[urano75]

urano75  You are cured, as your treatment helps?


regards , Kima

Kima,
I haven't offered any treatment actually, nor I intend to. Because I'm still learning while working on myself, and there is not a universal answer for everyone here.
I am just sharing some information I've gathered while working on my adrenals/thyroid in the last couple of years in several different ways, hoping it can be useful to someone. I've done some progress in many ways, but not yet come to a complete solution of my health concerns. If you read my posts, you know my story.
I think that if one wants to solve POIS, paradoxically it's better to forget about POIS for awhile and look at all the other unbalanced things, and try to find a pattern. It's likely that while solving all the rest also POIS will go away in many cases.

[Prancer]

Regardless of sex, and just aggravated by sex? Definite yes to all of them = adrenal dysfunction to some degree, and possibly related blood sugar issues.
You might want to take a salivar cortisol/DHEA test just to have a clue. Besides taking temps and blood pressure.
Good luck.

pretty much all the time, but it's aggravated following sex. also pois makes my blood sugar seem a little low sometimes

and thanks for the tips!

[urano75]

Regardless of sex, and just aggravated by sex? Definite yes to all of them = adrenal dysfunction to some degree, and possibly related blood sugar issues.
You might want to take a salivar cortisol/DHEA test just to have a clue. Besides taking temps and blood pressure.
Good luck.

pretty much all the time, but it's aggravated following sex. also pois makes my blood sugar seem a little low sometimes

and thanks for the tips!

yep underactive adrenals (e.g. insufficient cortisol) are often associated to hypoglycemia/reactive hypoglycemia, which will become more evident after sex, overexercising etc... try avoid stimulants and sugar, and consume only moderate amounts of complex carbs, and see if that helps a bit.

[bokonon]

Hello everyone,

I have been following this forum for a number of years, but haven't felt compelled to post anything before. I simply haven't had anything to contribute. I have, however, suffered from the same symptoms described here over and over again, i.e. flu-like symptoms, lethargy, brainfog, terrible mood etc, after o-ing for at least 7-8 years. Like many of you, I've been getting increasingly frustrated over not being able to find help anywhere. I have made several attempts at adressing these issues through the public health system in my native Sweden, to no avail. The same goes for all I've read here on this forum and elsewhere on the internet.

Anyway, the important point I wish to make today is that I've suffered from several other health issues during these years that seem to have gone hand in hand with POIS, i.e. have become increasingly bad at the same rate. My primary health problem is psoriasis. I've also had problems with inflammations in different parts of my body (jaws, knees, shoulders), migraines and mental issues like depression (the list is much longer but perhaps beside the point). Since going gluten (and lactose) free  a week ago, however, almost all of my health issues have improved dramatically. I can't stress enough what a massive improvement I have experienced after only one week (!) on a gluten and lactose free diet. True to the Nordic stereotype I rarely blurt out words like "miracle" but really can't help myself at the moment. It's been a miracle!

So what does this have to do with POIS? Well, I suspect that perhaps even my POIS has improved. The problem is that there is really no way for me to experiment with O-ing right now since I have a very busy schedule the next few weeks and can't possibly allow them to be destroyed by POIS symptoms if my theory turns out to be false.

So my question to all of you is: has anyone else tried going gluten and lactose free and did that affect your POIS symptoms?

I apologize if this topic has already been covered on this forum. Even though I try to stay updated I could easily have missed it. If so, perhaps someone could recap what's been said or point me in the right direction. If not, I will follow up this post with some (amateur) theories on why gluten sensitivity might be a (or the) cause of our problems.

Cheers

[Vincent M]

So my question to all of you is: has anyone else tried going gluten and lactose free and did that affect your POIS symptoms?

If I remember correctly I think the majority of our members who've tried going gluten free have noticed some small improvement. Some have noticed large improvements in pois symptoms while some had no improvement. I know a few noticed a small improvement from avoiding lactose, but I'm not sure other than that.

In my case I get a barely noticeable relief in pois symptoms if I avoid gluten for a week or so, but when I've tried avoiding lactose it made no difference in my condition.

You might get a better response at our main forum at poiscenter, where you could create a thread for this topic.

[B_Daniel]

Regardless of sex, and just aggravated by sex? Definite yes to all of them = adrenal dysfunction to some degree, and possibly related blood sugar issues.
You might want to take a salivar cortisol/DHEA test just to have a clue. Besides taking temps and blood pressure.
Good luck.

pretty much all the time, but it's aggravated following sex. also pois makes my blood sugar seem a little low sometimes

and thanks for the tips!

yep underactive adrenals (e.g. insufficient cortisol) are often associated to hypoglycemia/reactive hypoglycemia, which will become more evident after sex, overexercising etc... try avoid stimulants and sugar, and consume only moderate amounts of complex carbs, and see if that helps a bit.

One thing that's been really helping my adrenal fatigue/ blood sugar issues is to eat a balanced meal, fats and proteins being especially important, whenever I get that weak and hungry feeling.  We all know the feeling of our bodies going weak with hunger, and what I've noticed is that if I don't eat within the hour, my body completely shuts down.  While this practice of mine doesn't make my good days great, it has significantly helped me reduce the bad days. 

Eating heavy meals makes me shut down too, but I've recently realized that it was never the food that was the enemy.... the enemy was not eating often enough.  If you get really hungry and then eat a big meal, you're going to crash really hard.  However, the problem wasn't eating too much, it was waiting too long to eat.   

[B_Daniel]

I think that if one wants to solve POIS, paradoxically it's better to forget about POIS for awhile and look at all the other unbalanced things, and try to find a pattern. It's likely that while solving all the rest also POIS will go away in many cases.

I really like that point.  Searching for the silver bullet has wasted years of my time and tons of money.  But improving my health one step at a time has added up.  Some, like questforlife, have added up small improvements to feeling 95% better. 

If you think about POIS as Urano does in the line above, then there was no point in "trying" the red yeast rice pills and the CoQ10 and all the other things that I purchased wanting to "give it a shot". 

[urano75]

So my question to all of you is: has anyone else tried going gluten and lactose free and did that affect your POIS symptoms?

Bokonon,
I've been gluten free for more than 1 year and dairy free for 6 months, with no real evident improvements and some stress. I still try to limit gluten and prefer goat dairy. There's a lot of fuss around about gluten and A-Casein to be detrimental to gut health and trigger autoimmunity and inflammation.

But then, you suffer autoimmune conditions (psoriasis) and have seen a dramatic improvement only 1 week after being gluten-lactose free. Wow! So it's easy for you to find a direction right now. Stay completely gluten and dairy free for at very least 1 month, and see how it goes. If you see improvements, the longer you stay clean the better. Then try to reintroduce 1 thing at a time, e.g. goat cheese, then cow dairy, finally gluten, and see how you react to each. If you react bad, step back.

If you confirm gluten/casein sensitiveness or lactose intolerance, likely the status of your gut is the origin of this (possibly leaky gut). You can help yourself with digestive enzymes containing DPP-IV and lactase and see if they work when you are exposed. But you'll have to let your gut the time to get fixed. So staying away from simple sugars and alcohol is also a good idea, and deal with possible yeast infections. Because you won't like to stay gluten/dairy free forever, and possibly food sensitiveness will decrease or disappear after healing the intestine.

If not done yet, also have a test for celiac and hashimoto's antibodies, as well as your thyroid function and adrenals status.
Good luck!

[Kima]

hi guys, my syndrom is getting better after i use protein powder. It really helps, about 96%.. I should have tried it after i read, it was a little bit too late. I luckily coincidentally took a protein powder at the supermarket, drank it after ejaculation, and miracle happened....

What firm Protein?

regards, Kima

[shen mue]

My POIS is not as bad as what others describe but still very annoying. I switched coffee with green tea the other day and two days alter I noticed that my ED is not anywhere near as bad ever since (libido still low, orgasms still weak). Also: I had a green tea right after POIS hit me the other day and my symptoms went down to 40-50% right away. Fenugreek used to help me (accidentally stumbled when looking for ways to improve libido.)

Does fenugreek still help you? I've made a compilation of all of our fenugreek trials at our main forum so I want to add your trial to the rest. I've found that green tea potentiates fenugreek for me.

If possible it'd be helpful if you could provide details like which symptoms it improved most, whether you took it before or after orgasm, how long the trial was, and how many orgasms you had during the period.

I've stopped taking fenugreek for the time being since it didn't seem to do thaaat much and I was annoyed by taking too many pills (fish oil, vit d, vit b, garlic etc.). At the moment I only take fish oil and some vit d but I will reintroduce fenugreek once I get home (there's an unopened can there...). Thanks for the tip with green tea, I will try it. I tried not to care about POIS too much at the time so I didn't pay too much attention. I will be more accurate this time when I take it again and then get back to you.

[shen mue]

"what was your DHEA/DHEAS before supplementing it? Why have you decided you needed it, and have you noticed any improvement from taking it?"

I have no idea what it was beforehand, my testosterone was much lower but the increase could have also been due to me taking fish oil and vit d, eating healthier and avoiding stress. My doc here suggested trying DHEA and see how it impacts my libido. It didn't do a great deal; I think I feel a little bit better with it but don't see any major changes.

"what makes you think you are an overmethylator? Do you benefit from B3, folic acid and B12, and can't tolerate methyl-folate, methyl-B12 or TMG?"

regarding methylation: I really have no clue here and I'm probably wrong. I guess I should get my histamine level checked; considering how niacin impacts me I suspect it's low but that might be wrong...any suggestions on test here?

"have you tested your progesterone, besides estradiol"

nope

"what are your high-tyroid symptoms, besides being unable to gain weight"

my heart is pounding strongly often, frequent bowel movements (no diarrhea), fatigue, weakness, hair loss (might be genetic...)

"your total testo is optimal, it seems high because of the low upper range of your lab. I haven't seen my testo ever increase even on 50mg DHEA"

that's good to hear

"being underweight can also be caused by malabsorption (gut issues, dysbiosis, food sensitivities, yeast ifnections), besides imbalanced metabolism"

I bloat a lot, which is worst during POIS. That could be related to CPPS to a certain extent, but since its much worse after eating I guess its related to some insensitivities. I tried no gluten, low carb, no dairy for a couple of weeks but didn't see any improvements. Actually low carb diets make me very tired...

"Watch your symptoms: do you feel more energetic in the evening rather than when you wake-up? Do you tend to drag yourself for the first part of the day? Do you feel sleepy after eating? Do you have sleep problems? Do you alternate feeling of being cold (which you can't tolerate) to being warm? Then it's probably adrenals."

I do feel ok when I wake up but then often crash a couple of hours later (cortisol? blood sugar?). I don't have sleep problems but I feel very sleepy after eating. I don't have the alternate feeling of being cold and warm either.

"Watch your signs: take your oral temperatures with a non-digital thermometer every day for a week, at least when you wake-up and around 3-4PM (if you can at noon too). If their average fluctuate a lot from day by day, then it's adrenal weakness. If you have PM peaks above 37.1-37.2C, then it's also high thyroid.
Take your blood pressure when you are lying for at least 10 mins (eg at wake-up time before you get up). Then stand up and take it again. If it decreases, it's adrenal weakness. It should ideally slightly increase.
Take your Heart Rate too. If it goes above 90, it is indicative of hyperactive thyroid.
There are several ways to do simple cheap tests before doing expensive labs."

thanks, I'll do that and I guess that answers most of my questions above...

"You want to take some labs. To have a clue of your adrenal status, take a salivar test. Blood cortisol is not very reliable."

will do

"You want to take blood tests. I recently try to stick to these. You probably have already taken most of them:

..."

my vit d was ok last time after quite some time of substantial supplementing. My blood sugar was low at the time of the other tests. My mother has diabetes so I might try to make her lend me one of her testing devices...

When you say blood sugar issues might be associated with weak adrenals, how would that translate into blood sugar levels? low, high, fluctuating?


In any case, thanks very much for the help, I don't have a lot of knowledge on these issues and appreciate any help. And while I try to accumulate information, I don't want to overdo it and thereby increase stress too much...

shen mue

[urano75]

Shen Mue,

yes, don't overdo with investigations and don't get stressed about it. Gather the info, then make up your mind on how to move in health jungle :-)

I'm not aware of any totally reliable blood tests to assess one's methylation status. Homocysteine, and possibly methylmalonic acid, might give a clue. Then there are the genetic testings to determine MTHFR polymorphism, which I've seen discussed here sometimes. I don't really know if testing histamine or glutathione would really shed a light on this... There are people here more expert in methylation than me. I would also be interested to learn if one can actually determine under/over-methylation from labs, directly or indirectly.

Insufficient cortisol production is often correlated to hypoglycemia and sugar drops after meals. Adrenal dysfunction can also mean a mix of low-high cortisol during the day (salivar tests give a clue about it), so you might see a mixed behaviour. Also there are different degrees of adrenal fatigue/dysfunction. But then, there are other factors in play to control blood sugar management, such as insulin production and insulin resistance.
As you have it handy, you might play a bit with a glucometer. Take tests AM fasting, then 30, 60 ,120 mins (or 45 and 90 mins if you want to spare strips and time) after each meal, for 5-7 consecutive days. Take multiple tests each time because I've seen these values fluctuating a lot, then average them out.
Ideally, you do not want blood sugar to go over 140 and under 75-80 after a meal. If it goes over 140 consistently, either you are eating too many carbs, or there is something going on with your insulin (insufficient or resistance). If it goes under 75-80 repeatedly, there might be a reactive hypoglycemia possibly caused by insufficient cortisol. If you can't figure it out this way, you can take a Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) with both sugar and insulin measurements, and watch at their curves.

If you will decide to go for a salivar cortisol/DHEA, stop adrenals-affecting supplementation (DHEA) at least 2 weeks before.

I hope this helps.
Andrea

[fornicationDENIED2]

I know, but I am in remission, zero diarrhea and little pain, that is, until I ejaculate. POIS triggers the diarrhea.

More likely some consequence of orgasm triggers your IBD ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

I just found out that  that pharmacological agonists of 5-hydroxytryptamine2A (5-HT2A)serotonin receptors can block the pro-inflammatory effects of Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF) on smooth muscle vascular cells.5-HT2A receptor is involved in cognition. TNF is supposed to promote inflammatory reactions in Crohns disease. This is interesting because  serotonin appears to be pro-inflammatory, as a number of studies have shown depletion of serotonin within the CNS acts to reduce animal models of inflammation such as adjuvant-induced arthritis. However it suppresses multiple responses to TNF. Testing to find TNF active have failed, but I never had orgasms before testing. My Crohn diagnostic is not 100% accurate because of lack of acces to the small intestine, and gluten free diet helped me more than drugs, but any complex protein is not recommended for any IBD because it can cause issues on a damaged intestinal lining.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2861806/

Another indicator of low serotonin is that orgasms make me VERY hungry, serotonin activates some neurons and melanocortin-4 receptors, or MC4Rs, to curb appetite and at the same time blocks other neurons that normally act to increase appetite. High Acetylcholine seems like the path I should take , it is a serotonin antagonist, in a damaged intestine, I suppose  Acetylcholine binds to receptors in the intestine and induces that dreaded diarrhea, causes brain fog, joint pain, etc. The problem I face are the high costs of testing anything were I live. 

[Vincent M]

I've stopped taking fenugreek for the time being...I will be more accurate this time when I take it again and then get back to you.

Thanks for your response.

[Vincent M]

hi guys, my syndrom is getting better after i use protein powder. It really helps, about 85-95%.. I should have tried it after i read, it was a little bit too late. I luckily coincidentally took a protein powder at the supermarket, drank it after ejaculation, and miracle happened....

answon1, could you give us a list of your exact symptoms? I'm trying to compile our symptom&treatment data on all our members. At this point it seems to me that the most common POIS symptom is cognitive impairment(brain fog), but there have been members with virtually any symptom you could imagine.

[POIS-SUFFERER]

When I am at my worst and falling apart.... I get what smells like Ammonia in the back of my nose.... very slight smell... this is new... but then again my POIS is getting worse as time goes on..... :-(

PS.

[answon1]

Hi Vincent, hi folks,
of course..i will do, sorry i'm too lazy to scroll over the pages in this forum again to collect the symptoms the same i have like you all. So now i'll try directly to describe it as good as i can: Yes, I have like a brain fog, i can't think clearly, its difficult to concentrate, memory loss, its difficult to take informations from my memory while thinking, speaking, connecting, and processing the informations i have in mind,  i can't speak fluently especially for foreign language, difficult to hear (maybe earfog?? ), difficult to social behave, also physically loss of endurance and coordination while taking a sport like jogging etc., leak of motivation for example going outside to the school, university, to socialize, meet many people or someone important. But i don't have symptoms like burning nails, back pain or such a things.

[gondal4]

First i had symptoms like all you guys brain fog,fatigue etc which usuallly lasted on day,then i had jaundice, it remain for 4 months i could not eat anything and got sevely weak lost more than half of my weight.(it was in 2009)
After that the symptoms changed,brain fog was permanent after O my abdomen becomes so weak that i could barely walk and could not travel in car because abdomen becomes so weak it feels like it will break when i walk more than five minutes i cannot.these symptoms remains 4,5 days.
Any idea what causing this?

[shen mue]

newbielink:https://www.aldi-sued.de/de/angebote/angebote-ab-donnerstag-2-mai/detailseite-kw18-do/ps/p/multinorm-power-eiweiss-shake-122portionen1/ [nonactive]

Its not from meat, its from milk, soy, collagen, egg-white..

I'm German too and at the moment looking for a protein shake. Gonna try that too

[shen mue]

Shen Mue,

yes, don't overdo with investigations and don't get stressed about it. Gather the info, then make up your mind on how to move in health jungle :-)

I'm not aware of any totally reliable blood tests to assess one's methylation status. Homocysteine, and possibly methylmalonic acid, might give a clue. Then there are the genetic testings to determine MTHFR polymorphism, which I've seen discussed here sometimes. I don't really know if testing histamine or glutathione would really shed a light on this... There are people here more expert in methylation than me. I would also be interested to learn if one can actually determine under/over-methylation from labs, directly or indirectly.

Insufficient cortisol production is often correlated to hypoglycemia and sugar drops after meals. Adrenal dysfunction can also mean a mix of low-high cortisol during the day (salivar tests give a clue about it), so you might see a mixed behaviour. Also there are different degrees of adrenal fatigue/dysfunction. But then, there are other factors in play to control blood sugar management, such as insulin production and insulin resistance.
As you have it handy, you might play a bit with a glucometer. Take tests AM fasting, then 30, 60 ,120 mins (or 45 and 90 mins if you want to spare strips and time) after each meal, for 5-7 consecutive days. Take multiple tests each time because I've seen these values fluctuating a lot, then average them out.
Ideally, you do not want blood sugar to go over 140 and under 75-80 after a meal. If it goes over 140 consistently, either you are eating too many carbs, or there is something going on with your insulin (insufficient or resistance). If it goes under 75-80 repeatedly, there might be a reactive hypoglycemia possibly caused by insufficient cortisol. If you can't figure it out this way, you can take a Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) with both sugar and insulin measurements, and watch at their curves.

If you will decide to go for a salivar cortisol/DHEA, stop adrenals-affecting supplementation (DHEA) at least 2 weeks before.

I hope this helps.
Andrea

thanks for the help; a lot of those things shouldn't be hard to do...I'll come back to the forum once I have some updates