As you may know, there is only a handful of specialists in the whole world who know about POIS and are aware that it is a real health disorder and not something you make up - all other physicians, including super-specialists, will have no clue about what you are talking about. Even if they heard about POIS, all they could know about it is what has been published so far in medical journals, so there is no known cause yet, and only case reports of treatment that have been tried on one or two patients, like anti-inflammatory drugs or so. If you have an appointment with a physician or a specialist that have shown some genuine intention to help you, and you want to show him/her some scientific references, because doctors are more open to published medical articles than to anything that you could say, here are some links to abstracts and articles that you can send to this doctor, or that you can print and bring along with you:
If you were to show only one article to your doctor, and that's maybe all the time he or she will take for this, I strongly suggest Waldinger's last review article (August 2016) on POIS,
Full text :
http://tau.amegroups.com/article/view/11107/11778I suggest this particular one because:
1- it's a full article
2- it's fairly recent
3- it's by Waldinger himself, the one who have put POIS on the medical map in 2002
4- It sums up all the work of Waldinger on POIS
5- Waldinger shares in it its view on POIS as a systemic immune reaction rather than a simple allergy, and also, in the same line, distanced himself from desensitization sperm injections and skin pricks tests.
6- there are references to previous published papers by Waldinger on POIS, at the end
7-it contains the list of the criteria Waldinger have set to diagnose POIS based on the clinical presentation, so your doctor could confirm you have it if he takes the time to read it
8- it's free
The new 2019 review article would also be a good choice ( full article, up to date, and free, at
https://bacandrology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12610-019-0093-7 )
If you want more articles to show your doctors, or want to provide him with a link to all POIS scientific article, go to the POIS paper archive, a lost of all POIS scientific article, that is up-to-date, thanks the constant work of Muon:
https://poiscenter.com/forums/index.php?topic=3127.msg31515#msg31515 Now,
what to expect from your first consultation with a doctor, either a general practitioner or a specialist:
Be aware that it is almost certain that this doctor, at this point in POIS research and mainstream medical knowledge available about POIS, will not know more than you and me about what causes POIS, and that current medical science have not much to offer to POIS sufferers. If you have already tried the few options described in the papers above, like the use of anti-inflammatory drugs , don't expect this doctor to pull a rabbit from his hat and find a treatment for you. The main goal of this appointment will probably be to rule out any other condition.
About the other alternatives of treatment talked about on the forum, like niacin, special diets, antihistamines, and other supplements or other methods ike those described in the POIS Types Chart ( see
http://poiscenter.com/forums/index.php?topic=2338.msg19448#msg19448) , they do not have any recognition up to now in any scientific article, so, literally, they do not exist for any physician, so don't lose your time talking about these, they are seen as "folk remedies", and considered by doctors as useless or even dangerous until proved otherwise, because they have never been mentioned or tested by any doctor in any paper. If a doctor publishes a case report, let's say, about the use of niacin by a POIS sufferer and report a benefit, than relief with niacin will gain the right to "exist", at least, for the medical world. For now, there is merely a mention of the possible use of antihistamine, niacin and a few others, at the end of the new 2017-07 article of Dr Serefoglu, citing Daveman from poiscenter, but it's not tested and recommended following a case study or a test, so very little value for a MD for now.
Be also aware that there is no known test, blood test or other, that can help diagnose POIS, up to now, so apart from the five criteria mentioned in Waldinger latest article (see #7 above), any test will come back normal, the only exception to that is one or two cases of low testosterone, among all known POIS cases. It is ok to do the tests your doctor will suggest, but don't be too much surprised if they show that everything should be normal. That does not mean that you have nothing, that just means that there is no test known yet to diagnose POIS.
