Hi everyone I want to give you my background story and how I resolved my brain fog which I am not %100 sure was related to Propecia but I am now beginning to think it was.
I was a member of the old yahoo group I will post my username on here at a later time (I don’t recall what it is at the moment). I took Prop in late 99 and discontinued in march of 2000. It hit my libido immediantly upon taking it. I noticed a big decrease in erection size and my libido plummetted and my ejaculation quantity turned to almost zero. I also noticed my anxiety which I already had got significantly worse. For a good year I did nothing and just waited. In 2001 under extreme stress at work (extreme stress because I had no stress tolerance at all anymore) I developed severe brain fog. I had memory, concentration and even slurred speech at times. Finding the cause to these issues became my life’s mission. I was sick I needed to get better. I never linked my brain fog to Propecia. I wondered if it was connected but always thought it was something else causing it. I tried everything under the sun to help after docs couldn’t find a reason. I started Klonopin for anxiety, did mercury chelation and about 10 million other alternative and medical treatments with no success. What finally helped significantly was a dietary change. I cut out carbs and my brain fog got significantly better. I wasn’t cured but it gave me my life back. Over the years even when I cheated on my diet my brain fog was better than it was previously.
Over the years my sexual issues improved as well. My libido went up a bit but was still far from normal. In 2004 I saw Dr Irwin Goldstein and my hormones levels were fine but he stated I had Peyronies disease and this was the reason for some of my erection difficulties and smaller penile size. I was devastated but accepted it. THe years went on and I was put on Paxil to help deal with my anxiety and I continued on the diet and things were ok. My brain fog was still there however and I was still determined to find out what caused it.
Then came last winter. I was worried about the long term side effects of being on Paxil so I started looking for alternatives. I was on a very lose of Paxil at the time and thought I could do without. I began taking a product called 5-htp which is a precursor to serotonin. I didn’t notice anything right away but about 3 weeks into it something absolutely shocking happened. My head completley cleared and even better than that was I could eat anything I wanted and it had no effect whatsoever. My libido sky rocketed at the same time. I couldn’t believe it. It was one of the happiest phases of my entire life. Unfortuantley the 5htp began giving me sides and I had to stop taking it after a month or so but my head was signicantly clearer and didn’t go back to being as foggy anymore. Unfortunatley my libido did tailor off.
It wasn’t until recently that I started thinking about Propecia again and then started questioning if there may be a connection. I always remember folks in the yahoo group talking about their brain fogs but I just thought mine was due to my anxiety or something else since I didn’t have brain fog when i first got off propecia but now I am convinced it was due to the propecia.
I read from many that had quit ssri’s and developed what they call PSSD. A condition which basically kills mens libido’s. Several of these guys are now suffering from very low T levels. I did research and found that serotonin and testosterone are believe to be linked is some strange unknown way. I am wondering if anyone has ever tried 5htp and if so what was your experience.
FJ