Supplement to avoid: Nettle root

[noniman]

I was having some urinary symptoms recently, mainly having to get up in the middle of the night so decided to try some nettle root to see if it would help my problem.
Well my urinary symtptoms did improve and the nettle root gave me solid nocturnal erections for a couple of nights.

But after a couple of days it seems that I experienced a mini crash, with a return of prostatitis and a burning feeling in the prostate.
Luckily I have some sustain alpha which helps.

I was doing so well and to mess it up by taking just one dose of nettle root is extremely frustrating.

Nettle Root inhibits 5AR2, similar to finasteride.
I would encourage anyone on this forum to avoid nettle root like the plague.

[m_81]

@noniman

I was having some urinary symptoms recently, mainly having to get up in the middle of the night so decided to try some nettle root to see if it would help my problem.
Well my urinary symtptoms did improve and the nettle root gave me solid nocturnal erections for a couple of nights.

But after a couple of days it seems that I experienced a mini crash, with a return of prostatitis and a burning feeling in the prostate.
Luckily I have some sustain alpha which helps.

I was doing so well and to mess it up by taking just one dose of nettle root is extremely frustrating.

Nettle Root inhibits 5AR2, similar to finasteride.
I would encourage anyone on this forum to avoid nettle root like the plague.

I think that this is false. Did you take blood tests before and after supplementing nettle root to support your theory? I did (see below), and nettle root does NOT seem to be a strong 5AR2 inhibitor in my experience. Most likely, you felt worse because you increased androgen levels (you increased free T by decreasing SHBG) without concurrently boosting your metabolic rate. All those who did so got worse than before, possibly after a short period of improvement. I’m sure you would have felt the same by taking androgel, clomid, or tamoxifen, etc…

Here are my blood tests:

Before nettle root:
T=512 (300-1080)
SHBG=43 (11-80)
DHT=473 (106-719)

After 2 months on nettle root: (and after some change in my metabolic-rate-boosting protocol)
T=460 (300-1080) (-10.2% from before)
SHBG=41 (11-80)
DHT=408 (106-719) (-13.7% from before) – DHT decreased by a similar proportion as T, showing that nettle root does not strongly inhibit DHT

After 3 months on nettle root: (and after some change in my metabolic-rate-boosting protocol and adding some micro dose of T-gel)
T=408 (300-1080)
SHBG=34 (11-80)
DHT=692(106-719)

[MrAjax36]

Hey m_81

Can you comment on how someone goes about boosting their metabolic rate and the importance doing so when supplementing with Nettle Root? Also, do you have any specifics regarding dosage, and whether the increased DHT has benefited your symptoms?

Thanks

[johnniehaz]

Thought I’d add my story concerning nettle. I was drinking nettle tea, and am not sure if the root was included, or just the leaves:

I had 3 days of complete respite once, and I wanted to understand why. Like a tap being turned on, and everything poisonous draining away leaving a brain that was normal. I was sitting in a Starbucks in Glasgow at the time, New Year’s Eve 2015, and I was looking around at the people sitting at other tables and the thought struck me: Jesus, this is how normal feels. It was very distinct. Jesus had nothing to do with it, it’s just a figure of speech.

I think the cause was…wait for it…drum roll…

…nettle tea.

I’d been drinking gallons of it in the days before, on a kind of intuitive hunch about a digestive issue I’d been having whilst on a retreat at an abbey on Iona.

I look up nettle tea now, and find that it blocks 5ar activity - i.e. it does exactly what the Roaccutane did in the first place. How does that work?

By reducing the noise that’s shouting at the androgen receptors, is it actually giving them some kind of break?

Should I drink more nettle tea, or am I only going to make things worse? Am I going to stimulate more androgen receptors to be produced to, in their turn, get more knackered, more sandblasted and create more of this misery?

Does this offer any clues to me, to anybody, about what’s going on, and how I might ameliorate the agony of it? In all my years of struggling with this, this was the clearest incidence of something having an effect, be it negative or positive.

Is all tampering with 5ar or androgens to be avoided?

[Greek]

Hi Johnnie,

You might like to read this post which could go some way to explaining your experience and the reasons to avoid further experimentation:

Has anyone tried Saw Palmetto or fin after developing pfs?

Hey jjbunch, It’s a very interesting observation and one going back over a decade that people with PFS can sometimes have their symptoms improve temporarily or, more rarely, permanently with 5 alpha reductase inhibitors or substances with anti androgenic properties. They can also dramatically worsen PFS and introduce a much more severe condition. People have claimed improvement by turmeric, zinc, progesterone, finasteride (in the case of an accutane case, which is likely the same condition), nu…

[johnniehaz]

Thanks for this - I’m trying to remember if I did actually crash after the nettle tea, or just return to baseline. But God, this is so depressing - I’ve hung on desperately to the memory of those few days as evidence that a cure is possible. In a week where I’ve also learned from @awor and @Dubya_B that fasting (wanted to try it) lowers testosterone (presumably in evolutionary terms because having sex was pushed down the list of priorities in times of famine), I feel thoroughly discouraged. Is there nothing I can do to get me out of this hole? Do you recommend avoiding all interventions?

[johnniehaz]

An interesting article here about nettle and hormones, and how to use ithttps://www.rawforestfoods.com/blog/nettle-root-and-hormonal-health/

The author says he’s a herbalist specialising in sexual and reproductive health, and the 99.99% of people should put nettle at the top of their list. Guess we make the other 0.01% who shouldn’t!

Might be worth contacting him to see what he thinks re PFS etc.

[anon73159565]

I was just searching for nettle root in Turkey because it is recommended as the number #1 natural antihistamine. Suprisingly when I google “isirgan kapsül” I get search results that show me saw palmetto supplements. So is nettle equal to saw palmetto or?