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  1. #1
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    How the protocol works

    I’ve been wondering a lot lately and doing research. A lot of guys that come here are confused about how increasing testosterone can fix PFS. The protocol is obviously much more than just testosterone, but that’s a big part of it.

    I might be behind the curve here, and some of this might be obvious to a lot of you but it helps me understand the point of this whole thing more and why you would want to put yourself into this lifestyle and process. I started wondering how you could possibly fix 5ar enzymes that are destroyed. But it would make sense that putting your body through a protocol like this, creates a need for your 5ar enzyme, and will eventually “kickstart it” in a sense. Like if your body starts producing a ton of test, it’s your going to effect your dht levels, which requires your 5ar enzyme, which is going to cause your body to find a way to heal them.Then once you kickstart that healing, your body is going to have tenfold the healing power to work with when you are giving it the proper tools it needs, also when you’re cleansed and it takes that energy away from fighting inflammation or leaky gut once that’s healed. That’s my understanding, or at least a theory.

    But upon doing research I found that the amount of DHT in your body is reliant on how much natural testosterone your body is producing. When your levels of test rise, the more of it is converted into DHT. I’d imagine that would have a great effect on your 5ar enzyme, presumably in a positive manner since many men have recovered doing this.

    So, if this post is obvious, sorry about that. But that little run down gave me more insight and a better understanding of how this works. At least part of it anyway. I honestly don’t know much about the role of DHT or 5ar in your body, I just decided to stick to TMO and I’ve been here ever since, finally getting around to actually learning what some of this shit means.
    Last edited by Turnover25; 01-15-2021 at 05:01 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Turnover25 View Post
    I’ve been wondering a lot lately and doing research. A lot of guys that come here are confused about how increasing testosterone can fix PFS. The protocol is obviously much more than just testosterone, but that’s a big part of it.

    I might be behind the curve here, and some of this might be obvious to a lot of you but it helps me understand the point of this whole thing more and why you would want to put yourself into this lifestyle and process. I started wondering how you could possibly fix 5ar enzymes that are destroyed. But it would make sense that putting your body through a protocol like this, creates a need for your 5ar enzyme, and will eventually “kickstart it” in a sense. Like if your body starts producing a ton of test, it’s your going to effect your dht levels, which requires your 5ar enzyme, which is going to cause your body to find a way to heal them.Then once you kickstart that healing, your body is going to have tenfold the healing power to work with when you are giving it the proper tools it needs, also when you’re cleansed and it takes that energy away from fighting inflammation or leaky gut once that’s healed. That’s my understanding, or at least a theory.

    But upon doing research I found that the amount of DHT in your body is reliant on how much natural testosterone your body is producing. When your levels of test rise, the more of it is converted into DHT. I’d imagine that would have a great effect on your 5ar enzyme, presumably in a positive manner since many men have recovered doing this.

    So, if this post is obvious, sorry about that. But that little run down gave me more insight and a better understanding of how this works. At least part of it anyway. I honestly don’t know much about the role of DHT or 5ar in your body, I just decided to stick to TMO and I’ve been here ever since, finally getting around to actually learning what some of this shit means.
    There’s a lot to unpack here, and this is a good question.

    First, let’s talk about the 5 alpha-reductase enzymes. There are 3 versions of this enzyme that we know about, and finasteride (and dutasteride) don’t completely shut down all of them. On finasteride you’re still left with 30% of your 5ar. It is true that finasteride permanently destroys 5ar enzymes, and this is one of the major things that guys on PH freak out about. “Omg, it’s destroyed my enzymes permanently!”

    Even under optimal conditions, your individual enzymes don’t last forever. It’s not like you’re born with a certain amount of 5ar enzymes that you keep for life, like it is with your bones, eyes, etc, that can’t regenerate. Your enzymes are like your blood, it’s continuously being destroyed and replaced. (Your red blood cells only live for 30 days, but that doesn’t mean you die of blood loss when you’re two weeks old, because your body has been making more blood in the meantime.)

    Let’s say you have 100 units of 5ar enzymes, and you never took finasteride or anything like that. In 30 days, you will have 50 of those original 5ar enzymes left. In 60 days, 25 will be left. In 90 days, 12 will be left. 120 days, 6 will be left. 150 days, 3 will be left. In 180 days, 1 will be left. In 210 days, 0 will be left. But along the way, your body has been making new 5ar enzymes to replace the ones that are lost, holding it steady at 100 units the entire time. Finasteride knocks this down to 30 units, but after about 24 hours (finasteride has a half life of 5 hours, meaning it’s basically gone in 1 day,) the body starts trying to get back to 100 again, and over the next 6 months it should get back up to 100 again. This is why finasteride is not a one-time injection that works permanently.

    It could be that finasteride somehow causes your body to think 30 units is the proper amount, even after finasteride is gone, but if that was the case then guys with PFS would not lose their hair. Most guys with PFS continue to lose their hair despite their PFS symptoms, which suggests that PFS is not caused by insufficient DHT / 5ar enzymes. Also, plenty of guys with PFS test normal or even elevated for DHT.

    If PFS was just a function of not having enough 5ar enzymes, then it could be cured by injecting bioidentical 5ar enzymes into the blood. I don’t think a bioidentical artificial 5ar enzyme has been created, though. If it did exist, bodybuilders would use it to forcibly convert testosterone into DHT, and it’d also be worth testing as a potential PFS cure, but it doesn’t exist as far as I know.

    In any event, nobody has scientifically proven how PFS works. (The PFS Foundation is trying to raise money to figure that out, but even if that is accomplished that doesn’t mean that a medical cure would be forthcoming any time soon.) Many speculate that somehow the body’s ability to make 5ar is compromised long-term, which is what you’re talking about, but that hasn’t been proven. Others speculate that it affects the quantity and/or functionality of the androgen receptors, or receptors or neurosteroids in the brain, and there are various other theories as well. It could be a combination of different things.

    What I can tell you for sure is that there is far more to recovering from PFS than “increase testosterone” and/or “increase DHT.” It’s just a lot more complicated than that, and many doctors and self-cure seekers have tried diferent combinations of hormone affecting drugs, with no success. Whatever PFS is, no drugs are known to be able to reverse it.

    The herbs that are a major part of the protocol - we don’t know how they work, either. The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theories about che / life force, are all clearly uncientific bullshit. I’m not saying that TCM is bullshit, far from it, but the explanations of how it works are absolutely bullshit. The explanations were made up by guys thousands of years ago who had zero understanding of science, so they talked about things like “life force” (chi) that have no basis in reality. In fairness, science did not exist back then, so anything that doesn’t have an explanation, people would just make up a religious one, and that’s how it is with TCM and the “chi” explanations and so on. There absolutely is a scientific answer for how all of this works, but figuring that out would cost an enormous amount of money and take many years.

    Anyway, we’re using herbs, which we don’t know how they work, to address a disease that we don’t know how it works. But… it gets results! People get cured! That’s the only thing that matters. That’s the ONLY aspect of this that you should care about. Even if we knew exactly how all of this worked, it wouldn’t change what we have to do.
    Last edited by LetsGo; 01-15-2021 at 08:31 PM.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by LetsGo View Post
    There’s a lot to unpack here, and this is a good question.

    First, let’s talk about the 5 alpha-reductase enzymes. There are 3 versions of this enzyme that we know about, and finasteride (and dutasteride) don’t completely shut down all of them. On finasteride you’re still left with 30% of your 5ar. It is true that finasteride permanently destroys 5ar enzymes, and this is one of the major things that guys on PH freak out about. “Omg, it’s destroyed my enzymes permanently!”

    Even under optimal conditions, your individual enzymes don’t last forever. It’s not like you’re born with a certain amount of 5ar enzymes that you keep for life, like it is with your bones, eyes, etc, that can’t regenerate. Your enzymes are like your blood, it’s continuously being destroyed and replaced. (Your red blood cells only live for 30 days, but that doesn’t mean you die of blood loss when you’re two weeks old, because your body has been making more blood in the meantime.)

    Let’s say you have 100 units of 5ar enzymes, and you never took finasteride or anything like that. In 30 days, you will have 50 of those original 5ar enzymes left. In 60 days, 25 will be left. In 90 days, 12 will be left. 120 days, 6 will be left. 150 days, 3 will be left. In 180 days, 1 will be left. In 210 days, 0 will be left. But along the way, your body has been making new 5ar enzymes to replace the ones that are lost, holding it steady at 100 units the entire time. Finasteride knocks this down to 30 units, but after about 24 hours (finasteride has a half life of 5 hours, meaning it’s basically gone in 1 day,) the body starts trying to get back to 100 again, and over the next 6 months it should get back up to 100 again. This is why finasteride is not a one-time injection that works permanently.

    It could be that finasteride somehow causes your body to think 30 units is the proper amount, even after finasteride is gone, but if that was the case then guys with PFS would not lose their hair. Most guys with PFS continue to lose their hair despite their PFS symptoms, which suggests that PFS is not caused by insufficient DHT / 5ar enzymes. Also, plenty of guys with PFS test normal or even elevated for DHT.

    If PFS was just a function of not having enough 5ar enzymes, then it could be cured by injecting bioidentical 5ar enzymes into the blood. I don’t think a bioidentical artificial 5ar enzyme has been created, though. If it did exist, bodybuilders would use it to forcibly convert testosterone into DHT, and it’d also be worth testing as a potential PFS cure, but it doesn’t exist as far as I know.

    In any event, nobody has scientifically proven how PFS works. (The PFS Foundation is trying to raise money to figure that out, but even if that is accomplished that doesn’t mean that a medical cure would be forthcoming any time soon.) Many speculate that somehow the body’s ability to make 5ar is compromised long-term, which is what you’re talking about, but that hasn’t been proven. Others speculate that it affects the quantity and/or functionality of the androgen receptors, or receptors or neurosteroids in the brain, and there are various other theories as well. It could be a combination of different things.

    What I can tell you for sure is that there is far more to recovering from PFS than “increase testosterone” and/or “increase DHT.” It’s just a lot more complicated than that, and many doctors and self-cure seekers have tried diferent combinations of hormone affecting drugs, with no success. Whatever PFS is, no drugs are known to be able to reverse it.

    The herbs that are a major part of the protocol - we don’t know how they work, either. The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theories about che / life force, are all clearly uncientific bullshit. I’m not saying that TCM is bullshit, far from it, but the explanations of how it works are absolutely bullshit. The explanations were made up by guys thousands of years ago who had zero understanding of science, so they talked about things like “life force” (chi) that have no basis in reality. In fairness, science did not exist back then, so anything that doesn’t have an explanation, people would just make up a religious one, and that’s how it is with TCM and the “chi” explanations and so on. There absolutely is a scientific answer for how all of this works, but figuring that out would cost an enormous amount of money and take many years.

    Anyway, we’re using herbs, which we don’t know how they work, to address a disease that we don’t know how it works. But… it gets results! People get cured! That’s the only thing that matters. That’s the ONLY aspect of this that you should care about. Even if we knew exactly how all of this worked, it wouldn’t change what we have to do.
    In my view it is likely to be similar to instances of depression where patients find their allopregnanolone levels deficient due to downregulated 5AR activity. Some of these cases almost certainly form a subsection in the corpus of treatment-resistant depression cases. This, for me, is most certainly the key to resolving this issue, and pharmaceuticals are being developed to deal with allopregnanolone issues (i.e. exogenous allo or other neurosteroids). Subsequently, I also believe that there is not much point in specifically finding a "cure" for PFS, since it will be a similar cure to different treatment-resistant instances of depression i.e. fixing a allo deficit.

    I don't believe that it does affect 5AR type 1 production as, like you said, people do still lose their hair, however the effects of shutting the allopregnanolone production can also cause anxiety related issues which will impact upon erectile and libido related issues.

    Anyway, I hope that all makes sense, I'm not a scientist (as you can probably tell) but that's my consensus, based on the reading I've done.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by LetsGo View Post
    There’s a lot to unpack here, and this is a good question.

    First, let’s talk about the 5 alpha-reductase enzymes. There are 3 versions of this enzyme that we know about, and finasteride (and dutasteride) don’t completely shut down all of them. On finasteride you’re still left with 30% of your 5ar. It is true that finasteride permanently destroys 5ar enzymes, and this is one of the major things that guys on PH freak out about. “Omg, it’s destroyed my enzymes permanently!”

    Even under optimal conditions, your individual enzymes don’t last forever. It’s not like you’re born with a certain amount of 5ar enzymes that you keep for life, like it is with your bones, eyes, etc, that can’t regenerate. Your enzymes are like your blood, it’s continuously being destroyed and replaced. (Your red blood cells only live for 30 days, but that doesn’t mean you die of blood loss when you’re two weeks old, because your body has been making more blood in the meantime.)

    Let’s say you have 100 units of 5ar enzymes, and you never took finasteride or anything like that. In 30 days, you will have 50 of those original 5ar enzymes left. In 60 days, 25 will be left. In 90 days, 12 will be left. 120 days, 6 will be left. 150 days, 3 will be left. In 180 days, 1 will be left. In 210 days, 0 will be left. But along the way, your body has been making new 5ar enzymes to replace the ones that are lost, holding it steady at 100 units the entire time. Finasteride knocks this down to 30 units, but after about 24 hours (finasteride has a half life of 5 hours, meaning it’s basically gone in 1 day,) the body starts trying to get back to 100 again, and over the next 6 months it should get back up to 100 again. This is why finasteride is not a one-time injection that works permanently.

    It could be that finasteride somehow causes your body to think 30 units is the proper amount, even after finasteride is gone, but if that was the case then guys with PFS would not lose their hair. Most guys with PFS continue to lose their hair despite their PFS symptoms, which suggests that PFS is not caused by insufficient DHT / 5ar enzymes. Also, plenty of guys with PFS test normal or even elevated for DHT.

    If PFS was just a function of not having enough 5ar enzymes, then it could be cured by injecting bioidentical 5ar enzymes into the blood. I don’t think a bioidentical artificial 5ar enzyme has been created, though. If it did exist, bodybuilders would use it to forcibly convert testosterone into DHT, and it’d also be worth testing as a potential PFS cure, but it doesn’t exist as far as I know.

    In any event, nobody has scientifically proven how PFS works. (The PFS Foundation is trying to raise money to figure that out, but even if that is accomplished that doesn’t mean that a medical cure would be forthcoming any time soon.) Many speculate that somehow the body’s ability to make 5ar is compromised long-term, which is what you’re talking about, but that hasn’t been proven. Others speculate that it affects the quantity and/or functionality of the androgen receptors, or receptors or neurosteroids in the brain, and there are various other theories as well. It could be a combination of different things.

    What I can tell you for sure is that there is far more to recovering from PFS than “increase testosterone” and/or “increase DHT.” It’s just a lot more complicated than that, and many doctors and self-cure seekers have tried diferent combinations of hormone affecting drugs, with no success. Whatever PFS is, no drugs are known to be able to reverse it.

    The herbs that are a major part of the protocol - we don’t know how they work, either. The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) theories about che / life force, are all clearly uncientific bullshit. I’m not saying that TCM is bullshit, far from it, but the explanations of how it works are absolutely bullshit. The explanations were made up by guys thousands of years ago who had zero understanding of science, so they talked about things like “life force” (chi) that have no basis in reality. In fairness, science did not exist back then, so anything that doesn’t have an explanation, people would just make up a religious one, and that’s how it is with TCM and the “chi” explanations and so on. There absolutely is a scientific answer for how all of this works, but figuring that out would cost an enormous amount of money and take many years.

    Anyway, we’re using herbs, which we don’t know how they work, to address a disease that we don’t know how it works. But… it gets results! People get cured! That’s the only thing that matters. That’s the ONLY aspect of this that you should care about. Even if we knew exactly how all of this worked, it wouldn’t change what we have to do.
    I agree 100%. I don’t plan on ever getting to the bottom of what PFS is, I personally don’t even know much about how it all works besides the fact that going on 2 years ago I crashed, found TMO, and simply stuck to it. I wasn’t concerned with how it happened, I just wanted a way out. That’s all I care about. I just honestly didn’t know how the relationship between DHT and test worked, so I thought I’d make a post about it to share what I learned. I’d bet at least someone else on this forum didn’t know either haha.

    In my case at least, I can confidently say there is a STRONG relation between my condition and DHT, whether me being deficient or my body just not being able to create it. That’s the only logical explanation I have for the way I feel on pro hormones, I can very much feel my condition start to reverse as I run a cycle, although it doesn’t stay like that and the benefits are marginal each time. Every symptom ranging from emotional numbness, low libido/erection quality and brain fog all start to flicker like mad once I start a cycle. Absolutely no other product or supplement, besides kinda vitamin B has made me feel anything near normal. After living life nearly with dementia for a year and a half, then all the sudden being able to think clearly for a small amount of time is a HUGE difference, so in my case at least, I know DHT and hormones is a big factor.

    I also think it lies in my gut, and neurosteroids and their receptors. Just based off certain foods causing my brain fog to worsen, I believe it’s leaky gut or inflammation somewhere. I can’t put my finger on why I believe neurosteroids have an impact, it just makes sense to me as to why it would matter.

    Thanks for the information bro. Definitely helped me get a better idea of how this all works. And I agree with you, the big picture is much larger than testosterone.

    Edit: I also stopped losing my hair during PFS. Halted completely. I started shedding again after my last cycle and for a minute there thought I was about to lose it all, but I feel like it may have halted again. Obviously I can’t confidently claim that as fact, but it’s just something I noticed as of late. It was out of nowhere and with a vengeance also.
    Last edited by Turnover25; 01-15-2021 at 09:42 PM.

  5. #5
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    I believe the term PFS describes nothing more than some kind of neuroendocrine disruption, which can lead to all kinds of symptoms.

    I don't think it's specifically linked to 5AR, DHT or ALLO. People get it from SSRI's, anti-androgenic herbs, Minox, topical creams, even crash diets. Some get it overnight, others develop it slowly. Sometimes serum hormone levels are out of whack, sometimes they're not. It doesn't really matter. We're all the same AND different. That's why no single treatment that cured one sufferer, can be replicated in another... except when we try to slowly heal the body holistically. It covers all bases.

  6. #6
    Established Member Feedback Score 0 xxaleksi's Avatar
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    The role of DHT is huge in my case personally as well. I say that simply because of how dramatically I've improved during and after each DHT cycle.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LetsGo View Post
    .
    Let’s say you have 100 units of 5ar enzymes, and you never took finasteride or anything like that. In 30 days, you will have 50 of those original 5ar enzymes left. In 60 days, 25 will be left. In 90 days, 12 will be left. 120 days, 6 will be left. 150 days, 3 will be left. In 180 days, 1 will be left. In 210 days, 0 will be left. But along the way, your body has been making new 5ar enzymes to replace the ones that are lost, holding it steady at 100 units the entire time. Finasteride knocks this down to 30 units, but after about 24 hours (finasteride has a half life of 5 hours, meaning it’s basically gone in 1 day,) the body starts trying to get back to 100 again, and over the next 6 months it should get back up to 100 again. This is why finasteride is not a one-time injection that works permanently.

    It could be that finasteride somehow causes your body to think 30 units is the proper amount, even after finasteride is gone, but if that was the case then guys with PFS would not lose their hair. Most guys with PFS continue to lose their hair despite their PFS symptoms, which suggests that PFS is not caused by insufficient DHT / 5ar enzymes. Also, plenty of guys with PFS test normal or even elevated for DHT.
    Out of couriosity I'd love to hear @Cdsnuts on this. Principaly the new 30% baseline of 5ar after fin.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mineiro-up View Post
    Out of couriosity I'd love to hear @Cdsnuts on this. Principaly the new 30% baseline of 5ar after fin.
    The 30% baseline is while you are on fin. I doubt it remains that low after fin or else PFS guys wouldn’t lose their hair.

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    I deeply agree with you. I think anything synthetic that you put on your body coming exogenously have a strong potential to disrupt it as a complex and connected system. I mean, anything that your body produces on its own and took a whole life to learn how to do it in a balanced way. Some bodies are more capable to deal with this and keep the balance whatever the circumstances, others, for a couple of reasons, are not. PFS, PSSD, PAS, etc are nothing more than a whacked balance that we all should seek again with a "wholistic" approach targeting all our systems bringing them tip-top: cardiovascular, GI tract, adrenals, thyroid, brain and also soul, why not? At least they don't work sepparatedly which would be ever more difficult, but one measure helps with one, two or three same time, its completely synergic and tackling from every side is the best option no doubts.

    Btw, fuck western medicine. What do they no unless NOTHING?

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    Guys.....Of course there is a strong response to DHT when you put it in your system. Your body was STARVED of it, which caused most of the masculine (if not all) issues pfs'ers face. This isn't anything new and shouldn't surprise any of you.

    This is explained here: The Science | Total Male Optimization on one of the very first pages of TMO, along with other reasons 5ar inhibition destroys some men.

    Bottom line, as most of you know, this can, and will be fixed by adhering to the protocol strictly, over time.

    And you guys are right....really, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter how you got to the place your in, you either do what you have to to get out, or stay stuck, for life. Easy choice for me.
    Total Male Optimization "People who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those that are doing it"

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