CFS hormornal connection women

[undcvr]

More women get CFS than men do and it seems harder for them to come out of it too. Can someone please share some of the theories out there about the hormornal connection?

 

[halcyon]

I seem to recall reading something about women suffering more of a shift to th2 dominance during monthly cycles. I can't seem to find any supporting evidence for this and of course the th1/th2 balance theory is highly simplified and may have no basis in reality.

 

[Ema]

A woman's immune system has to be more easily immunosuppressed in order to facilitate pregnancy. This could play a role. High progesterone levels are also known to be highly immunosuppressive (as in pregnancy).

 

[PDXhausted]

Yes, to echo the others, progesterone is thought to suppress TH1 immunity-- or if that is an obsolete abstraction, it is immunosuppressive in some ways. Years of continuous oral contraceptives (ie daily exogenous estrogen and progesterone) have played a huge role in my disease process.

Estrogen can affect certain pathogens as well. The thing is, hormones play such a ubiquitous role in the body (how vitamins and minerals are used, immune system, interaction with microbiome, etc), there are many pathways in which they can affect a disease process. The problem with medical research is that it doesn't often control for this factor. Women have very dynamic systems.

 

[undcvr]

Wud DIM or Indole 3 Carbon? help with this? It would seem like it is a steroid production thing and along the way it goes astray or goes into other systems? Say if you used a stating to take back the steroids that the pathogens are stealing intracellularly to make their viral coat?

 

[heapsreal]

I think with chronic diseases there is an anabolic/catabolic imbalance going on. Good testosterone levels can help overcome this which is really a male dominated thing. If males are low in T the replacement dosages can help switch the balance to a more anabolic state which improves general recovery growth and repair.

I'm really not sure what the main anabolic hormone is in women? Maybe dhea and small doses of testosterone could help?

anything part of this theory is poor sleep as this drains growth hormone production, so good sleep can improve growth hormone secretion and improve the anabolic ratio.

protein intake plays a role here and to me it seems many women don't eat a lot of protein foods, which intake would need to be higher if in a catabolic state? ?

 

[undcvr]

I was wondering if there are any women out there who have taken or who are on statins and if it indirectly helped their CFS/FM or Lyme

 

[Ema]

Didn't Teitelbaum have a treatment protocol involving statins?

I seem to remember something about how people on statins have pain similar to fibromyalgia due to lack of coQ10 as well.

Ah, yes. Here it is:

http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/c...ng-new-discovery-in-treating-cfs-fibromyalgia

Wonder where this stands now?

It seems like if you already have the low cholesterol and pregnenolone (as I do), you could just skip the statins? I took coQ10 forever though and never noticed any changes.

 

[undcvr]

Yes but that article also says that statins are highly antiviral and work like interferons. There are many analogues that work along the same pathway and do not have the statin side effects.

 

[Ema]

Yes but that article also says that statins are highly antiviral and work like interferons. There are many analogues that work along the same pathway and do not have the statin side effects.

So were you thinking that statins would improve symptoms by another pathway?

 

[undcvr]

idk i was part of a trial that is a blend of plant waxes. They are trying to patent it, so i can't say too much about it. I am feeling the best that I have in all my life that i decided to stay on it even after the trial. From what I understand it is 'statin-like' but there are no side effects and it is non-toxic.