Sorry to hear you have regressed some. Don’t get too down though, as I’m sure it’ll pass. From the posts I have read of yours it sounds like you have mostly done excercise and try to be healthy, which I know is a good thing. However, is there more we can do? Have you had your hormonal levels checked?
I was very passive for 6 months just waiting to see how I felt after the pill left my system. While I did feel gradually better over this period of time, it certainly was not the drastic return to normalcy I had expected. So I decided to take a proactive approach and meet this thing head on. Ever since then I started playing around with supplements and visiting doctors, which once again seemed to ignore the fact that I was pretty much flat out telling them that Propecia was the cause of my problems. I clearly have an androgenic hormone imbalance, and adrenal fatigue among others.
Eventually I found a Doctor in Houston that seems to really undesrstand this problem. We did some hormone and nutritional/amino acid testing and don’t have the results back yet, however I am meeting with her in early March to review these and define a more specific course of action.
In the meantime, I did have some bloodwork with me at the time of our first appointment that showed my Testosterone was VERY low and my Estradiol was high. There were certain things that even without the more extensive testing results she was very sure about (just from understanding the pill’s mechanism of action within the body). Basically, what she wants to do is try and get my body to return to it’s normal endogenous production of testosterone. If we are unable to do that she has additional alternatives for the future, with the LAST RESORT being hormone replacement therapy, but she is going to avoid that 100% if it’s at all possible, because it’s lifelong and undesirable. She immediately started me on a mixed cream of Progesterone and Chrysin, the idea behind these was to block my brain from thinking I am producing any testosterone (so that it wants to produce more) and also ensuring this testosterone is not converted into estradiol.
In addition to this she just gave me a good set of multivitamins, a good multi amino acid, and some amino acids that are specifically aimed at brain function (again, we did not yet have the test results, but from her experience, she was willing to bet me money that I was very low in PhosphatidylSerine and some other amino acid). The supplement is called Brain Vitale by ‘Designs for Health’.
I have only been using the cream and supplements for 5 days and am already starting to feel some positive effects. Some positive cognitive as well as sexual results are beginning to show, I am also less fatigued. This may sound silly, but I am just starting to have a return of my normally oily skin. These past five years on propecia and 6 months off, my skin was uncharacteristically dry. I take this to be an outward sign that things are JUST BEGINNING to return to normal.
We can continue to communicate, after I have my appointment in March, but I really have a lot of faith in her understanding of the problem, and in her ability to take corrective measures that are not going to cause further harm to my system. I’m getting the sense I will be substantially recuperated in 1-3 months once my testosterone is back in check, and then there might be some additional fine tuning involved.
