"Therefore, etiology of POIS remains unclear."
"The patient was submitted to specific immunotherapy with transient clinical response and was referred to a psychologist but did not demonstrate clinical improvement of symptoms."
And how are we supposed to trust that this psychologist did the right thing? He could've just bombarded the guy with depression medications and therapy and then write him off as not improved.
Well, it is just a case study, with only one case, so not much to learn from that for us, per se, in the abstract ( would be interesting the read the complete article, though, and see what we can learn from the specific tests done and reported).
However, I find this case report very useful to help the POIS research make a step ahead,, because it will help a bit to broaden the scope of the search for the cause of POIS. Until now, most researchers will do a scientific articles review, and will stumble upon Waldinger articles and all the other articles mentioning "allergy to own semen" as "hypothesis #1", which it is, historically. But even Waldinger, in his 2016 review, have changed his mind about this "hypothesis #1" and had moved from "allergy" to stating that "POIS is an auto-immune disorder" ( see
http://tau.amegroups.com/article/view/11107/11778 , last section before "Summary", at the end). Unfortunately, most researchers, in their review, miss this important change, and still base their tests on hypothesis #1, instead of this new hypothesis #2, or on any other mentioned hypothesis in the literature, like the vagal nerve hypothesis.
So, I am glad that this short case states rather boldly that " Immunological investigation did not confirm the previous hypothesis of a hypersensitivity reaction". It will help further research to let go of the limiting hypothesis that POIS is an allergic reaction to semen ( and this have been going for years, even if the Chinese study have reported false positive, that is, men reacting to prick test to their own semen, but not having POIS !!! Science is slow.... and researchers reviews are not always exhaustive...).
The reported failure of psychological test is positive too, in a sense. This is a way to say that there is, really, a biological, neurological, hormonal or immune cause, and it has to be found. It is not "all in our head" ( even if it can be to some extent, and more in some cases than others), and if we find the physical/physiological aspects of the illness, we will ba able to get some relief for POIS sufferers.
Our upcoming study, the one funded by poiscenter, will clearly put a new hypothesis on the scientific, medical map.
I will be very, very happy when the popular, simplistic articles found in non-scientific webzines, will finally stop to keep alive the old "hypothesis #1", reporting it like if it was a proven fact, that POIS is an allergy to own semen ( it is not a proven fact ! I , for one, am not allergic to my own semen) . That is what hurts POIS research the most, in my opinion ! It will be a positive change when these popular culture articles will provide a list of different hypothesis AND will state that desens is not used anymore, hypothesis #1 is a thing of the past, POIS is not an allergy, and research is now going forward with other hypotheses !!!
( if any freelance webzine writer listening, please go ahead and inspire yourself from my above comments ! )
