in the beginning of my health journey i had strong symptoms of low thyroid. after 8 years i consulted dr.herthoge who is known as one of the best people when it comes to hormones.
the labs showed too much female hormones (im male) in the blood, low aldosterone, cortisol was ok (but it was supplementing it already) and several things that were on/off. i basically went there because i lost muscle tone, muscle strength and my skin is flabby and even if i do workouts i have no lasting effects it wastes away. im very thin and underweight.
he put me on growth hormone and several other hormones. i had some effect from the growth hormone. so after all these months of cortisol, thyroid hormones, growth hormone and other stuff nothing has changes. in fact its worse than before. my muscles are worse. my weight is worse.
only thing thats better is i look younger/healthier but everything else sucks. not so speak of the libido. the female hormone blockers work for a few hours. i get a morning wood again but the next day: its gone.
i guess the infections throw all hormones out of balance. i have lyme/cpn in the blood but i suspected the hormone therapy would help me a ton but it did not. maybe i overlooked a coinfection or something else ?!
im a bit frustrated right now. i know i was posting here that i felt it was useless when i started and some people motivated me to hang in. but it didnt change after month. this is all pretty frustrating.
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- What specific measures were taken to address lyme / Cpn, and other TBD (tick-borne disease) while doing the hormone treatment?
Sounds like there was no direct anti-infective treatment at all. Maybe I misread your post.
Do you have a LL (lyme literate) doctor? Have you ever?
Is the doctor who guided your hormone treatment ILADS educate and LL ? Hope so. If not, that could explain a lot.
I don't like to call anything a failure. Maybe one approach did not work but gives you the opportunity to understand why. And it just means you have not yet found the right combination or the right expert to guide your treatment. -
Posted by Indica440 (Member # 39461) on :
i have one doc for hormones, one for the infections. he is not what i would call a llmd, he is more a cpn specialist. i did both treatments at the same time (abx and hormones)
abx seemed to help a bit but right now he wants to change the abx to another combination.
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- The Cpn protocol is just as involved as a lyme protocol. There is a lot of combination & rotation, etc. And, it can cover the same bases as a lyme protocol IF the doctor is mindful to all the various coinfections.
Is your Cpn doctor following the basic structure or ideas of the Stratton / Wheldon protocol detailed here?:
Topic: NATURAL SLEEP & ADRENAL SUPPORT -
Posted by Indica440 (Member # 39461) on :
well it does not make sense that all these hormones do almost nothing. i assume that lyme is blocking the hormone receptors. because i get not better on hormones lately. the hydrocortisone gave me muscle weakness with any dose from 5-40mg. really crushing muscle weakness.... the growth hormone caused sleep problems etc.
the best was the female hormone blocker and the testo gel.
Posted by Pocono Lyme (Member # 5939) on :
Just throwing out some thoughts here.
Antibiotics can interfere with thyroid meds.. If you switch an antibiotic out for another, yet another change in your thyroid levels could occur.
When you said hydrocortisone gave you crushing muscle weakness, that happens when you don't have enough thyroid meds..
I can't find it now but will post if I do find it. It was an exerpt from a medical journal stating that lack of enough thyroid meds is the only known reason for that type of response to hydrocortisone.
Another thought. Have you had a PTH drawn? How is your calcium level? Another misunderstood condition. Check out parathyroid.com
Posted by Indica440 (Member # 39461) on :
hey there.
i know that some antibiotics can interfere with the thryoid meds. i have to say i was on thyroid meds for years but still hat intense fatigue, even on the natural stuff so we strated to treat adrenals. we starteded with methylprednisolone and i wasnt sleeping anymore on this stuff and felt totally awful...
now we tryed hydrocortisone and while that worked better, i got this awful muscle weakness with using it. but i still was on 150 T4 and 5-10T3. when i switched to ERFA thyroid it only got worse and i lost more muscle and weight.
i seem to react to a lot of abx with strong reactions. mostly inflammatory. im always unsure what im chasing to some point because my connection with the hormones is so powerful.
next thing is, i also seem to react to a lot of remedies like zhags coptis, NAC for cpn and other stuff. its all so strange. lyme specialist think i have lyme and thyroid specialists think its all jut my thyroid...
so it would be worth to try the hormones without abx but that would mean i maybe have to waste another 3-6month without abx. could go for natural stuff, but i tryed that in the past and it did almost nothing.
thank you for your attention. i know its complicated and im lookin for some answers.
Posted by betty1939 (Member # 18240) on :
I have been on hormone treatment too, but it doesn't seem to be doing much for me either.
My estrogen levels are still less than most men according to hormone doctor.
In my case, I think it has to do with both the lyme and the antibiotics.