There has to be some other factors, because not every person with HVZ or HSV will have POIS after an ejaculation, but my view is that the more the immune system is messed up with, the more severe will be your POIS symptoms, if you are already prone to have POIS.
Hey Quantum
I think Nanna did mention that in a Normal case of a dormant herpes the immune system is too weak to combat the virus, thus shingles occur. A POISer's immune system is supposedly stronger, thus the body attacks the virus in the neuron host cell and that's where inflammation occurs.
So perhaps people who had HVZ and HSV do not have POIS because 1- The ejaculation process does not cause a stress trigger reaction from the dormant virus. 2- When Shingles do eventually occur the immune system is too weak to attack the virus head on.
Hi Nas!
thanks for your answer.
I think you are referring to this post by Nanna:
http://poiscenter.com/forums/index.php?topic=2502.msg23362#msg23362 Your comment, and Nanna's post, lead me to make some reflections about how we can qualify the way we refer to the state of the immune system and how it reacts in POIS.
Shingles do usually manifest when someone's immune system is too "weak" to keep it at bay. In immunocompetent subjects, with normal, well balanced immune system, the virus is kept dormant. For me, a weak immune system is really when there is not enough resources, not enough soldiers available for the fight, like when you do not have enough white blood cells in your blood, like in AIDS. The body then become vulnerable to all kind of infections, like in AIDS.
I would not use the term "weak" or "strong" to describe the state of the immune system in POIS, because you can have a strong, healthy immune system, with a well-controlled behavior, and will have neither shingles nor POIS. To my knowledge, blood tests are normal in POIS, neither too much white cells or too low - if not, this would have been reported a while ago by members.
In POIS, my hypothesis is that, rather than a "power" issue, it is rather that some regulatory mechanism is not working properly, and the system is unbalanced. Many people have a very competent and strong immune system, far enough to prevent shingles, and to not have POIS. I still think that there must be something more specific in POIS, there is an immune dysfunction that is not present in normal, well-functioning immune systems, no matter how "strong" they are. As a comparison with a car, I would say that it is not the power of the engine that has to do with crashing into a tree, but a problem with the steering system of the car. The immune system is a very, very complex system, with many different feedback loops, one controlling the other. If there is some dysfunction somewhere in those cascades, problems occur. If the dysfunctions of the immune system leads it to cause unwanted productions of numerous pro-inflammatory immune messengers ( cytokines, histamine, TNF alpha, etc...), you feel ill, because of this uncontrolled inflammatory reaction in your body. Your immune system have taken a bad path, or a bad direction, somewhere along the way, because of a "steering system" issue, and the usual control feedbacks didn't prevent this immune frenzy to occur... and we crash into the POIS wall...
I think he critical part, for defining a clear pathophysiology for POIS, is to explain how ejaculation can lead to trigger an inflammation reaction ( how can ejaculation cause a "steering problem" in the immune system function). Even if we have some hints that DNA viruses could be implicated in POIS, we would still have to figure out what, in ejaculation, triggers the systemic symptoms we see in POIS. It is clear that, out of POIS, most members have no particular symptoms, and are quite healthy if abstaining for long enough and have no NE. But, in those time, those dormant viruses are still present in the body. and the immune system have them in check, in a proper way, since they do not manifest.
Then comes ejaculation, and act on the body, eoither on the immune system or neurological system or hormonal system, in a way that we don't know of, and cause a dysfunction to happen, somewhere in the complex machinery of the immune system.
In Nanna's hypothesis ( see above link to his post), this triggering mechanism would be linked to " a combination of high prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) and low cyclic AMP ". As seen in is diagram, the PGE2 would be the stress trigger that activates the JNK gene, which than promote demethylation of the methyl groups which were keeping the DNA viruses dormant, thus causing a reactivation of the virus, a flare up. Usually, flare ups of DNA viruses are local manifestations, like cold sores of shingles . I am open to this hypothesis by Nanna, but since there is, to my knowledge, no known reactivation of DNA virus leading to systemic symptoms like in POIS, this would be a first in medical science, so it is too early to conclude anything about this.
However, I think all this discussion, here and is Nanna's thread, is very constructive, and the more ideas we exchange, the more dynamic the discussion is, and the more we progress toward a better understanding of POIS. And, for example, if some members get consistent results after some months of antiviral therapy, we will have made some progress. Even if they don't have any results, we would still have made some progress.
So, here is my present contribution to this interesting conversation: first, that it is more a matter of a dysfunction in the control of the immune system that is at play in POIS, than a problem of being too strong or too weak. And, second, that for a DNA virus hypothesis of POIS to become a major step forward compared to a more general hypothesis of a immune dysfunction in POIS, the specific link between ejaculation on one side, leading to an immune dysfunction, that, in turn, leads to a DNA virus reactivation, have to become clearer.
My position is a little bit more conservative. For me, the presence of a chronic viral infection is one of many contributors that will cause those who are prone to POIS to get to the "critical level" needed for POIS to manifest. In this hypothesis, a bad diet with irritating chemicals and too much sugars and too few vitamins, too much emotional stress, not enough exercise, and so on, opportunistic infections, methylation issues, bad SNPs, are all contributing to POIS manifestation, by each increasing overall leve of inflammation in the body. In this hypothesis there is, apart, from these contributing factors, one or more specific, rare factors, that makes someone prone to have POIS. I say "rare factors", because POIS is a rare syndrome, and having a dormant DNA virus infection is not rare, eating too much sugars is endemic in Occidental diet, as well as bad diet, and, to some extent, lack of exercise, and too much stress has now been accepted as the new 'normal" in our modern society. So, if all those contributing factors are present for almost everybody, there must be something more "rare" in order to have POIS.
