Thanks for your message. You seem to know more about the finer details and the science, and I probably shouldn’t have gotten into the whole speculation about how it helps or works, since there are many mysteries around PFS. Nobody has a specific disease model that has been accepted by the scientific community, and until that happens I’m not sure what the actual cause is.
One thing to keep in mind is that the androgen receptor tests that have been done, at Baylor, were penile tests. PFS is a disorder of the brain and the HTPA, and in my opinion the penis is just along for the ride. That’s why guys getting analyses of their dicks end up not finding anything wrong - no nerve damage despite lack of sensitivity, normal receptors, etc.
To do a test on the androgen receptors in the brain would require a tissue sample from the brain, from whatever specific region or regions. Obviously we can’t do that, and I’m not aware of PFS patients’ brains being studied after they die, to check the receptors. I don’t think it’s been done, so I don’t know what the brain receptors are like with PFS.
The levels could be high in the penis and low in the brain - we don’t know. Also, we don’t know what tribulus does exactly, or how it works. Nobody will spend millions on a study for tribulus, because you can’t patent it like a drug, so there’s no funding for the study. If tribulus demethylated the methylated androgen receptors, I don’t think we’d know that based on the existing studies.
I’m not really concerned with the actual scientific causes of PFS, or trying to micro-target one hormone or whatever. I’m only concerned with what works, in the safest and fastest way.
If I thought that PFS was caused by gremlins who live on the moon, and that the CDsnuts protocol will scare off the moon gremlins, it wouldn’t matter. As long as you’re doing the steps to recover, it doesn’t matter if the person’s understanding of PFS or the cure is wrong.
If we learn the true cause and you have something that laser targets that true cause, you could fix it fast. But there could be a constellation of things going on, maybe more than methylated receptors, maybe some factor science has never explored. Until there’s an accepted disease model, we don’t know the true cause and we just try to do the best we can.
My guess is that there’s a complex web of things going on with PFS, and it involves androgen receptors in the brain, in some way. And I also believe that tribulus (Bulgarian aerial portions) helps that in some way.
Apr1989 fully recovered with tribulus, and others made great progress, and the use of tribulus (at some level,) is a common thread among many recoveries, including CDsnuts and the recoveries from this board. I’m not sure if it’s a magic bullet, but it could be an under-used tool.
I’ve noticed major libido and daytime erection gains on a low dose of tribulus, even as I taper off of it. It could be demethylating receptors, replacing methalyated ones with demethylated ones, chasing away moon gremlins, it’s all good.
Tone can sometimes come across weird in text and I haven’t been getting good sleep, so I apologize if any of this came across as confrontational and not conversational. Thanks for taking the time out to comment, and I agree that PH is full of madness. I truly don’t know what causes PFS, just trying something that seems to be helping.
I would not let a doctor take biopsies of my brain to test for the methylation level of my androgen receptors, and I don’t think you’d want me to either. I don’t think there’s any other way for them to test it.
It seems like butyrates are from gut bacteria and eating fiber? I get lots of fiber and still have PFS, so I don’t know if that’s the key. Are there any specific probiotics or prebiotics you’d recommend, and did you make progress with them? I’m always willing to try safe non-pharma solutions