pudendal neuropathy thread mentionning this test (from blasé)

Just wanted to share some interesting findings on estrogen-induced autoimmune prostatitis and its potential treatments (I’ve put link to a few other studies there viewtopic.php?p=53644#p53644 for the doubters that would want to beleive solonjk lies that “abacterial prostatitis is a myth”. This was from an “estrogen prostatitis” search. An “autoimmune prostatitis” search yields even more, different results)

The following study mentions how estrogen-induced autoimmune prostatitis could lead to decreased DHT levels from reduced 5AR activity. So possibly, fin triggering an autoimmune prostatitis could thus also have created a condition that would potentially perpetuate low DHT levels and 5ar activity, even after fin cessation.

I dont know what to make of that last sentence, could be very important/significant? Someone could help?

Anyway other studies shows that Testosterone, much more so than DHT is antiinflammatory to the prostate :

also

The conclusion is that in the face of (estrogen-induced or not) autoimmune prostatitis, TRT should show great therapeutic value. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s have really been the case so far, although I think a few success stories are linked to TRT?

What else could help?

-The supplement NORMAST (palmitoylethanolamide or PEA), which has proven helpful in interstitial cystitis and other chronic pelvic pain syndromes (google it). Here is why :

-Other phytotherapeutic agents, unfortunately relatively hard to find, Eviprostat and Oligonol, might also possibly help as hinted by these studies (of doubtful origins)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19489033

-Chinese herbs?? (remember IHP’s story?)
Here’s a little dubious chinese study mentionning a strange “capsule” for ya :

More “Danpu” shit :

dictall.com/indu/089/0880785EA3C.htm

Wonder what’s in the danpu capsule. These chinese might be onto something…

-Getting more vit D (sun, supplementation) should also help

-Also, HDAC inhibitors! (non harmful ones with other beneficial effects include nicotinamide - vit B3 - and butyrate)

Also, of course, mew and awor’s theory could be right…
Here is a study (actually a review of existing literature) that mention androgen receptor “defects” as a possible mechanism(?) for prostatitis.

This is a review and I havent been able to find the original study related to the androgen receptor in relation with prostatitis, unfortunately.

[quote=“venceremos”]
My last post wasnt posted here originally but in boston332’s thread, he had it moved, because although he has testicle pain, “he doesnt beleive in prostatitis”…
Please dont let solonjk misguide you, “abacterial prostatitis is a myth” has NOT been proven AT ALL.
Also the stamey test is FAR from perfect and its worth is being questioned but it still is the best thing we have for the moment when confronted to TRUS+color doppler (what I did at institut fournier), and when the lab analysing the prostatitic fluid expressed from the massage (one of the 4 glasses of the stamey test) is having extensive cultures of many pathogens. Which is what the institut fournier does (they test for candida, chlamydia, ureaplasma, mycoplasma, trichomonas vaginalis neiseeria gonhonrrhea, grm+ and gram - bacteria and some other parasite too among other stuff. I wished they tested for cryptococcus that can also be the cause of some prostatitis cases. Check pubmed). They acknowledge that a negative culture does not mean an absence of pathogen but its fucking pointless and harmful to take broad spectrum antibiotics anyway because of the BELEIF that “abacterial prostaitis is a myth”. Ive listened to solonjk and georgiadis and I deeply and irreversably hurt myself, please learn from my mistake. And solonjk, please γαμήσου.
Just look for the latest prostatitis research reviews on pubmed. Do an “autoimmune prostatitis” search on pubmed too…
Also the exact same symptoms of prostatitis can be caused by other diseases, like pudendal neuropathy. There is also interstitial cystitis, pelvic floor myoneuropathy… Stop listening to people obsessed with a single theory like solonjk (or dare I say it, mew and his “molecular level”/epigenetics obsession with no established proof. The presence of abnormlities of the AR observed by awor’s little study do NOT prove that the cause of PFS is solely to be looked for at the “molecular level”, sorry. And again, discouraging brainstorming/research of other angles is just wrong on every level )

Man no-one in here is obsessed with a single theory, the problem is we have so many theories in hand and all we are trying to do, each one from his own perspective, is try to tie them to our pfs condition.

I don’t necessarily agree that abacterial prostatitis is possible. I thought of that too, but you know, after so much testing bacteria was finally found. Autoimmune or bacterial or whatever you want to call it, still there has to be some trigger and in most cases it is from pathogens. Pathogens may lead to autoimmune issues. Autoimmunity just doesn’t happen for no reason on the other hand.
If you did the series of tests that i did then you would definately find bacteria, but i see you still think of Stamey-mears as a serious test in identifying prostatitis?? LOL man.
Well i think you can waste all the time you want in order to understand what is going on but still you will be one step behind the rest of the ppl that have found bacteria and get treated to whatever extend their treatment reaches.
You think i would jump to antibiotics without finding pathogens? LOL again. I stopped using drugs for no reason, went through that too.

And if i had autoimmune well all that dexamethasone and cortisol (in pills and transdermally) would make me feel definately somehow better, instead it didn’t. The effect was good only when combined to ABx.

End point is, are you a believer of prostate issues post-fin or not?
If you are then you must search for the best treatment possible.
Regarding pudendal nerve entrapment i don’t have a clue and at this time i could not understand how some nerve would get entrapped/inflammed without experiencing excruciating pain or without a solid area around it trapping it. Offcourse local or referred numbness could also be a symptom but the degree of numbness would be too big to let it go unnoticed. Have you experienced any nerve entrapment before to see how it feels? Ask people with spinal cord issues.
In any case, ppl have to understand in here that finasteride is a drug designed to affect their prostates. Now whether this is a healthy procedure or not we will let history and more experienced scientists clarify it.
We have managed to do and learn a lot already.
I cant’t think of anything else to do apart from what i have done till now and it has been alot . After multiple hormonal,vitamin, herbal approaches that literally did nothing to me, i finally found that something worked when treating the prostate with powerful massages/abx. Now i am also on damiana and my libido has been consistently off the roof. There are still things to fix, like testicle size, left over prostate inflammation and probably overall energy levels, but i am nowhere to where i was 2 years ago. I have improvement in most areas. And i will pursue more massages until i find something better to treat the inflammation with. But at this point i don’t see anything left in this world that can penetrate down in my prostate and kill ultra-resistant bacteria and chlamydia.

By the way venceremos i am pretty sure you didn’t listen to me when you went to Kos.
Because if you did you would have not taken cipro at any case. I refused cipro when dr. G suggested i take it and had no problems from ABx and was on 4 at a time. Glimbax, Avelox, Dalacyn and injections of Spectramycin. Just a bit of fatigue that uplifted two weeks post quitting.
I wrote again and again that cipro is not good for you it is very strong since it has more fluoride than any other fluoroquinolone. If you hurt yourself from cipro then what can i say. People here read whatever they like to read thats why i don’t value a lot in posting complex posts.

Plus i explained you in many previous posts a lot about abacterial prostatitis and stamey mears. You seem to come back and write like you don’t want to understand it. Stamey mears is crap, if you base your findings on this, or on sperm/urine PCR tests then good luck with finding the proper cause of your inflammation.

Last thing, if you have prostate inflammation then your prostatic excretion is colored (thick white in most cases). So you have to bring this fluid to a competent lab that has proper equipment. Results should be back after a week or so, most labs for financial reasons, give results in a couple of days, they cannot even discriminate bacteria from chlamydia this way.
You need the prostatic fluid tested, not the fluid that comes out after a stamey-mears testing, which in most cases contains very little from prostate but most from surrounding glands. If you still think that with a ten seconds massage during stamey mears proper prostatic fluid will be produced, i can’t comment on that.

prostatic doppler ultrasounds in the following site

ultrasound-images.com/prostate.htm#Color_doppler_imaging_of_prostatitis

and ultrasounds and reports from dr. G patients before and after treatment

pyelikoalgos.blogspot.com/

sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022534705615042

See the pic below. It links in androgen receptors, immune dysfunction and prostatitis.

I think it explains why we have prostate issues and why correcting different parts of the equation can relieve the other. I think some treatments such as the ones on awors line of thinking are about the receptor, others are about the inflammation (which could contribute to receptor dysfunction). Along with the growing evidence from the EMG/pelvic doppler tests which show pudendal neuropathy in some of our cases and the first study initiated by awor showing a difference at the AR receptor level or AR signalling level - it seems to me that neither one are independent of one another and both constitute as evidence for a unifying theory.

I have been a member of this forum for 5 years now and i will be a doctor in a couple of months time.

You mention inflammation “which could contribue to receptor dysfunction”. Can you actually post exactly what this paper says about the androgen receptor?

Recent findings on the genetics of patients with CPPS bolster the theory that there may be an underlying problem with androgens in prostatitis. Differences have been reported in the frequency of 3 alleles near the phosphoglycerate kinase gene between patients with CPPS and controls. 50 The alleles differed in the number of short tandem repeats. The phosphoglycerate kinase 1 gene in the region assessed has been found to be associated with familial prostate cancer, hypospadias and androgen insensitivity. Another gene in the same region of the X chromosome, Xq11–Xq13, is the androgen receptor. This finding raises the possibility of androgen insensitivity or dysfunction in the pathogenesis of CPPS. Tandem repeats, such as these found in men with CP/CPPS, were found to function frequently in genes encoding membrane associated proteins, such as plasma membranes, synapses, mitochondrial membranes and nuclear envelopes. 51 To our knowledge whether there is a defect in the interaction between androgen receptor and membranes such as the nuclear envelope in men with CP/CPPS remains to be determined. Overall these findings lead to the possibility that if testosterone protects against inflammation, as seen in animal models, androgen insensitivity may lead to prostatic inflammation.

Steroid hormones may be also be affected locally by the inflammation. In models of autoimmunity there is evidence of chemotactic cytokines such as TNF-α and IFN-γ altering the surface of endothelial cells, favoring mononuclear cell homing and infiltration, thus, leading to decreased steroid hormone production.

It also talks about neurogenic inflammation:

Given the role of NGF in neurogenic inflammation and nociception, and its correlation with pain in CPPS, it is likely that neurogenic inflammation is involved in the pathogenesis of CP/CPPS symptoms.

The endocrine and immune systems can also have a role in neurogenic inflammation. Testosterone can have a negative effect on NGF. All rat pelvic noradrenergic neurons express the NGF receptors trkA and p75. 63 NGF induces neurite growth in these neurons. In vitro testosterone impeded the NGF induced growth of long neurites from pelvic ganglion cells cultured from adult male rats.

It is likely (this study postulates the idea - it does not prove it) that there is an interplay as the diagram above shows and if we take that model and apply it to our situation it seems to reasonably explain why we may have prostate issues AND receptor issues AND might also explain why dexamethasone has helped some.

I, for one, when increasing testosterone increased my pelvic pain. So its a catchy situation. Inflammation inhibits local testosterone synthesis, and increasing testosterone causes inflammation which in turn inhibits local synthesis.

If i could deduce an answer we need to do a number of things:

  1. reduce inflammation by reducing pro-inflammatory cytokines and increasing anti- inflammatory cytokines (this is why antibiotics i suspect help some but not all) and potentially dampen the immune system as there is a potential autoimmune component
  2. reduce stress and depression
  3. correct the receptor/signalling dysfunction (hopefully awors efforts will shine light here)

This is speculation obviously but i think it follows good logic.

You seem to be quoting from multiple papers (like this one sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306452201004201) and then re-assembling the quotes in the same paragraph???

Maybe its you or the author of the paper your quoting from, so would you mind just posting a picture of the text your quoting?

Thanks.

I am quoting from one paper which is a literature review so includes many papers. The link is above if you wish to read.

I cant read it as I dont have access to the full article.

“This finding raises the possibility of androgen insensitivity or dysfunction in the pathogenesis of CPPS” is an interesting quote. So your conclusion that “increasing testosterone causes inflammation” seems to be in direct contradiction with the findings of the paper since T protects against inflammation and can lower NGF which is raised during inflammation.

I see you have already dropped your “inflammation causes androgen receptor problems” idea and i want to make sure your not adding any more embellishments. Just post the quotes in context by posting an image, like you did with the diagram. Thanks.

Yes you are right i am incorrect when i say exogenous testosterone itself causes inflammation. A lack of local production however, might. If there is inflammation caused or due to androgen receptor issues local production might cease. So externally sourced testosterone might lead to decreases production of your own testosterone and therefore appear to have inflammatory effects. Also if there is indeed an androgen insensitivity like issue this can mean testosterone can not produce its effects so inflammation might occur due to raised estrogens or for another reason.

Here is the article.

My quotes above are direct quotes but here it is anyway.

Steroid hormones may be also be affected locally by the inflammation. In models of autoimmunity there is evidence of chemotactic cytokines such as TNF-α and IFN-γ altering the surface of endothelial cells, favoring mononuclear cell homing and infiltration, thus, leading to decreased steroid hormone production.

Another gene in the same region of the X chromosome, Xq11–Xq13, is the androgen receptor. This finding raises the possibility of androgen insensitivity or dysfunction in the pathogenesis of CPPS. Tandem repeats, such as these found in men with CP/CPPS, were found to function frequently in genes encoding membrane associated proteins, such as plasma membranes, synapses, mitochondrial membranes and nuclear envelopes. 51 To our knowledge whether there is a defect in the interaction between androgen receptor and membranes such as the nuclear envelope in men with CP/CPPS remains to be determined. Overall these findings lead to the possibility that if testosterone protects against inflammation, as seen in animal models, androgen insensitivity may lead to prostatic inflammation.

Keep in mind at this point cause and effect is not determined. Therefore an arrow leads from the immune component to the endocrine and vice versa. It might be that awor is correct and the route is the receptor or AR signal and the inflammation is secondary to that.

Interestingly inflammation actually can decrease hormone production but upregulate AR expression.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22157983

The inflammation itself might produce effects of its own as shown in the diagram above. Its impossible to determine what causes what.
science.pdf (107 KB)

Resveratrol can help the prostate?

Resveratrol increases testosterone but downregulates androgen receptor function. As the receptor is more likely the issue then no i don’t think it will help our condition.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18202547

natmedtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21005&page=82

Some interesting stuff in this 82 page thread on prostatitis for those still interested

Hi,

sorry, I did not read all because its very long. And i just like to say… that a treatment of the Prostatitis wont be a cure. I´m sorry. It´s just a symptom. Caused by the lack of DHT. DHT is not bad for the Prostata…that me know today. A high DHT shows, that T is to low… many old ppl suffer by a BPH. Why? because T slows down by ageing. The Prostata grows to produce more DHT ( thats why high DHT is always found in ppl with a BPH, we always thought it is the reason…buts its more a symptom and in my opinion Fin just works to BPH just because it raises T), its just like with the Thyroidgland. less jod in the meal…it grows bigger to filter more.
It´s like to…cure the penis and all will be fine… If there is a inflamation. Antibiotics might help…but if there is a abacterial inflamation (and most it is after Fin)…they will just work for a short time. We need to raise the androgens. The more Androgens…the more Androgenrezeptors. to much Androgens and the Androgenrezeptor will become desenitiv.

Sorry for my bad english.

Hi everyone, this thread is far too long to read in its entirety.

I recently had a CT scan done, and it revealed around 5 fairly large stones in my prostate. I also have consistently yellow semen, and pain in my prostate area which comes and goes. Also, I peed blood randomly about 2 weeks ago. These are all symptoms of prostatitis correct? I have read up on prostate massages, and I am wondering if it is safe to preform prostate massages if I have stones in my prostate?

Hi!

Yes, thats sound like a Prostatits. How big are the stones? May be they can go aut naturly or by a lithoripsie like use for stones in the kidneys. A massage wont be a good Idea. It makes more Problems i heard an image there are stones inside and now you move them they can damage the Prostata structure even more. What did the Doc say?