Antibodies to Hormones

hi Sara

i wonder if this idea is more supposition or myth than proven fact

we know that a lot of things people say are going on inside lyme patients - or in chronic illness patients in general falls into this category - and its all too easy for something that one person hypothesises to be possibly going on - to be translated into stated fact via a process of Chinese whispers. i.e. what one person offers as a theory might make sense to the next person in the chain and when they relay it to the next person they may do so more as a factual statement

my gut feel is that while auto-immunity in general is certainly common in lyme patients and so any form of auto-immunity is a possibility - including those forms that we do not yet have names for. but that there are also many other mechanisms present that could explain wild hormone fluctuations or hormone imbalance symptoms that are often experienced with lyme and co - the most obvious one being ongoing inflammation - which has a strong tendency to unbalance the delicate feedback mechanisms by which the hormones are kept in the normal range.

many hormone homeostasis mechanisms are known to be swung way out of kilter by the presence of inflammation eg
-thyroid hormone conversion from T4 to T3,
-vitamin D ( its really a hormone) conversion from storage form to active form,
-testosterone conversion into oestradiol etc etc

in slightly more specific terms - i understand, from my reading around the subject, that antibodies normally target proteins - rather than other molecules or other types of substance in the body

most hormones in the human body are proteins - but curiously not the sex hormones - which are classed as steroids - i suspect this makes it a little less likely that the host would develop antibodies to the sex hormones than other molecules in the body.

https://training.seer.cancer.gov/anatomy/endocrine/hormones.html

sorry its not more definitive - and i am not saying it cannot happen - my point is - i would just not take anyone's word for it that this is a thing - unless there are some references available for it

i have seen references for commercially produced anti sex hormone antibodies - these are monoclonal antibodies manufactured in sheep and pigs etc - for use as drugs in humans - presumably for puberty blocking and such like (we live in a crazy world)
so maybe it is possible for such antibodies to develop naturally so

In addition to what Garzie said, another major source of hormone disruption is the upregulation of Cytochrome P450 enzymes, especially CYP3A4. This detoxification system removes many steroid hormones. Triggers for this include bacterial toxins (especially during Herxheimer reactions), certain medications (especially rifampin) and too much vitamin D.

Theoretically, CYP3A4 activity can be inferred from the formation of certain metabolites such as 6β-hydroxycortisol. While this has been done on a research basis, this test is not commonly used in clinical practice.

The effects that I notice from CYP3A4 are salt losing and low blood pressure (low levels of aldosterone and cortisol) and hot flashes and night sweats (low levels of testosterone and estrogen).

Some people think that taking a drug such as clarithromycin that inhibits CYP3A4 might help, but I found that this does not work. CYP3A4 is regulated by the PXR pathway, so when you inhibit the enzyme and toxins build up, the liver just produces more of the CYP3A4 enzyme. My experience with clarithromycin is that while it did seem to reduce the CYP3A4 effects at first, I would get a rebound effect the next day, and this just made my unstable blood pressure worse, so I do not recommend this.

If you can't eliminate the cause (and if the toxins are coming from the bacteria, that's difficult) the only real treatment is to take hormone replacement therapy, eg hydrocortisone.