Soya is helping massively but why?

General Discussion
#4

Hi Carl, it’s really hard to give practical advice as you can imagine; although I think it’s pretty well demonstrable that what I’ve just mentioned is the case, the fact is I nor anybody else can tell you why this is happening, as much as I’d like to be able to help everybody (myself included). If it is the overexpression of the AR, that is meant to return to normal expression upon the return of androgens, and that isn’t the case as demonstrated by the italian study.

In terms of my personal opinions on what I’d do…I’m in quite a different position in that I am far and away at the extreme end of PFS and it took a 0.25mg dose to do it. I had immediate impotence/brain zaps and crashed two days later into hell and it’s wrecked my life. I therefore would assume I need to be a lot more careful than most. From what I read of your quite substantial use of antiandrogen substances that you aren’t having a catastrophic crash reaction so I wouldn’t panic or anything…But in your boat I still would probably would avoid all of it.

If it’s any help I had intense hot flushes during my crash and they went after about 3 months. They came back when I crashed myself with pain medication, but then went again. On the whole they were one of the few things to wear off.

#5

Hello Axolotl,

Firstly thank you for your lengthly responses, they are really insightful and for someone who is pretty terrified right now about what is happening to me they are pretty reassuring!

Inregards to being far and away on the spectrum, do you have a link that lists your story, I would be interested to hear it because getting this from only one small dose seems really unfair. At least with myself I had 5 years of nice hair and I am to blame for what has happened as the additional AA were not necessary and I could have fucked up my body for life!

I think I could cope with this for another 3 months, I have dealt with it so far for about 8.

The one thing that concerns me is further hair loss (not that I give a damn about being bald now) but I had a HT in the front in 2014 which is amazing but now that I am not on any medication I am guaranteed to lose more hair on top which will leave a weird island of transplanted hair. Oh well life is a bitch!

#6

Thank you, you’re right…It’s very unfair. Absolutely nobody should go through any measure of this, but I have been extraordinarily unlucky. I was so happy the day before. I miss my life and my soulmate so terribly. Here is my story.

You may well have heard but I’d say it’s worth looking into toppik if you’re concerned about hair loss. It is fibres that help give the appearance of thicker hair in thinner regions and it’s quite effective - I didn’t really have significant hair loss (before) and was trying to prevent it as my hair is long. Wish I’d known about that instead of this wonderful drug…

1 Like
#7

I used soy flour for a few days/weeks in the past when I initially crashed. It led to a near complete resolution of all symptoms. No more anhedonia, better sleep, better gym performance, penile sensitivity back, morning erections back, libido increase, etc.

Although like axolotl says, no one knows what causes PFS for sure, but it is peculiar that many of my symptoms get dramatically better near immediately with substances that inhibit AR expression and get much worse with substances that cause expression to rise.

#8

@borax
Hy dear I have very bad numbness.
It’s good to hear that it’s not permanent.
I have it more than a year and it’s worsening. Month by month.
Do you have visible veins on penis too?
Does you penis hurt after ejaculation?
How you were taking soy flour?
What dosage and timing?
I think our problem is related to androgen.
I have very high testosterone 1128 ng/dl
range (300-800)

Any thing that increase androgen make me worse.
Especially increase in androgen through inhibition of estrogen receptors like clomid.
Which makes me think that maybe there is something with estrogen receptors too. As some people improved with licorice too. Which works on estrogen receptors.
And now this soy thing as we know soy also mimic as estrogen.

#9

Yeah Sunny, I have veins and it does hurt sometimes after ejaculation but not very often anymore. There was a period it hurt more than not but not anymore.

I took it both raw and as pancakes, I don’t recall the exact dosage but if I recall correctly it was 2 tablespoons. Going down this pathway however is quite risky and if I were to do it all over again I wouldn’t. Because I speculate it works similar to Milk Thistle (which @awor took for a short period of time experiencing drastic improvements followed by a crash) by inhibiting the AR, so it might lead to issues long term as it did for him. For myself, I cannot say for sure I was worsened, but I did develop curvature and some loss in size.

My testosterone levels initially were low, but like yours mine are also quite high now and I have similar responses to you with regards to androgens.

Do you have any loss in length/girth with good erection quality?

#10

@borax
girth has decreased a lot, about length I cant say much may be a little loss.
My veins hurt after ejaculation alot also swells after ejaculation.
My genitals feels cold too often.
Now I almost never achieve good erection always less than 70% rarely 80-90%.
My numbness is very bad, how is your numbness??
Mine is almost 10%.

When I was trying licorice root my semen almost become normal. Volume increased , ball size increased, small increase in libido,
I might try it again along with soy flour. Because increasing androgen crashed me hard.

#12

Not sure if it’s a good idea but please report if you decide to go on with it.

Why did you stop licorice root?

#13

I stopped taking licorice because Ramadan started in which we fast intermittently for 29 or 30 days. I will start it soon probably.

Do you have dandruff too ?
Or tinnitus?
There is a guy at swole source who recovered by using licorice.

#14

I am aware, I’m muslim too and fasted for a few days. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fast as much as the previous years because of PFS. Anyway, Eid Mubarak, and let me know how licorice goes as well.

#15

sorry, I missed the part about my symptoms. I don’t have tinnitus I believe, just a short period with intense ringing every day or so. It isn’t very bothersome, just slightly concerning. I don’t have much dandruff but my hair is falling out faster.

#16

Eid Mubarak to you too brother.

#17

hey did you test iron at all? or iron related things? i wonder if it is the iron content? or red blood cell count? i was thinking about another post, someone mentioned they ate tofu and they felt better, but didn’t know why.

i looked up the iron levels of soy and tofu, both have really high iron content, soy is like 150% or something of the daily diet.

how do you feel with dark chocolate or red meat? both have high iron as well.

i’m starting to suspect the high estradiol or high estrogen that can sometimes be present in those with PFS is messing with the iron homestasis in the body. this came out to be true when i search iron and estrogen online, but i still don’t quite understand the connection.

see this:
Estrogen deficiency has been regarded as the main causative factor in menopausal symptoms and diseases. Here, we show that although estrogen decreases by 90%, a concurrent but inverse change occurs in iron levels during menopausal transition. For example, levels of serum ferritin are increased by two- to threefold from before menopause to after menopause. This observation has led us to hypothesize that, in addition to estrogen deficiency, increased iron as a result of menopause could be a risk factor affecting the health of postmenopausal women. Further studies on iron and menopause are clinically relevant and may provide novel therapeutic treatments. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 11, 2939–2943.

At the systemic level, an interaction of estrogen with iron has long been suspected**. This is exemplified by a concurrent but inverse change in estrogen and iron levels during menopausal transition, with high estrogen and low iron in young women but low estrogen and high iron in older postmenopausal women (4).** Furthermore, a time-dependent increase in iron stores has been shown in oral contraceptive users when compared with nonusers (34–36). The increased iron stores are said to be attributable primarily to reduced volume in menstrual blood loss. However, this cannot explain the animal data showing a significant rise in body iron stores and uptake in estrogen-treated ovariectomized rats, because rats do not have menses (37, 38). Clearly, there is a direct link between estrogen and systemic iron metabolism, although the molecular mechanism remains unclear.

another blood work that was very interesting to me was this on the forum:
Total iron binding capacity - 43.4 (45 - 70)

i dont know what “iron binding capacity” is, but it sounds like something that should not be low, if we are indeed low in iron due to high estrogen.

So what does this all say? First of all, the medical establishment is wrong in saying estrogen is “good for you”, they seem to make the connection that iron stores go down when estrogen is high. But I think our estrogen is high in a PFS person, so maybe the iron stores are going down too low due to the high estrogen.

Am I saying go take iron pills? Hell no. Absolutely not. Do not do this AT ALL. But I’d say get the recommended amount through food. Too much iron is a very bad thing. Very very bad. This is all theory. I don’t even know if that is what is causing the issue to be fixed.

But until the PFS is solved , MAYBE enough iron throughout the day is more important than we previous thought.

AGAIN, all theory… AGAIN DO NOT TAKE IRON PILLS… I know you are desperate, but it’s just a thought.

#18

[…] The stimulatory effect of certain phospholipids on 5a-reductase
activity has been reported previously (Ichihara & Tanaka, 1987;
Cooke & Robaire, 1985). We also found that L-alpha-phosphatidylcholine
and L-alpha-phosphatidylethanolamine can stimulate 5a-reductase.
Phospholipids may affect the conformation of 5a-reductase. […]

Significant levels of Amadori-phosphatidylethanolamine products have been found in a wide variety of foods such as chocolate, soybean milk, infant formula, and other processed foods. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatidylethanolamine)

#19

Hello guys,

Thank you all for your thoughts on this. I will definitely look into everyones suggestions (maybe use a dictionary to interpret Andreas) :slight_smile:

For me the oestrogen connection is far too coincidental. Anything estrogenic foods cause a complete reversal of dry hands, eggs, dairy, beer and soya but if I avoid these then the dryness persists.

The dryness is very odd though, its only on the palms of my hands and looks like I have dipped them in powder, it gets very dry powdery in the creases and especially where my fingers fold, often just on the one hand with the other seeming normal. Moreover its not dry, I just don’t know how else to explain it, my fingers don’t feel tight, there is no cracking or bleeding just what looks like dry skin, if I was my hands the dryness goes away completely and leaves skin that looks untouched. I always thought dry skin meant that my skin would peal off but that is not the case. I often suspect if it is dry skin at all

#20

Hello guys, I can’t stop going back to soya as it stops me obsessing about my dry skin because it goes away!! Reading through everyone’s comments for advice I saw one from regarding iron. I once remember eating dark chocolate and the dryness reduces too, so this post resonated with me a lot. However my iron is in the normal range I remember getting a blood test for red and white blood cells, just checked now and I can’t believe they are so bad, can’t believe I didn’t realise this before. My red count it below the range and my white is slightly above, I wonder if this is causing the dizziness and constant warmth I’m feeling and why soy is helping because it helps somewhat hmmm

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#21

Hi, I have some thoughts that I would like to share.

Soya is a phytoestrogen, a molecule that mimics Estrogen and acts on Estrogen receptors. The fact it is improving your symptoms is good evidence that your symptoms are caused by low Estrogen.

The dry hands and whiteness you are experiencing are certainly a consequence of low Estrogen.

Dry hands: Estrogen promotes collagen and elastin synthesis in the skin as well as moisture retention. This is a common problem seen in post menopausal women who are low on Estrogen. Further to this, Phytoestrogens have been shown to improve dry skin caused by low Estrogen in this patient group.

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6451761/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2705153/)

Whiteness: Estrogen is a vasodilator and low Estrogen has a constricting effect and limits blood flow to the extremities. It is likely that if you are seeing this symptom that you also occasionally experience cold extremities (hands and feet). The vasodilatory and cardio protective effects of Estrogen are well studied and there is a surge in the incidence of heart disease as women pass the menopause. The evidence for this can be wiki’d. The cold penis reported may be an extension of this but that is conjecture.

I have recently come to the forum and I am a little surprised by the fixation on DHT and AR as the basis of PFS, for some sufferers this may be the case but for the larger majority I believe the focus should be on Estrogen. Testosterone, Estrogen and DHT are inextricably linked and any disturbance to one results in changes to the other two. There are two main reasons why I Estrogen deserves more attention than DHT 1) the role of Estrogen in adult male physiology far supersedes that of DHT. 2) The body is more sensitive to Estrogen disturbances- Estrogen must be maintained in a narrow optimal range with deviation above or below causing adverse effects, this is not the case for DHT where the entire spectrum from no DHT to supra-physiological levels of DHT usually present with a healthy phenotype.

I should add that I have a strong belief that the majority of attempts that aim to understand the condition with bloodwork as their basis are misguided, symptomology is far more important. DHT and Estrogen bloodwork is misleading as they are for the most part intracellular molecules formed by reactions in local tissue.

Symptomology is key, do not get lost in the detail, convoluted theories about gene regulation and receptor insensitivity may be interesting but you need to take a step back and focus on the factors you have good strong evidence for and understanding of. Focus on the most likely causes first and move on only when you have ruled them out. We will never be able to elucidate the underlying mechanisms on an Internet forum by piecing together research papers. It may seem harmless but there is a real risk of unsubstantiated theories gaining a herd traction and leading to protocols that cause more harm than good, and that would be a real shame considering how pure our intentions are.

There seems to be some overlap but also occasional sharp differences in the presentation of PFS, a common pathophysiology hasn’t been identified and so you need to listen to your body to figure out what has been disrupted in your particular case. This requires you to pay very close attention to your symptoms and have a good understanding of the role of the main hormones in male physiology. You must become your own doctor. As a start read everything about the role of DHT, testosterone and Estrogen in the body, be sure to understand how they interact with each other. Every change that is underpinned by hormones needs to be considered, they will all point you in the same direction.

Is your beard getting thicker?
Do you have cold extremities?
Are you able to maintain strength?
Is your skin dry?
What in particular about your memory is worse? (T and DHT are associated with spatial memory while Estrogen with verbal memory)
Do people comment that your eyes look tired?
Have you suddenly noticed that you recognise fear on people’s faces more often then you’re used to?
…
This list is endless. Once you understand the hormones you will know what to look for.

Use this information to figure out how your hormonal profile stands in relation to the three main hormones (High/normal/low Testosterone, high/normal/low Estrogen, high/normal/low DHT).

Scour bodybuilding forums for case studies of experiments that have been run tinkering with these hormones. This is a treasure trove of information into how these hormones affect people, you will get an insight that is not available through research papers.

Once you have a sense of your own particular hormonal profile experiment with natural and weak regulators that alter these three hormones.

E.g phytoestrogens, resistance training, masturbation, nofap, HIIT, supplements,

How do these interventions make you feel? Do these make you feel better or worse, how much better or worse? Use this information to further calibrate your sense of your own hormonal profile. This is the starting point for you to tailor your own solution.

I understand a lot of you are suffering and there is a real drive to fix the issue and it pains me that this condition has caused so much misery and suffering. I really do believe improvement is possible with the information available to us if a strong problem solving approach is applied.

All the best

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#22

I definitely agree with your observations regarding estrogen. I think our issues definitely involves dysregulation of the estrogen receptors. Initially I thought it only involved the androgen receptors but after so much experimentation with manipulating the androgen receptors (using soy and other things) I realized that there is more to this than just that. Thanks for sharing man

BTW ive done a lot of research with soy that you might find interesting:

#23

Hey @skorpio88, could you take our survey, please.

#24

Speaking of diets, did you ever try the famed carnivore diet? If so, for how long and did it help?