Rid's Log (return to Pre-PFS State and the final stretch)

[Rid]

thanks for copying this over, whoever that was

 

[RebelWithACause]

Exciting to read your progress. Good luck. I am going to add beet juices to my diet.

 

[Rid]

so just as an update to my recent success:

I wanted to wait before posting anything dramatic because, as we know, this illness comes in waves. I've been on a good wave for a while, and I am in the best place I've been since I crashed.

most things are back to normal, but I can tell my body is still very sensitive. I AM BY NO MEANS CURED. I do believe I am out of pfs state, but I believe I am still able to fall back into place quickly. I've said before that I don't believe any of us were truly in a balanced and healthy state before PFS/CFS/PSSD/PAS/whatever. I am out of PFS state, but I am now in just another level of imbalance. not the level of having a completely fucking useless body, but the level of probably what a very mild CFS sufferer would feel. (not trying to discredit CFS, I had the exact symptoms years ago, and PFS is just CFS on steroids but with slightly different imbalances, but the same umbrella disease.) My point is that I am on the right path to being balanced for probably the first time in a decade, but this stuff doesn't undo itself in just 3 months. I thought that my sexual health was nearly back to normal, but I believe it was just the beet juicing that gave me some crazy great blood flow and libido. cyst+hist returned my libido to pretty normal, and probably helped my dick, but a supplemental cure does not exist for this disease. I am continuing to incorporate other holistic methods of balancing myself that is suggested by gbold, as should everyone here. this disease will never be, take this, fix that. you can get lucky and recover naturally if you happen to set your body up for the right cascade, but ultimately, I think most of us will need some real guidance and I've seen the results of what happens when you are diligent with that guidance.

keep up the work, for now, here's a little timeline of my progress and how I'd do it again from the time of crash:

eat paleo, keep blood sugar leveled. keep stress down. DON'T CRASH. every time you crash you are at square one or even worse off. I'm lucky that I'm a programmer and worked from home for a long while. this was a must. do everything you can to not crash. eventually build up enough strength and confidence in body to do fasting. I only did a few days + a month on keto fast mimicking diet and it helped me. there's a lot of research behind keto that can help many of us out, even though it's hard to do. fast mimicking may have made it so my body "basically" went through a month+ of fasting. I probably started making progress consistently around november after my fast.

cycle licorice root 500mg on off for a couple of months sporadically. I just took it when I felt well enough to. this will weaken you, but likely resensitize things and get your cortisol on the right path. if you don't get a somewhat bad reaction to licorice root, you may be oppositely regulated and it may harm you, rule of thumb is it's working if it makes you feel bad (drowsy, light crashing)

continue keeping things steady and incorporate gbolds mineral/amino route, gauge how you feel day to day and if you have been gentle to your body the cascade should continue and you should be able to get things closer and closer to homeostasis.

 

[IHateFin]

wanted to update people on a recent rec from @mattyb - he suggested beet juicing, and it has been working phenomenally.

lots of good in juicing as many of you know- you should all be doing it.

beet juices, coupled with a few other anti inflam ingreds I've been using, have really restored me the last few weeks. beet's increase blood flow, increase NO, great for genital function. I've had a cold penis for months and I always knew no blood = fibrosis, beet juicing, along with arginine I've been taking has helped more than pde5 inhibs for returning a healthy blood supply. every one of you all should be trying this!

I forgot what it was like to feel good and have energy all day. It's pretty amazing.

don't lose hope guys, even though we may not know exactly what causes PFS and keeps us there, we now know enough to get out. I wanna lay down a basic protocol, because people apparently have too much trouble following @gbolduev's advice, so i'll do that in another thread.

hell yeah, bro! even if youre not 100% its this type of traction that makes that remining home stretch that much easier to go through.
i too am not 100% so i might look into the licorice root eventually n i like the beet juicing especially.
how exactly did you take the licorice? if you mentioned it already i may have missed it. i would probs implement like 6 months down the road or so as i too am right in the middle of CDsnuts protocol cycling Randro and herbs.

 

[Rid]

hell yeah, bro! even if youre not 100% its this type of traction that makes that remining home stretch that much easier to go through.
i too am not 100% so i might look into the licorice root eventually n i like the beet juicing especially.
how exactly did you take the licorice? if you mentioned it already i may have missed it. i would probs implement like 6 months down the road or so as i too am right in the middle of CDsnuts protocol cycling Randro and herbs.

I just took it powdered form 500mg, shit tastes delcious. I would eat it with every meal if it didn't mess with you. I'd just go with how I was feeling, take it a few days in a row, then back off a bit when I started getting weaker, continue a few more days down road and repeat. good luck man!

 

[tanedout]

keep stress down. DON'T CRASH. every time you crash you are at square one or even worse off.

I was thinking recently about this, and I think one of the reasons CD's t-boosting herb cycling helps a lot of people at least improve their baseline is that although the increase in testosterone probably doesn't fix anything directly, you are able to handle stress much better when you have higher t-levels and feel more alpha and more confident. When t is low you feel the effects of stress much easier, and are likely to crash more easily. For this reason I'm re-introducing pine pollen as my source of amino's instead of whey (also because whey seems to give me candida type situation - within days of using it I have white at the back of my tongue etc)

 

[Rid]

I was thinking recently about this, and I think one of the reasons CD's t-boosting herb cycling helps a lot of people at least improve their baseline is that although the increase in testosterone probably doesn't fix anything directly, you are able to handle stress much better when you have higher t-levels and feel more alpha and more confident. When t is low you feel the effects of stress much easier, and are likely to crash more easily. For this reason I'm re-introducing pine pollen as my source of amino's instead of whey (also because whey seems to give me candida type situation - within days of using it I have white at the back of my tongue etc)

agreed. I was also surprised to see whey as a rec, it has a lot of history of not actually being very good for you, especially the low quality shit. but gbolds trying to make it a point for our bodies to really absorb what it needs.

 

[Helen]

I was thinking recently about this, and I think one of the reasons CD's t-boosting herb cycling helps a lot of people at least improve their baseline is that although the increase in testosterone probably doesn't fix anything directly, you are able to handle stress much better when you have higher t-levels and feel more alpha and more confident. When t is low you feel the effects of stress much easier, and are likely to crash more easily. For this reason I'm re-introducing pine pollen as my source of amino's instead of whey (also because whey seems to give me candida type situation - within days of using it I have white at the back of my tongue etc)

This protocol is NOT about amino acids. It is about electrolytes. and mainly chloride. I have no idea where you got that this protocol is about whey. YOu can just eat normal meat but put tons of HCL on it. You need to eat tons of spinach plus protein and puts tons of HCL after every meal., plus take electrolytes.
You dont have to take whey. You can just eat normal food protein, with gelatin. Pine pollen kills potassium. Not rec'd. taking whey alone, just give you calcium. Which is not needed on this protocol. and this is why it gives you candida. but taking whey with the whole protocol will not cause any of this,

Pine pollen has hormones in it. taking testoterone is not good. CD nuts protocol increases estrogen from the testosterone side which should not be done. this is why it takes so long and if you quit herbs it might not even work.

It is like being on resveratrol constantly.

You need to increase testosterone with the increase of metabolism. When cortisol and progesterone fall this will increase testosterone and estrogen on its own, but in this case estrogen will be increased in fast metabolism which is correct. instead of increasing estrogen with CD nuts herbs in slow metabolism.

When metabolism rises this forces the body to make more estrogen and use copper.

this is why estrogen plus DHT works as a band aid. or resveratrol with DHT works as a bandaid/ Pinepollen has DHEA, testosterone and lowers potassium. This is why people experience low potassium symptoms on it.


This is why taking pine pollen is like taking testosterone . it does increase DHT and testosterone. But does not improve libido. Since your potassium falls even lower. Same happens on licorice. Licorice increases sodium , this increases dopamine, and some people feel better mentally but metabolism wise it is doing harm.

Dopamine in this case should be improved from methylation by increasing protein by increasing stomach acid which will increase vitamin B12 and folic acid . Not just by increasing already high sodium which simply slows the conversion to dopamine to adrenaline.


This is why when you will be taking amino acids with electrolytes with HCL , this will start up your methylation. And your stress tolerance will be SOLID. along with metabolism

And if you just by pass this stuff, with pine pollen or estrogenic herbs or licorice. Your metabolism will never be good, and the only thing you will get is dopamine boost from extra sodium , but metabolism wise you won't be stable.

 

[Admiral]

You need to increase testosterone with the increase of metabolism. When cortisol and progesterone fall this will increase testosterone and estrogen on its own, but in this case estrogen will be increased in fast metabolism which is correct.

I think here is where there’s a lot of commotion. Lots of sufferers here actually have low prog and low cortisol. So if that’s the whole target of these protocols, how does it help those with low output? Or is is low, but not working/not sensitive enough?

I took hydrocortisone for months (bad mistake, I know) and I didn’t feel a thing.

I think there’s a lot of people wondering about this on here. Any clarification you can give the lot of us?

 

[Helen]

I think here is where there’s a lot of commotion. Lots of sufferers here actually have low prog and low cortisol. So if that’s the whole target of these protocols, how does it help those with low output? Or is is low, but not working/not sensitive enough?

I took hydrocortisone for months (bad mistake, I know) and I didn’t feel a thing.

I think there’s a lot of people wondering about this on here. Any clarification you can give the lot of us?

This protocol is not about low progesterone or high progesterone. If you have low cortisol you have low potassium,

If you have high cortisol you have low chloride. If you have low progesterone with low cortisol , you have low zinc.

All these deficiencies stem from low stomach acid, since stomach acid takes in zinc, iron , protein. calcium .folate, b12


You should read this protocol. and forget what you read before. It will confuse you

If you have low cortisol and low progesterone at teh same time. Means you are low in zinc. When you take this protocol, your zinc will go up on its own, or you can add a little yourself. That is why I said to take a multi

taking cortisol when cortisol is LOW is INSANE. CORTISOL IS low since potassium is low. But in some people, cortisol is high even when potassium is low. And this is what PFS is. If your cortisol is low with low potassium / Be happy.

 

[joekool]

Hey @Rid

You said to know when cortisol is up or down, what are your indications or symptoms? My adrenaline response is one of my last bad symptoms, I think.

Also, bigggggg congrats on all the success. I'm glad you're here posting.

 

[HerrFisch]

taking cortisol when cortisol is LOW is INSANE. CORTISOL IS low since potassium is low. But in some people, cortisol is high even when potassium is low. And this is what PFS is. If your cortisol is low with low potassium / Be happy.

What about low cortisol with high progesterone?

 

[Helen]

What about low cortisol with high progesterone?

that is low potassium. Progesterone is raised cortisol is low.

 

[ruprmurdoch]

This protocol is NOT about amino acids. It is about electrolytes. and mainly chloride. I have no idea where you got that this protocol is about whey. YOu can just eat normal meat but put tons of HCL on it. You need to eat tons of spinach plus protein and puts tons of HCL after every meal., plus take electrolytes.
You dont have to take whey. You can just eat normal food protein, with gelatin. Pine pollen kills potassium. Not rec'd. taking whey alone, just give you calcium. Which is not needed on this protocol. and this is why it gives you candida. but taking whey with the whole protocol will not cause any of this,

Pine pollen has hormones in it. taking testoterone is not good. CD nuts protocol increases estrogen from the testosterone side which should not be done. this is why it takes so long and if you quit herbs it might not even work.

It is like being on resveratrol constantly.

You need to increase testosterone with the increase of metabolism. When cortisol and progesterone fall this will increase testosterone and estrogen on its own, but in this case estrogen will be increased in fast metabolism which is correct. instead of increasing estrogen with CD nuts herbs in slow metabolism.

When metabolism rises this forces the body to make more estrogen and use copper.

this is why estrogen plus DHT works as a band aid. or resveratrol with DHT works as a bandaid/ Pinepollen has DHEA, testosterone and lowers potassium. This is why people experience low potassium symptoms on it.


This is why taking pine pollen is like taking testosterone . it does increase DHT and testosterone. But does not improve libido. Since your potassium falls even lower. Same happens on licorice. Licorice increases sodium , this increases dopamine, and some people feel better mentally but metabolism wise it is doing harm.

Dopamine in this case should be improved from methylation by increasing protein by increasing stomach acid which will increase vitamin B12 and folic acid . Not just by increasing already high sodium which simply slows the conversion to dopamine to adrenaline.


This is why when you will be taking amino acids with electrolytes with HCL , this will start up your methylation. And your stress tolerance will be SOLID. along with metabolism

And if you just by pass this stuff, with pine pollen or estrogenic herbs or licorice. Your metabolism will never be good, and the only thing you will get is dopamine boost from extra sodium , but metabolism wise you won't be stable.

brilliant post, lot of information in affordable form, spasiba bolschoje

 

[Rid]

great post @gbolduev, really makes this protocol and other "band aids" a lot easier to understand. I believe I'm heading towards an area where I might recover naturally eventually, but I can see this is a clear, cut and dry cure for our issues and why all of the "band-aids" we've been taking never actually stick and sometimes leave us worse off. Anyways, the rest of the sup's that I didn't already have (just mag and potas.) are on their way and I'm feeling absolutely amazing with the recent diet/amino rec's. excited for the future of this electrolyte protocol, we will solve pfs this year boys! and I'd imagine cfs/pas/pssd/all this other closely related bullshit will follow.

gbold, have you thought about what you want to call your netflix special about how you brought a horde of desperately damaged men back to life while western medical professionals held their dicks in their hands?

 

[Kiwiii]

This protocol is not about low progesterone or high progesterone. If you have low cortisol you have low potassium,

If you have high cortisol you have low chloride. If you have low progesterone with low cortisol , you have low zinc.

All these deficiencies stem from low stomach acid, since stomach acid takes in zinc, iron , protein. calcium .folate, b12


You should read this protocol. and forget what you read before. It will confuse you

If you have low cortisol and low progesterone at teh same time. Means you are low in zinc. When you take this protocol, your zinc will go up on its own, or you can add a little yourself. That is why I said to take a multi

taking cortisol when cortisol is LOW is INSANE. CORTISOL IS low since potassium is low. But in some people, cortisol is high even when potassium is low. And this is what PFS is. If your cortisol is low with low potassium / Be happy.

And high progesterone with high cortisol ?

 

[Rid]

(copying this post over from private electrolyte thread)

second post-
been on the full protocol going on 3 days now-
been on the diet and aminos side of things for a few weeks now-

couldn't sleep much after first day taking protocol but I strangely wasn't very tired. I'm usually completely wiped if I don't sleep, but I managed to get through the day with only a small nap and felt energized. It's easy to tell when my body is actually accepting the things I put in it, my skin looks great when I keep calories low and stick with protocol foods (mainly veges/spin/eggswhites and almond milk, random stuff here and there) and I feel great.

I feel really good infact. like if my libido wasn't gone I'd say I'm at 100%. that kind of good. erections are good too when I'm in the mood. they just don't really happen spontaneously or in the mornings/night which sucks but hey, I'm happy. the low dose cialis I was using along with other NO boosters (BEET! ARGANINE!) and hist/cyst probably helped the libido feel normal, but I want to naturally reset it, and I'm guessing I had/have to go through a bit of a flatline before my body gets its natural balance back. I notice if I go a few days without jerking it, my erection strength is nearly 100%. another weird thing I've noticed is that I can push a lot of extra blood flow into my penis by standing certain ways and doing certain exercises. definitely gotta keep up with the exercises guys, I still 100% believe post PFS-state (after getting out of PFS state) genital issues are mainly caused fibrosis/pelvic floor/venous leakage issues that can be reversed.

I'm doing well and it feels great to feel normal again, hope you guys improve!

 

[Snow1]

This slu

appreciate it ghost, been following your journey for most of this year after finding you on reddit way back.

I believe low dose is key with lic root, I was taking around 1/4 a tsp, which may have even been a little much to start as it would start to crash me if I wasn't careful the next day. It definitely helped bring on a few crashes at first, but the crashes may be necessary- or at least the shitty feeling that accompanies the use of licorice root- champstar on SS mentions the same feeling before recovery, along with many others. There's also a connection with masturbation, I don't ever take lic root on the same day that I masturbate, really crashes you hard. Otherwise I would take it sporadically- sometimes multiple days in a row, sometimes a couple times a week and sometimes stopping for a couple weeks at a time. I haven't used it in a few weeks now and I feel like it's affects will stay with me. I think I started experimenting with it back in maybe august? I'll have to check my records. It's definitely related to cortisol, as I believe that our cortisol issues are closely related to our "crash," as gbol does, and it explains why we can't tolerate normal stressors like we used to.

I'm not so sure it matters how strict you are with licorice root, but I'd rec using it 1/4 tsp every other day a couple weeks on/off and only blowing a load when you actually get horny. Kinda like you guys have already been doing.

nice work Rid, congrats - this must be an amazing feeling. I’m also doing cdnuts protocal and been doing it for a couple of months now and cycling 21 herbs. Question to you, can you recommend the licorice root you used, was it powder form or in a tincture? I’m keen to give this a go.

 

[Snow1]

Foe

This slu

nice work Rid, congrats - this must be an amazing feeling. I’m also doing cdnuts protocal and been doing it for a couple of months now and cycling 21 herbs. Question to you, can you recommend the licorice root you used, was it powder form or in a tincture? I’m keen to give this a go.

forget this question mate I’ve just finished reading this thread and you have answered it, can you let us know the link to where you bought the powder - want to make sure im
Buying the real thing if I give this a go.

 

[R2PF]

I have been following a CDNuts/gbol protocol for the last ~10 months and have seen great progress in the last few months, especially after experimenting with licorice root. I was one of the first guinea pigs on swolesource to talk about experimenting with lic root a few months ago after a member posted about recovery using it. The combination of Cd's protocol and things that I was already doing that gbold rec'd has definitely returned my body back to a normal homeostasis. Hair loss returned with a vengeance, body odor is back, oily skin, penis temp and everything else is pretty much back to normal. I don't have the same cortisol issues as before, I can live an active lifestyle all day and not crash myself, as long as diet and lifestyle stressors are managed (sleep, routine, etc,) although I'm still babying myself. Before It was hard to go a few hours of normal day without needing to check out and lie down. Happy to report sexual sides are subsiding aswell, but are not 100%, which is why this isn't in the recovery section quite yet.


My libido is returning day by day, especially after using hyst/cyst and following a similar protocol to what has been outlined for us in the zinc finger thread. my EQ is decent, and although I'm on 5mg cialis eod, which is practically nothing, it essentially makes me feel like I'm recovered and removes any mental component of ED.

I believe that most persistent sexual sides, i.e. those who return to pre-pfs but still experience sexual sides, in my case, if not most people's cases, are due to inflammation/scar tissue/venous leakage in our genitals that is caused by our hormonal/blood supply issues (and then there is one part that is mental/emotional, of course.) there's a lot of studies linking ED in young men to this kind of inflammation and it is commonly resolved by increasing blood flow and reducing inflammation to the genitals after identifying damage to the penis, which is why I would rec taking steps to lower overall inflammation and low dose cialis so strongly even though we would preferably avoid pharma. blood supply issues are commonly use it or lose it scenarios. you want as much blood flow as you can get down there, which will also stimulate libido. the longer your dick is out of commission, the more potential damage is going to happen. Anyways, that is for another post.

I'm doing very well and expect to improve more. I've waited to post this to see if I get any other snapbacks or crashes, but I've experimented with eating like shit and stressing out my body and I seem to have the old stress response back where I can feel like a normal human and not some fucking vegetable anymore, at least for the last few months. l appreciate all the work being done here. As everyone knows, this is a holistic issue, it will never be as simple as take this or that, I am using resources from our collective knowledge and it's amazing to see that we can be free of this bullshit even though it's really hard to believe that at times. I believe our recovery is impeded by our modern lifestyles and habits, our emotional/mental issues coming out of this thing, physiological/mineral imbalances and possible sexual atrophy.

I think the only thing preventing me from being completely recovered is inflammation/atrophy that I'm going to get more closely looked at this upcoming month. I don't think this is a permanent issue and there should be some simple fixes for this as far as increasing blood supply and addressing venous leakage, inflammation and/or atrophy. There's a reason why sexual sides are last to resolve, especially in long term cases, and it's definitely linked to damage to the penis/pudendal nerve as other posters/studies have mentioned.

I feel like there's still much work that I can do to improve my overall health, as I don't believe anyone with PFS/PSSD/CFS have been in balance for quite some time, but for now I'm just happy to be back to a pre-pfs state. there is a lot that needs to go into feeling better, but as far as returning our bodies to pre-pfs, I think this forum is on the right path, and I hope to learn more here and improve other underlying imbalances that contributed to this disease state in the first place. just remember, we don't have all the answers yet, only pieces of the puzzle, so do your research and have faith that you will improve.

Feel free to ask any questions or whatever.

Can you please provide a link to the protocol you are referring to? Also looking for any clear protocol for penile fibrosis. Former accutane use. Use adderal today. Just saw Irwin Goldstein. Very disturbing news. Thanks.