Itookfindanddutast's Story

Welcome to our community. Please fill in the following template as a way of introducing yourself, and helping others to understand your background and situation.

Where are you from (country)?
United Stated

How did you find this forum (Google search – if so, what search terms? Via link from a forum or website – if so, what page? Other?)

What is your current age, height, weight?
26 5’7 160lbs

What specific drug did you use (finasteride, dutasteride, saw palmetto, isotretinoin/Accutane, fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, leuprorelin, etc…)?
Fin and Dutasteride Together

What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?

Started at 1mg and increased to 5mg + 1 capsule of Dutasteride a day

What condition was being treated with the drug?
Hair loss

For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)?
Almost 4 years

Date when you started the drug?

Date when you quit the drug?
October 2021

Age when you quit?
25

How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
Cold turkey

How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects?
Immediately

What side effects did you experience that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?

Libido still not where it used to be

Still a little numbness

Check the boxes that apply. You can save your post first, then interactively check/uncheck the boxes by clicking on them. If your symptoms change, please update your list.

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

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

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

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[x] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears)
[x] Hearing loss
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature

[ ] Other (please explain)

What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?

ALCAR

Tribulus

DIM

If you have pre or post-drug blood tests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug (please post your test results in the “Blood Tests” section and link to them in your post)?

Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience?

No

Tell us your story, in your own words, about your usage and side effects experienced while on/off

To make a long story short i took fin for 3 years. Upped the dose insanely high to 5mg because I thought it stopped working (it didn’t), and started taking Dutasteride with it everyday… I was so anal about my hair that I did this stupid shot.

Had an incredibly terrible crash when I stopped the Dutasteride, so stopped the Fin as well.

Experimented with supplements like DIM and Tribulus which would make me feel normal again, but I would always crash after

Started taking ALCAR and skin got oily again, sleep got better, depression disappeared. Took it everyday for 6 months. Stopped taking it, and the benefits have stuck for about 1.5 months now. Not sure if it got me to this point or if it helped along with time. Maybe it was time by itself. I don’t know

Not cured, but 75-80% better.

Went from waking up every 2 hours to sleeping 7-8 hours every night, maybe waking up once or twice on a bad night but go right back to sleep . Sometimes i don’t wake up at all.

Went from incredibly depressed and suicidal to normal. Still have 1-2 bad days a week but that’s normal has nothing to do with pfs.

Still have some ups and downs! But they come for a day or 2 and then disappear which is a positive sign considering it used to be weeks long of hell!

Went from couldn’t get an erection to waking up with wood sometimes and being able to perform at about 80%.

Still have lines and wrinkles on my hands

Still have some numbness

Still have a big blue veign on my dick lol

Libido still not where it used to be, but improving very slowly, and I can have sex normally as of right now.

Im at the 1 year mark.

Time is likely the biggest factor that helped me feel better but I want to let people know ALL the things I tried even if they had minuscule effect.

I used to get on here and become so depressed thinking recovery is “RARE” because that’s what people on here preach. It’s not true. It’s made me feel so much worse. I would drive myself crazy.

You may be reading this saying “how is he saying he recovered if he still has a few lingering symptoms”.

My answer to this is, when you are so fucked up that you don’t want to live anymore, being able to function normally, think normally, and live a normal life again, is a recovery in my book.

I have hope I will continue to get recover from the lingering symptoms but that’s in gods hands :man_shrugging:.

I may never regain full sensitivity

The wrinkles on my hands and veighn in my dick may not ever go away. But atleast I can live a normal life now. I was destroyed when I crashed with weird symptoms.

My ears would be clogged like I had water in them or something for weeks.

My eyes would spasm/twitch if I would squint or scrunch up my nose. My muscles were mush.

My vision was blurry and delayed almost. It made everything look very “fake” and “dim”

My skin produced ZERO oil.
(I now produce oil but not as much as before still improving slowly)

My face literally would have a burning sensation.

My cheek bones would hurt when I would push on them.

My memory was terrible

My brain fog made me feel like I was 90 years old.

I had a red rash on my cheeks for around 6 months.

In the beginning of my crash, my face would burn after every meal I would eat. Almost like an allergy intolerance.

This syndrome is absolutely bizarre. I’m not an OCD hypochondriac this shit is just crazy.

I would wake up with my heart pounding sometimes, and would wake up 10-15 times a night and struggle to go back to sleep.

I would randomly get a metallic/chemical taste in my mouth occasionally.

I developed wrinkles under my eyes and my skin became grey!! This symptom made me very depressed but thankfully has improved dramatically. Still not 100% where it used to be but night and day difference. I look more like myself again.

I developed wrinkles on my hands, but they have not improved.

My joints started clicking and popping but has never been painful.
(Has improved but still there)

My veins are much more prominent now. I can see blue veins on my chest after I get out the shower and I have a blue vein on my dick.

Funny thing is, the blue vein on my dick appeared before all the other symptoms while I was still taking Dutasteride and I thought nothing of it.

I had no emotions towards my wife. She would cry because she thought I was ruined from this shit, and that I was going to do something stupid like kill myself. She said herself when I was at the worst that it seemed like my personality disappeared.

All these things have resolved in a year. I just want to spread some hope to someone who may be considering killing themselves from this shit. I thought my life was over and was ready to do it. I’m glad I waited because there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I expect to continue to improve considering im only a year in almost exactly. If not, im thankful for the fact I can live a normal life now.

Il talk with anyone that needs it whether it be on the phone or text and can provide proof that im a real person.

I know I’m clearly lucky and there are many people suffering who haven’t improved after decades. I have nothing but empathy for those people because I went to hell with them!! I pray everyone suffering from this shit gets to a place where they can be happy

Self-reporting form

Name of the therapy/substance: Tribulus

Dosage: 3-4 capsules a day

How often you took it: daily

Still using: no

Stopped with no lasting change to initial symptoms [x]

Stopped with persistent change to symptoms [ ]

Duration of use: 1-2 months

Response when you started: Felt 100% better but crashed again when I stopped taking it.

Name of the therapy/substance: ALCAR

Dosage: 4 capsules at the same time every day

How often you took it: once a day daily

Still using: no

Stopped with no lasting change to initial symptoms []

Stopped with persistent change to symptoms [x]

Duration of use: 6 months

Response when you started: Felt much better. Depression disappeared and skin started to produce oil again. Muscles started feeling harder. Overall felt much better

I stopped taking it but the improvements seem to have remained 1.5 months after stopping. I want to clarify though, it is likely time that caused the improvements, but I do not know for sure. The ALCAR may have nudged me in the right direction, but just to clarify again, that is just my speculation.

1 Like

Hi @Itookfinanddutast - welcome to the forum, and I’m glad you’re feeling better!

It seems like you left the “story section” of the post blank. Can you tell us what’s been happening to you?

Just updated it. :slightly_smiling_face:

Thank you for telling your story – it helps understand where you’re coming from. Also great to hear that you’re feeling better! I would agree that 80% would pretty much feel like cured to most people. I think pretty much everyone would be happy about that and move on.

I don’t know how you have gotten this impression. Lots of people get side effects from 5-ARIs, and they tend to last long. Most recover quite quickly – usually within 3-6 months. But for some it can take longer, perhaps as long as 18 months. These kinds of recoveries are quite common too. For the people who suffer from side effects multiple years after cessation, that category seems to have far fewer examples of people improving. This is anecdotal, of course, and research is needed if we want to know for sure.

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I think reading so many threads on here made me think it’s was rare to recover because of how many people haven’t gotten better. It scared the absolute shit out of me seeing people say they are still the same after 2-10 years.

I also am someone who was taking Fin & Dut together and taking 5x the dose recommended for Fin which made me think I was doomed.

When I stopped coming here and reading I started feeling better.

The funny thing about all this shit is, it changed my whole life and I don’t mean that in a cliche way.

I went from a pothead who was literally selling 20-30 pounds of weed a month as my way of making a living, to owning two legitimate businesses that make me very good money.

Went from someone who would sleep til noon everyday, to waking up at 7AM every morning because I have businesses to run.

Quit weed completely and haven’t had a drop of alcohol in about 10 months. This disease made me realize that I was going through life on autopilot. I will never take life for granted again. Has made me more humble, and a better person overall.

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Congrats. Anything you did actively to recover besides getting out of the forums?

Also just to show that my face was in fact wrinkling up and dry/grey/lifeless. Here are some before and after pics… My face has started to look like me again and the wrinkles under my eyes disappeared.

pic on the left was 8 months ago. pic that’s on the right is a few days ago.

I’m someone who has always looked young for my age (26) and when I crashed it made me look sickly and aged me overnight… Still have some very slight circles under my eyes, but nowhere close to what they were months ago. Just looks like I stayed up late the night before.

I’m sure it’s clear from the photos as well that my hair doesn’t fall out like it used to, and I still have a full head of hair surprisingly. Ironic how I got what I wanted in a sense, but destroyed myself to do it lol.

Pic -

2 Likes

Other than what I put above, (Tribulus, ALCAR,) not really.

I do have weird habits with food that I didn’t before but who knows if it made any difference at all lol.

I love tomato’s but don’t eat them or peppers/vegetables in the nightshade family after reading what “Chi” has said in one of his recovery posts on here.

Same goes with soy and shit like that.

Soy makes me feel like shit as does tomato sauce on pizzas which is strange and sucks because I love pizza. Now I get no sauce when I order pizza.

One thing that I know is different from a lot of others on here, is that some people report feeling better when they stopped eating carbs and went on a Keto/carnivore diet. I tried this and it made my depression worse.

High Carb diets have been linked to higher levels of testosterone and I noticed I always felt better on a diet that includes carbs with my protein. Did this make me get better? Who knows probably not, it’s all subjective.

It just goes to show how’s all of us are effected differently from this shit. Some people crash terribly on things that increase androgens, and some people feel better on them. I always felt better on them. Tribulus made me feel 100%, but it just didn’t last when I would stop taking it.

Other than that I didn’t take any supplements.

I take vitamin D, but I try to get it from the sun when I can vs a vitamin D pill.

The human body doesn’t get the same effect/synthesis from a pill that it does from the sun.

Always made sure to get at least 7-8 hours of sleep a night.

Always tried to keep masturbation down to a minimum. (Every 3 days or so). Excessive masturbation made me feel like shit for a day or 2 and still does, but it’s becoming less and less noticeable.

Also made sure to not do any drugs or drink alcohol. I used to love smoking weed and now I have no interest in it.

I should also mention I drink A LOT of water, and I only drink smart water which is distilled water with electrolytes. I don’t drink anything else, no soda or juice. I drink about 4 liters daily

I didn’t start doing this when I got pfs, Iv been drinking only water for about 5 years now.

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Can you talk more about your muscle loss? Was it all over the body? How long did it take for her to stop? Did you feel muscle pain? Could you do physical activity?

Me giving a timeline of when it stopped for me would be pointless because this condition is different for everyone.

It normalized for me around 7-8 months in.

I’m sure it was everywhere but I noticed it mostly in my biceps. When I would flex I could literally deflate my muscle and push it down. It was like mush.

Now it’s hard again and I don’t go to the gym.

Also my facial muscles were either weak, and/or had nerve damage.

When I would squint, under my eyes would spasm and twitch. My face felt a little numb as well. That is something that resolved in the last 2 months.

I was still able to work out when I experienced the muscle wastage. I hired a personal trainer when I first crashed and got really strong within about 3 months. My muscles got a little harder but when I stopped going they went back to soft.

I haven’t been to the gym in probably 6 months

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Did you have also anhedonia (inhability to feel pleasure)? Also, did you lose effects from weed in case you used it or alcohol or caffeine?

About emotional flatness, was it like you couldnt feel any emotion, like at all (being it joy, happyness, sadness, anger, nostalgia, loosing goosebumps, etc)?

and personally, what do you think is the cause of those syndromes PFS/PSSD etc, do you think they are the same?

Sorry for many questions and congrats again

No need to apologize!

Never felt any different when getting high or drunk, however when I would drink alcohol and I was still on propecia, I used to notice I could drink way more than normal and wouldn’t feel sick as much.

As far as emotion flatness, I still felt anger and sadness, I would breakdown just thinking about how terrible my condition was and get angry as well. At the same time though I felt “empty” like a shell of myself. That is what I would describe being emotionally flat is.

I was not able to feel happiness or joy. I had no interest in gaming, making music, watching tv, which are things I love to do. I sat in my room and fought to get through the day literally… that was my life. I didnt get back my interest for these things until a few months ago. It took a long time.

I have no idea if PFS is the same as PSSD or the causes of these conditions. All I know is, every friend that i recommended Fin to for there hair loss, stopped taking it because they all had sexual side effects and it was more than 3 friends. When they quit they were fine.

Clearly we are not supposed to halt our DHT production… I started taking Fin through “Keeps”, and they make it seem like it’s a perfectly safe run if the mill prescription drug. That’s not the case. It’s extremely potent and even .2mg of it has a systemic effect. It literally disrupts your endocrine system.

Most people who take it won’t get PFS and when they stop there sides will likely disappear without a crash, but the fact that it can happen at all, is reason enough to take it off the market. This is a life altering syndrome. This has been the hardest experience of my life and it has made me strong as hell.

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Regarding the sleep, did you have a schedule of hours of sleep/waking or just the amount of time being 7-8hrs?

Nope, whatever time I went to sleep I would just make sure to try and get 7-8 hours when I could

Just wanted to update this thread because I am feeling extremely grateful to be alive and happy today with where I am at.

I was so fucked from this syndrome and I am living my life again. I enjoy listening to music and gaming and doing normal shit again.

Those who do improve and get better do not take it for granted. Those who are still suffering I hope you find a place where you can have normalcy and live a normal life.

This was the worst thing I have ever been through mentally and physically. After dealing with this, there is nothing I can’t handle.

4 Likes

no body pain?

happy for u

I have the same symptoms like you. Pls help me!!
I am off dutasteride for about 15month now. But my body is still not producing any oil. Its just disaster. What treatment got your body oil production back?? Its so hard time im going through.

It comes and goes, I still have crashes. I just came out of one and feel better than I ever have thus far.

I can’t speak for everyone so I don’t know what advice to give but give it more time. Get a lot of sun!! Don’t come on here often.

2 Likes

This is the exact same as my improvement story, i’m almost a year off now too. Like you i’m improving over time, there’s ups and downs, a handful of shitty days but an obvious upwards trend with time. Enjoying life more and more by the month and and feeling more like myself. Hang in there king we’re gonna be fine

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