what am I doing wrong I need advice!

General Discussion
#1

Im starting to freak out a bit. Its bad enough that in a few months I will hit the 5 year mark, but these past few weeks Ive hit an all time low and have lost so much progress that I made.
While Ive never felt cured, there have been points where I thought my sides were getting manageable. For instance in the month of January there was a long period where I felt great, was even jerking it like 4 times a week, and was ready to start looking to get laid again without the fear of anything going wrong. But now these past 2 weeks I’ve been in pain and my junk and been all shriveled up.

The weird thing is lately I’ve been doing things that should only be helping my case. For example, I recently finally stopped using rogaine. Not that i thought it was hurting my recovery, I just finally decided to not give a shit about my hair anymore (something I really should have done 5 years ago). I also started cutting back on my weed use. I used to smoke almost everyday (it really helped with a lot of side effects), but now I’ve cut back significantly to like once a month. I’ve also been working out more and more, and I also just reached my one year mark of going gluten free.

What more can I do to help get back to normal? Ive been eating very healthy, Ive been trying to get exercise when I can, Ive been taking 2,000iu of vit d daily, been taking fish oil, a multivitamin, and been drinking magnesium supplements.

Does anyone have any advice for something I can add to my regime? Is the consensus that a fast really would do wonders?

#2

It seems the people who have claimed recovery have been 100% dedicated. But who knows if dedication on its own is enough.

#3

Rogaine doesn’t have any association with PFS.

Weed is toxic to the liver, anything that impairs the liver has adverse effects on hormonal level, as it is the liver that metabolizes excess estrogens.

Without resorting to TRT, you can try some of the protocols that are believed to give some healing or accelerate healing. E.g. methylation & p450, progesterone (in the “profile” thread), CDNuts’ recovery, Chi’s recovery etc.

Vit D on this forum has only good feedback. As for fish oil, although it’s generally considered healthy, I had a bad experience with it, along with Ubiquinol coQ10 and everything that reduces PSA. This is just personal experience, but it’s worth considering. Regarding the multivitamin, I would rather try them one by one at different periods, or you will never know which one may give you adverse reaction. For example mariovitali claims in his thread that Vitamin A supplementation gave him brain fog. Some say the same for B12 methylcobalamin, even if I take it every day with no adverse effect.

Have you ever tried fasting / juice fasting for some time? It is believed that the autolysis from fasting may accelerate the self repair to the cells damaged by PFS.

#4

what is PSA?

#5

prostate specific agent ı guess.

#6

Yes, the PSA that I was referring to is the Prostate-specific antigen enzyme. In my experience everything that reduces enzymes like PSA and p450 has an adverse effect. This may fall in the enzyme suppression theory that mariovitali has detailed diligently in his excellent “p450” thread. http://www.propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8592

Let’s have a thought about it. Some people in this forum have low DHT, and low 3-alpha Diol G, which is the metabolite of it and measures the activity of 5-alpha reductase. On the other hand, there are also people with normal DHT and 3-alpha Diol G, or even high level of them (in my case both very high).
Here is my assumption: for those having normal/high DHT and 3-alpha Diol G a moderate 5aR inhibitor shouldn’t cause any serious adverse effect, so why Fish Oil, stinging nettle, astaxanthin, lycopene, beta-sitosterol can exacerbate our sexual sides of PFS? If DHT is not the issue, there must be something else causing trouble other than diminished 5aR, the only explanation that comes to me, is that they reduce also other types of enzymatic activity in the neurosteroid biosynthesis.

The enzyme activity is very complex and not everyone reacts to enzyme inhibitors in the same way, nevertheless, it may explain why some crash on supplements that are not even 5aR inhibitors, such as milk thistle, ubiquinol coQ10, etc. (in particular milk thistle is like poison to me and many others, see for example Awor’s post: http://www.propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5454)

About Ubiquinol coQ10, which is a PSA inhibitor like milk thistle, once I asked Droit ,
http://www.propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=8457&hilit=ubiquinol#p75802
and he confirmed he had adverse experience with it. His explanation was the “antioxidant paradox”, a situation documented in scientific papers where the antioxidants do not provide any relief oxidative stress, but as far as I know the “antioxidant paradox” can’t explain why someone would have a mini crash, as me and Droit had.

#7

Note that I did not crash on CoQ10. I did however get very tired on Vitamin C. I do take CoQ10. CoQ10 is good because it pushes the electron transport change to generate energy. But the sense I get from what I’ve read is I won’t take it without supporting glutathione/Methylation cycle since you would need to maintain the oxidative stress generated from the energy production.

#8

Thanks for the feedback. Im just curious who is this Chi you referred to? I couldn’t find him in the recovery section.
So are you recommending I stop taking fish oil? I have been taking it for a few years now I never thought it could have a bad effect on me. Also what kind of vit d dosage do you suggest…is my 2,000 iu enough?