PSSD Forum

gatogordito wrote:

dark_knight wrote:gatogordito, are you still feeling well? I have recently discovered that Zinc/P-5-P/Vitamin K combo works great for me! I guess Zinc played a huge part in my improvement. I also noticed that my results are much better when I combine Zinc with Vitamin K. I am happy to say that I am at 100% improvement so far. I hope my results will stick long term.

That's great to hear!

The past few months have been pretty rough for me and I'm having a hard time figuring out what exactly is going on. I was doing great with 15 mg of zinc, but things started to stagnate and my anhedonia wasn't improving. I tried upping it to 30 mg and after a few days I felt even worse. I stopped taking it and the next day I had a rebound effect where I felt great, much like when I was taking zinc picolinate last year. This lasted for a couple days then I started feeling worse again. So from there I kept lowering the dose and taking it less often. Whenever I lowered the dose, things would improve for about a week, and then I would start to feel worse again. It got to the point where I could only take about 5 mg every few days. But it sucks because I've lost a lot of the benefits from the higher doses of zinc, and from what I can tell my testosterone levels have plummeted.

So now I'm starting to think I may have low copper levels and the zinc is pushing it even lower, causing these bad reactions. When I started zinc over a year ago, I was taking 50 mg of zinc picolinate for nearly 5 months. That's a pretty high dose, especially with zinc picolinate, which I've found to be highly absorbed. I think some of the bad effects I experienced could be explained by low copper:

-I started to experience bad insomnia, where I'd wake up about every 1.5 hour. Sometimes I would wake up with my heart racing. An enzyme called superoxide dimutase (SOD) is low in people with sleep apnea. SOD requires both zinc and copper, so it's possible this is the cause of my insomnia.

-I noticed that I would get depressed and feel stressed after eating a large meal, especially if it was carb heavy. Copper is involved in glucose metabolism, and a deficiency can lead to glucose intolerance (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6363640).

-I may have been mildly anemic. My body temperature has been pretty low (~97.0), I get cold hands and feet, and have pretty bad cold intolerance. Sometimes I'd experience shortness of breath while working out, and have been struggling with cardio. Copper is critical in the conversion of ferrous to ferric iron, which is the form needed for it to be transported into the blood.

I think I may setup an appointment with my doctor this week and get some blood work done. I definitely need to get serum copper, zinc and ceruloplasmin levels checked. Maybe iron levels too.

I've got to get this fixed. It sucks knowing how good it is to feel 100% again, but then having that taken away again. I don't know if vitamin K will help prevent the issue I'm having, but it wouldn't hurt to try! I just hope you don't run into the same issue as me.

Kael wrote: ↑Thu May 15, 2025 11:47 am How are you doing now ?