Re: Castration trial on Post anastrazole syndrome
u/drwillpowers
r/DrWillPowers2026-08-05T22:38:08Z
Dr Will Powers’ own statements and theorizing
Mentions treatments or doses — not guidance
Summary (paraphrased)
In the post-anastrozole castration-trial thread, Powers lays out his developing excess-side theory: after the drug, susceptible people go through a crash phase of severe anxiety, paranoia and panic, which over months remodels into a different deep depression — not sadness but an absence, a void, anhedonia: the reported dissociation between knowing one loves one's children and feeling nothing in moments that once moved them. He is exploring feedback-loop mechanisms — e.g., held in place by THDOC or other neurosteroid excess — that would survive even castration, since the shared androgen/neurosteroid metabolic pathway should in theory have been clearable by castration but wasn't in the first patient. He explicitly frames this as early and underdeveloped, contra the traditional neurosteroid-deficit dogma — which he agrees is experimentally proven for the immediate post-drug crash — and defers to Melcangi's decades of published work over his own unproven theorizing.
Key points (paraphrased)
- Two-phase phenomenology: panic crash remodeling over months into an anhedonic void (not sadness).
- Feedback-loop hypothesis: THDOC or other neurosteroid excess holding the state in place despite castration.
- Contra the deficit dogma for the chronic state, while accepting deficit for the immediate crash.
- Explicitly early/underdeveloped; deference to Melcangi's published experimental findings.
- Tied to the relugolix/castration trial context (anastrozole-triggered case).
Why it’s in the corpus
The key document of the deficiency→excess reversal — the theoretical pivot the whole tranche-2 curation tracks. Tied directly to the relugolix trial context and stated with unusual epistemic humility.
Context — the post Powers was replying toVerbatim third-party text, shown for context only — not Powers’ statement. Usernames removed.ShowHide
Powers' comment replies to [username removed], who asked about anhedonia and cognitive symptoms persisting despite castration and whether NMDA-antagonist-type treatments are being trialed, in the "Castration trial on Post anastrazole syndrome" thread ([username removed]'s relugolix self-trial).
(Parent context recovered from the r.genit.al mirror on 2026-10-09; Powers' comment text itself is from John's user-provided export.)
Some fields on this page come from the release’s Markdown edition, which carries text the JSON edition omits.
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