13 years Propecia user looking to QUIT and avoid a CRASH

[Jdam]

PLEASE FIND MY STORY BELOW THESE QUESTIONS!!!

1. How did you find this forum? Google

2. What is your current age, height, weight?
   40, 1.78, 73kg.

3. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
   yes but not intensively, cycling, walking and swimming

4. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
   No special diet, no restrictions like pretty much everything.

5. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
   As my hairline was receding, runs in the family.

6. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
   13 years

7. How old were you when you started Finasteride?
   27

8. How old were you when you quit?
   I want to quit now as I now clearly notice side effects, I lowered my dose to 1mg./2 days

9. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
   I am hoping members of the forum will help me with the best approach to this for me.

10. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
    Propecia for 12 years and started cutting Proscar in 1/4 mgs since 8 months ago.

11. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
    Propecia 1mg/day for 12 years then Proscar +/- 1.25mg for the past 8 months

12. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
    Looking back I noticed side effects a few months after starting on the medication. But at the time I did not associate these problems with the use of Propecia, there were other more plausible reason for me why I felt bad and sad and suffered from mind fog (death of loved ones, operation etc.) I grew over these side effects after +/- 6-9 months and used Propecia seemingly without for myself noticeable side effects until 6 weeks ago.

13. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
    I am still on Propecia now, I take 1 mg/day
    Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[X] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[X] Erectile Dysfunction
[X] Complete Impotence
[X] Loss of Morning Erections
[X] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[X] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[X] Watery Ejaculate
[X] Reduced Ejaculate
[X] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[?] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[X] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[ ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] Depression / Melancholy

Physical
[X] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[X] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[X] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ ] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature

[ ] Other (please explain)

13 years Propecia user looking to QUIT and avoid CRASH

I want to stop taking this medicine as I am experiencing some severely negative side effects lately.

I started using Propecia appr. 13 year ago. During the first months I suffered some side effects (looking back now at this time) but I never associated them with Propecia. Besides this I had many more likely reasons that I may have felt bad at the time (3 family members died etc.) As I did not associate negative side effects with the little pill I took daily I continued using it. The side effects went away and I used the medication with out any (noticeable) problem for my self for many many years (and yes it worked great for my hair).

Appr. eight months ago I started using 1/4th of Proscar daily, just for economic reasons. I wish a never did but at the time I thought why not, so much cheaper, same stuff etc. I now almost suddenly suffer from negative side effects, Erectile Dysfunction, watery semen if I can even get that far, low libido etc, see the list above.

Obviously only after running into problems and searching the internet I now want to get of this medicine but in a safe way of course!!

I am scared of the Post Testosterone Crash that members speak about and I would like to know from experienced members if the schedule I plan on following is safe to get off the medication with the highest probability of avoiding a crash and get an idea how likely it is that the sexual effects that I mentioned above and before will go away?

My plan:

1. I switched back to the original 1 mg Propecia, so no cutting pills anymore, I get a real 1 mg now, not 1.25/1.35/1.40 or whatever if you cut yourself.

2. I plan on using time spacing. So right now I use 1 mg. every other day (EOD) I plan on doing that for about two weeks.

3. After two weeks I go to 1 mg. every third day (E3D) I plan on doing this for 1 month.

4. E4D for 1 month.

5. E5D for 1 month.

6. etc.

until I am off the medicine.

I have a few questions I like to post related to myself and Propecia in general:

1 - Does a schedule like this make sense? What would be a better schedule/tactic in your opinion?
2 - Is a crash more likely the longer you used Propecia?
3 - What % of users suffer from a crash approximately?
4 - How long does it take before sexual side effects go away? If they do?
5 - What is the half-life time of Finasteride/ Propecia and all its ingredients?
6 - What can I do to increase the chances of success of this strategy?

Any information is helpful. If you have questions please let me know as well!!

Best, Jdam

[never_again]

I don’t think taking the medication on more rare intervals help to avoid crash. I used it more infrequently in the end, but crashed twice in October 2013.

I think the crash is caused by suddenly elevated cortisol, so anything you can do to prevent excess cortisol is beneficial.

If I were you, I would try to control the crash by drinking green tea, low level exercise (walking, cycling) and avoiding all sexual stimulation and fast carbohydrates. During my first crash I did not eat anything for 2 days. After 2 days of fasting I felt fine, but the crash symptoms came back even harder after I had a big lunch.

Good luck with the recovery, and please report in case you managed to avoid the crash too.

Also the following advice by gefinauser might help:

*Try to eat healthier foods now. Means way more vegetables (mostly cooked but some raw, watch if this causes reaction), fruits, berries, good protein intake in case of working out and omega 3’s like fish oil. I know I’m being lacking with the recommendations but in general avoid canned preserved vegetable oil food, prefer whole foods.

*Do not masturbate. Really. You ain’t gonna lose it for not using it for awhile, it’s gonna take quite a while before any changes occus. I think I know this stuff pretty well/predictably. You can try getting into sex if you want but try to avoid porn and masturbation (or other sexual imaginery).

*When you do see improvement in sexuality and feel the urges again to PMO… hold out because VERY often dudes here relapse and have several masturbations in row, resulting into crash. Think that you are just wasting your energy on it that could be well spent on other activities and recovering. There is a whole lot of studies about effects of PMO (Your brain on porn - website) and I think it’s safe to say about mb experiences in lot of us that it doesn’t help and makes us crash or induce depression. In my experience, when I feel better sexually (by avoiding PMO) and have clearer cognition as a result, women ironically sudendly pay attention to me (it’s not in my mind, i get cohesive results with this).

*You could keep a look on what foods cause you a reaction now, if anything does. By reaction it could be brainfog, listnessness/apathy, hypoglycemic swings, fatigue, depression, etc. If grains or milk or eggs cause you an reaction, try dropping them out for good and see how much better you fare. Add them back after months to see if you still keep having a reaction.

*Vitamin D helps. Try to stay in the sun if you can besides this.

*get plenty of sleep and try to sleep from 10pm to 6:30/8:00 am, whatever seems to suit you the best.

*Do NOT stress or become fatalistic over this current state of affairs, your stress response might be shot to hell for awhile now. In general, avoid stress and focus on good stress control.

*Work out a positive mind and believe in yourself and that things will work out in the end (this sounds bull but enough recovered people have had this part of their lifestyle that it can’t be really ignored).

*Start hitting the gym BUT be careful! Light to moderate Anabolic (mass building) training with good flexing and right foods to induce growth and to avoid big stress response to working out.

That’s it i think. The key here is not to obsess or stress over this and become healthier and more conscious in general, to support natural recovery. You have all the time in the world to explore recovery protocols and other options when you are totally sure that your recovery flatlines/your possible PFS is stable.
You’ll see in the following months if you improve. Remember to be lax over this tho: it’s common to follow a Zig-Zag pattern (Improvement that might even seem like recovery, crash again, improvement, crash, etc) so you never know - it’s more sensible to let things run their course. Usually this zig-zag pattern slowly improves (in a sense that crashes become shorter, improvements start from a new better flatline/zero point) which also means that depressin’ over the issues is pointless.