I took licorice because I'd heard that it had helped people in the past, and I wanted to see if I could push down aldo so that I could spring K+ up afterwards in an attempt to reduce Progesterone, which I hypothesize is what might be causing me and other PSSD sufferers so many problems.
Something clearly backfired, or maybe I just got unlucky with the exam season and stress. Either way, I was doing well for a bit, then crashed.
@mattyb , I agree with you about most of the levels being on the high end. I guess the only real thing that I’m worried about is FSH/LH being low.
Stimulatory and inhibitory effects of progesterone on FSH secretion by the anterior pituitary.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1616877
"These studies showed that the effect of progesterone administered for periods of 1 to 6 h enhanced the secretion of LH and FSH whereas progesterone administered for periods beyond 12 h inhibited FSH and LH release by dispersed pituitary cells in culture. These results are similar to those observed in vivo after progesterone treatment.”
"These results indicate that the anterior pituitary is a major site of action of progesterone in the release of FSH and that 5 alpha-reduction of progesterone plays an important role in FSH release.”
And then this following study is one that I’ve been intrigued with since this summer too:
Evaluation of endocrine profile and hypothalamic-pituitary-testis axis in selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor-induced male sexual dysfunction.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18626269
"Compared with normal controls, the subjects taking SSRIs had significantly lower serum levels of LH, FSH, and testosterone. In addition, there were significantly decreased LH and FSH responses to gonadotropin-releasing hormone test in groups 1 and 2 compared with normal controls."
Not only did they see less FSH/LH in SSRI patients, but SSRI patients with sexual dysfunction had significantly lower FSH/LH (in response to GnRH) than those with an SSRI and no SD.
That’s what interests me about that.
Profiling of behavioral changes and hippocampal gene expression in mice chronically treated with the SSRI paroxetine.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18629477
"inhibin beta-A showed the highest level of transcriptional change”
If you know much about inhibin, that could point to a possible clue. Inhibin surprises the release of FSH. This is obviously speculative as hell, but it’s possible. It might be the other explanation that I have besides my progesterone theory. If anyone hasn’t read that I’ll link some info on it.
https://hackstasis.com/threads/gbolduevs-pfs-theory.5/page-32
I admit that I don’t know a ton about the expression of steroid receptors. I’m somewhat conversational in “bro science” and such from reading through lifting forums trying to find out more about Prog, but I’m still learning. So I guess I’d ask some (probably stupid) questions: Which receptors? Which cells? How does one do this? Also, what stops my cells from going back to normal (if they’ve been in homeostasis for 3.5 years, why are they gonna want to change)?
@papaya (This is admittedly a bit of a confusing stream of consciousness, but I hope it helps a bit)
Cream of tartar is a fast way to get k+, but honestly, you can get a TON from Bananas and other vegetables - you can get more k+ from a few bananas than a tsp of cream of tartar. Spinach comes to mind. Now that I think of it, I was doing better when I was on spinach, and there are a few PSSD reports of doing better after Vitamin K. Maybe I’ll add in Vitamin K and not the spinach cause at the moment I’m hoping to keep K+ down. You know, it’s amazing how a 18 year old gets heart arrhythmias and a cardiologist don’t even think "hmmm, let’s check his k+ levels” - This happened to me about 3 years ago. This also could be partially genetic, for example, my dad also has heart rhythm problems, but those started when he was older, and he fixed them with k+. Regardless, I rarely ever had them before I took Lexapro. So that’s why I think my k+ was low. Since I boosted K+ like 2 weeks ago, I haven’t had that problem at all (except for once on licorice maybe).
Licorice should lower k+ a lot, so ideally I think you take cream of tartar and Licorice at the same time if you want to fight that.
