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    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

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  1. Chiron

    Stopping DHEA and Diarrhea

    How so?
  2. Chiron

    Stopping DHEA and Diarrhea

    I've used corticosteroids plenty and I know what adrenal crisis feels like from lowering my dose too fast. I don't feel that way at all from stopping DHEA. Diarrhea is the only symptom. DHEA and pregnenolone are also additive, meaning they don't turn off your body's native production, they just...
  3. Chiron

    Stopping DHEA and Diarrhea

    I've been using 25mg DHEA and 50mg pregnenolone daily for years now as I find it really helps my CFS. Not completely, but partially. There are other elements in my daily protocol that keep my float. There's a weird issue though that I have never been able to figure out. I try to take breaks...
  4. Chiron

    Balancing corticosteroid therapy

    I got onto pregnenolone because my research indicated it was the premiere drug for inflammation prior to prednisone's invention in the 1940's. Usually deadly inflammation in the body gets out of control because the adrenal cascade suffers from major cortisol steal, and the body loses its ability...
  5. Chiron

    Balancing corticosteroid therapy

    I'm so weak right now, but I will try to be detailed. Having an IBD (ulcerative colitis) flare. Coming out the other end of it, but it's been a rough go. Got an e. coli infection that took almost a month to properly diagnose (bad healthcare system). It did some real damage to my gut in the mean...
  6. Chiron

    Post-sex exhaustion

    It happens with masturbation though not as intensely. I just assumed it was a hormonal deficiency or something. Actual sex gets me very excited compared to masturbation and I think this is why the PEM is more extreme.
  7. Chiron

    Post-sex exhaustion

    For the first time in years I have a partner and we are engaging in sexual activity. I still have a libido, amazingly, but after I orgasm I am tired for days. Not just a little tired, but very tired. Lots of brain fog, can't think clearly, needing to nap more. It's terrible. Google tells me...
  8. Chiron

    High prolactin

    Vitamin D makes me worse too. I didn't know about the histamine connection. I have leaky gut and digestive disease, so that explains a lot too. Zinc seems to help the rebound of my libido but it does not help the intense CFS caused by orgasm that lasts for days.
  9. Chiron

    Need help understanding iron deficiency

    My auto-immune disease is IBD, so I have a history of blood loss through my colon anyway. I haven't done a fecal occult blood test in a long time, so I'll get that done asap to double check. Some bodybuilding websites say that GI bleeding can happen even in healthy people who are lifting quite...
  10. Chiron

    Need help understanding iron deficiency

    I need some help from people with a biology or medical background to understand the iron deficiency I'm having. My auto-immune is in remission or very close to it. For the first time in years I was finally able to absorb iron from food, so I didn't need to keep getting IVs. This trend lasted...
  11. Chiron

    Inconsistent libido

    @S-VV I checked my hormones... everything is fine except for slightly elevated prolactin. Usually if I orgasm on my own, I'm super tired for a couple of days. So something is off. I take L-tyrosine in the morning and it has been instrumental in getting myself into remission. I don't watch...
  12. Chiron

    Inconsistent libido

    I'm not sure how to frame this, and it's kind of personal... sorry if this is "too much information" but I don't know where else to ask and my doctor is kind of useless. I have sex drive and I have sexual interest. My auto-immune condition is currently in "remission". I go to the gym and can do...
  13. Chiron

    Boron: anti-inflam., helps brain, bones, cal/mag absorption, sex hormones, anti-cancer, raises SOD

    Topical magnesium and epsom salt baths do increase serum magnesium, but it's negligible. I do a daily injection of 3mL of 500mg/mL magnesium sulfate. This gives me 150mg elemental magnesium. The injection hurts and sometimes I have to do it twice a day, but due to malabsorption I don't have...
  14. Chiron

    Mysterious iron issue

    Fatigue from the low iron I guess, that I only recently started to feel. This makes sense... the body is fighting itself (or an incurable invader), so the WBC turnover would be faster. I was neutropenic just a month ago (neutrophil count was 0.9 and normal is at least 1.5). Then I caught a...
  15. Chiron

    Mysterious iron issue

    I wonder what kind of infection it could possibly be. I've had all manner of infectious tests. I am positive for mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP), but a large number of the population have mycos in their body already. In my case, the huge drop in iron would mean that there's a crazy...
  16. Chiron

    Mysterious iron issue

    I am having very frustrating experience with my anemia status, and no doctor can give me real answers. In the summer time, my ferritin was at 48 and my hemoglobin at 105 (10.5) after 2 iron IVs. After 1 month, my hemoglobin was still at 105 and my ferritin was at 3. A month and a half ago my...
  17. Chiron

    B12 injections are the bee's knees... wish I would have tried them 15 years ago

    I've since changed up my diet a lot. I take bee pollen daily, magnesium injections, and I eat organic beef liver once a week. Once I started doing that, my ferritin level shot up from 40 to 70. I'm working under the theory that I had some bio-available copper deficiency, so my body lacked the...
  18. Chiron

    Boron: anti-inflam., helps brain, bones, cal/mag absorption, sex hormones, anti-cancer, raises SOD

    Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, I just wanted to add my input. I recently used 20 Mule Team borax to make the popular borax solution you see online. I added 1 tablespoon of MTB to 1L of distilled water. I then started taking 1/4 teaspoons of that solution daily. For me it caused massive...
  19. Chiron

    Vitamin D in chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Reconciling contraditory literature

    Can you tell me what you're using to achieve a dose of 20,000IU vitamin A? I've always wanted to try vitamin A at higher levels but I'm not really into eating liver, and the amount of cod liver oil you'd have to consume to reach those levels is pretty ridiculous. I'm particularly interested in...
  20. Chiron

    Some questions for those who have been taking vitamin D3

    In the winter I take 5,000-10,000 IU liquid D3 drops daily. Liquid form is the only kind that has ever worked for me. My blood levels remain between 1.15 - 1.25.
  21. Chiron

    B12 injections are the bee's knees... wish I would have tried them 15 years ago

    Methylb12 makes me kind of crazy and after some genetic investigation it's because of poor de-methylation. So I use hydroxob12 only. I've been struggling with iron deficiency anemia for months now, and despite getting iron IVs my hemoglobin has not been rising. Well, they did a B12 test and it...
  22. Chiron

    Vitamin D in chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Reconciling contraditory literature

    Is vitamin D immuno suppressive or immune modulatory? I've always wondered this because sometimes vitamin D supplementation objectively increases my immune activity while at other times it seems to lower it. Also, are we talking synthetic D3, natural D3 from cod liver oil and such, or vitamin...
  23. Chiron

    High prolactin

    Interesting!! I have always had high-normal prolactin in every test. I wonder if I have a tumor.
  24. Chiron

    High prolactin

    The way public health here is, they won't test your T3 and T4 unless your TSH shows abnormal. I went back today to get T3 and T4 specifically tested, but because my TSH was in normal range last time (barely), they only did a T4 test. I don't understand the logic of this, as the T3 value would've...
  25. Chiron

    High prolactin

    I requested a free T3 and free T4 test today from my doctor and will get it done soon. Will post once I have more info!!
  26. Chiron

    High prolactin

    Can't really do greens unless I cook them to death. The fiber causes GI inflammation and bleeding. I think overcooking them also makes the calcium less bioavailable. I've been powdering egg shells and adding them to food. They contain strontium and boron too for bone support. I'm going to ask...
  27. Chiron

    High prolactin

    Prolactin is an important regulator of intestinal calcium transport https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17823618 Another thing I was just thinking of this morning is that... I'm taking DHEA and pregnenolone. Maybe my liver is breaking hormones down slowly, so they linger more. Maybe that's why...
  28. Chiron

    High prolactin

    Thanks again for taking the time to respond to me... I really love this community! Abstaining isn't really a problem for me, it's when it gets long term (1 month or more) that it starts getting unpleasant. I think the other thing is that as I developed auto-immune, as I became weaker and had...
  29. Chiron

    High prolactin

    Yes I've done this before. Longest was 6+ months. It's not impossible, but it is challenging because I have a high libido and celibacy feels like I don't get to enjoy my sexuality very often. But I'm not sure what else to do at this point. I doubt I have a prolactinoma, otherwise the levels...
  30. Chiron

    High prolactin

    Not sure what my T3 is, but I'd love to know. Could low T3 increase prolactin?