Stomach acid- too much or too little?

Therapeutic Efforts
#1

So a ton of people on here have talked about digestion/gut/diets and damage to the lining of the intestines. I’ve read a post where someone claimed recovery from omeprazole (lowers stomach acid, his logic was that it would allow the gut to start healing: A Potential Cure/Treatment) which lines up with a lot of improvements people have seen (I myself have too, although it only lasted a day or so) with baking soda and another where the user improved with a bunch of things, among them betaine HCl (Short-term Recovery with Choline, Inositol, Cod liver oil, Phenibut). If I remember right he attributed a lot of his success to the HCl.

My question for you all is this: should we be a) increasing stomach acid to help digest things more or b) decreasing it to allow the gut to heal?

Anyone have any thoughts/ideas?

#2

ive taken omeprazole before for high stomach acid

but i remember that it would give me intense tinitis for a few minutes. i vaguely remember others having bad side effects from it as well, try the search bar

as far as the stomach acid question - i dont know any of that so i cant help there

#3

Ommeprazole crashed me be careful. For some nothing is safe. Cutting out triggers is a safer approach which may help bring it down to a manageable level

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#4

Omeprazole can cause sexual dysfunction, it depends on how severe is the situation, and the degree of acidity and evaluating the beneficial and risks. Betaine is a Methyl-donor, therefore it can cause crashes in severe cases.

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#5

Oh gosh I had no idea it could do that…really need to be careful with every single thing we put in our bodies huh?

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#6

5 years ago I could tolerate almost everything with pfs then like a switch I was blown apart and became sensitive to everything u read on here even in v small amounts… Exposure to them brings u closer to the switch. My opinion anyway!

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#7

It’s a good idea to search this message board to see what people have tried and how the reactions were

Chances are everything under the sun that’s available or easily accessible has been done over 10+ years from desperate people

Then I’d also search the compound on google to see if it interacts with the androgen receptor or hormones

Like this:

“Omeprazole” + “androgen receptor”

Another search:

“Omeprazole” + “testosterone” OR “hormones”

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#8

Will do, thanks! I was also taking some omeprazole when I took the misoprostol…wondering if some antiandrogenic effect like with saw papmetto is responsible for the brief uptick

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#9

Anything is possible with us

#10

The overwhelming majority of patients who experience temporary improvements - whether it be hours, days or weeks - do so because of an anti-androgenic substance, and sometimes unknowingly. For example, a patient may record a protocol which consists of multiple substances, but one of them is unknowingly anti-androgenic. There were plenty of examples of this with things like licorice root, and people going back on finasteride, taking SP, etc. Another good example is people who experience improvement while water fasting - fasting is anti-androgenic.

If you think about the environment in which PFS is induced - androgens are inhibited, then reintroduced - this makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately as this hits the same trigger as what caused PFS in the first place, most of these improvements are fleeting and in the worst cases, lead to permanent worsening.

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#11

I think I improved once via peppermint-tea. Then I read it has anti androgenic effects. But it didnt help me after that.

I dont like this theory that we are hypersensitive to certain substances and crash or improve due to them. You never know what food or supplement caused that or not. I took so many supplements since developing PFS and while some of them seem to work, nothing really lasted, there are a few exceptions, but the effects arent great.

Iam really hesitant to add new medication even something minor like skin care, because it could crash me.

#12

I’m sorry to say it’s not a “theory”. It’s well documented throughout the patient record on this forum. I’ve crashed from soy, there’s plenty of stories of patients worsening from things like licorice root, milk thistle, etc.

Again, if you consider the environment in which PFS is induced - an androgen deprivation state followed by a reintroduction of androgens - it’s reasonable to assume that further disruption to androgen signalling would come with risk.

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#13

This is purely anecdotal. There are so many substances which have anti androgenic effects. Besides that not every anti-androgenic substance has the same effect. There are androgen receptor antagonists, androgen synthesis inhibitors like finasteride, saw palmetto etc. and then you have estrogen or phytoestrogens which disrupt androgen balance indirectly.

In my experience there are no constants. There is no substance or food that 100% crashes me, nor is there something which improves me 100% of times.

We dont know what causes PFS. This is speculation.

#14

Unfortunately there’s not much evidence in this condition which isn’t anecdotal. There is no study on “foods or substances that crash PFS patients”. I don’t see how your singular anecdotal experience outweighs the dozens of other self-reports on this site though.

We dont know what causes PFS. This is speculation.

I didn’t provide any hypothesis about what causes PFS. I simply stated a factual observation that the onset of PFS occurs after creating an androgen-deficient state (through consumption of finasteride) and then reintroducing androgens (by discontinuing the medication).

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