Well, I’ve had the bloods taken. I should get the results early next week, and I’ll post them here as soon as I get them.
Right now I’m feeling worse, symptom-wise, than at any point before. I’m keeping my chin up, but I’m not at all high on energy, and I’m giving it everything I’ve got just to keep up with work and my studies. Still hanging in there, though! I’ll post back when I have more information.
Hey Gimzim,
Saw palmetto is a berry and is comprised of four components, free fatty acids, phytosterols, free fatty alcohols, and monoglycerines. Basically, there is nothing in saw palmetto that one cannot find in other plants. For example, the acai berry is replete with almost the same profile.
I realize that there have been reports on here from guys that have said that saw palmetto has caused their side effects, but you need to make sure you have ruled out every other single possible cause for your side effects, including mental causes. Since you say the side effects did not start until AFTER you stopped the saw palmetto, perhaps there is some mental aspect to this, considering libido is this intangible thing that’s hard to explain with numbers.
Personally, I had side effects while on Propecia but I have recovered and I’ve been taking saw palmetto all this time.
Kirra, Saw Palmetto inhibits DHT production. It could be made of Dr. Robotnik’s mustache, it still has the same effect.
Hey Kirrabeachbum, thanks for the feedback. I do actually agree with you, and I’ve started to come round to this idea myself in the last week. Saw palmetto is, according to every report and the hundreds of thousands of people who take it, a safe product. I still think that’s the case.
My theory right now is that I may have had some kind of problem beforehand. I’ve always had lower libido than most guys, and I’ve actually had occasional problems achieving/maintaining an erection from quite a young age - even just masturbating. I very rarely had spontaneous erections then, and I’ve never had a wet dream in my life.
Now this clearly isn’t normal, but at the time I figured I was still maturing, that things would level out, or that I just ‘naturally’ had lower libido than most people. I figured also that most guys tended to exaggerate how much they thought about sex, and that I was just less dramatic about it than them. That’s not to say I didn’t have sex drive or couldn’t have sex - I did and could - but my impulse to do so was far, far less than most people around me.
The funny thing is, when I was on saw palmetto the opposite occurred. I went from low sex drive to high sex drive within a few weeks. I was waking up with hardons every morning, horny all the time, and could get a spontaneous erection just from holding a girl’s hand. I’d NEVER felt like this before, and naturally I thought it was amazing. I kinda suspected it was the saw palmetto doing it for me, but I didn’t really think about it at the time.
It’s only now I’ve come off that I’ve had problems. And now things are much, much worse than they were before.
Is it psychological? Honestly, I don’t think so. I considered the possibility for a while, but there’s a couple of reasons why I don’t think so now. First of all, for 2 weeks after I started having these problems, I wasn’t worrying about it at all - it didn’t strike me as a problem. I figured my hormones were rebalancing, I’d bounce back, no big deal. I wasn’t stressing at all, and yet they continued. Second of all, I’m not getting nocturnal or morning erections, and regardless of how stressed I might have been, they should physiologically have still been happening - at least some of the time. I’m just not the hypochondriac type of person, and if anything I ignore problems when they should be dealt with. Some people might be able to imagine this stuff, but I really don’t think I’m one of them - and that’s after asking myself this question a lot.
So my thinking right now is that I could have had a hormone problem before, and that it’s only been exacerbated by saw palmetto. On the plus side, if I’d never taken the saw palmetto at all, I probably would never have realized I had this problem, and would’ve gone on thinking it was all “just me” and that there was no problem at all.
Do I have any idea what that problem might be? Admittedly no. But I’ll hopefully know a little more when the bloods come back next week. I’m actually fairly positive about things now, and hopeful that I’ll get through this somehow. That might mean taking drugs, or even TRT, and neither really bothers me anymore. Who knows, even after being on TRT there may be some new treatment 10 years down the line that could help me even more. Whatever happens, I’m staying upbeat and fighting hard. Even if it takes several months, I will recover from this - as I believe all of us can.
Gim
I find it funny that you don’t believe Saw Palmetto can cause your problems when in the same breath you are saying how it affected your libido significantly.
How could that have happened? It only contains free fatty acids, phytosterols, free fatty alcohols, and monoglycerines. Must have been something else…
I’m not saying it didn’t affect it. I’m just saying I don’t think it CAUSED it.
I’d had some problems before, which was clearly unusual. Saw palmetto caused a change, and then afterwards I crashed to worse than I was before, admittedly. At the same time, if I had no problems previously whatsoever, then I think it unlikely the saw palmetto would have made such a difference.
You could think about it like that, but I don’t see why you would when there are other guys going through rough times from taking SP without any problems before hand. I just don’t see why it is so hard to believe for some people.
Well there is a possibility saw palmetto is the sole cause of this for me. I can’t rule it out, and it’ll always remain a possibility. However, since problems from saw palmetto are very rare (even on this forum, there are only 2 or 3); since I wasn’t 100% fine beforehand (unlike the other sufferers from SP and most from fin); and since I was actually feeling better ON saw palmetto than before, my hunch is that I may have had something going on before I even took it.
Again, I emphasize that I can’t be sure on this - that’s just what I think is most likely right now.
Gim
Why not also check for estradiol and dht ? just to see their ratio.
Estradiol is the strongest of all estrogen and estradiol test is not the same
as total estrogen test.
Hi Kemangd, I agree estradiol and DHT would have been useful, and I know total estrogens isn’t ideal. However, in the situation I was in with my doctor, it was hard enough just to get him to do these tests, let alone a number of others. He wanted to send me away with viagra and have me come back in a few weeks.
In my view, if there’s a problem in my hormones it should at least show up in low tesosterone or low free testosterone, or in high prolactin. Since I’m getting these done, if there’s a problem - which I expect there will be - I can simply press for more blood tests to be done while getting referred to an endo also.
Gim
Stay off saw palmetto for a month or two. If you’ve already been off and you’re still having problems, it’s something else.
I’ve been off it for almost two months now, and I’m still having problems. Given the fact that I also had some problems before, I do think it’s probably something else. The blood results should hopefully tell me more!
So you’ve never taken Propecia, Dutasteride, or any other pharmaceuticals at all?
No, not really. I mean, to be completely clear, I did take propecia for one day. I didn’t feel great on it, but it was more the realization that I couldn’t afford to take this in the long term, and that I’d need to be medicated for a long time, which stopped me taking it. After that day, I felt no different to how I did before.
So yeah, it’s basically only saw palmetto that I’ve taken for any length of time.
How many days after you stopped the saw palmetto did you notice something? And was there ANYTHING in you life at that point that could’ve caused this? Honestly, I think it’s normal for guys to go through phases of behing “horny” or have a high libido and then phases where they don’t.
Pretty much day 1 after I stopped it I noticed a drop in energy, less arousal, less morning erections (I was getting ‘semis’ occasionally, but nothing else). I didn’t really think much of it, and assumed things would just get better in a couple of weeks. And then it just carried on, and if anything got worse. I didn’t have anything wrong in my life at this time, and actually things were going pretty well.
I do appreciate the psychological side, but I just don’t feel it can fully explain this. I’ve had, perhaps, 1 or 2 morning erections since this began, and no nocturnals. That can’t just be psychological.
That’s because it’s not. psychology doesn’t control our bodies agenda’s. Psychology also doesn’t cause physical changes to happen to our cocks. These are real physical phenomenon.
kirrabeachbum just can’t accept the fact that people have had negative experiences on this product.yes , so it’s made with natural ingredients but what do you think most pharm drugs came from? penicillin is one example
what could have happened here is mild liver damage , google saw palmetto liver damage.one of the first symptoms is lower sex drive caused by the liver having problems with sex hormone-binding globulin.liver will slow down sex drive before it slows down more important functions like detoxification , fat metabolism etc.
if you still continue to harm your liver after it has ‘turned off’ sex binding globulin then you will experience the other symptoms like digestive disturbances , brain fog , dry mouth , bad breath , skin rash and others i have been battling for around 20 months now.
so,in our situation u think that curing the liver could be a good thing?
Hi Ruffneck, good idea - the liver could well be a problem. I’m not 100% sure, but I think my doctor ordered liver tests along with my other ones. I think he said “we should probably check thyroid and liver as well”, and then wrote those down to be tested, so I MIGHT be getting some liver results - we’ll see. In any case, I should indirectly find out something about SHBG by the levels of my free T.
And Italy, to give you my two cents, I think certainly improving the liver is worth a shot. If at all damaged from medication use, healing the liver will make you feel better. Fortunately the liver, so I’ve heard, is a bit of a ‘magic’ organ. So long as you haven’t completely killed it, it’s able to regenerate very well.
To give everyone a brief update on my situation, I’m beyond the initial shock/horror/denial/despair stage, and I’m moving onto a level where, although I don’t feel great, I think I’ll get through this. I’m considering revising my plans for this summer, where I had been offered a job abroad, and instead am thinking of spending it at home getting some money together and trying to sort out these problems.
I’ve been starting to see this, in a way, as a blessing in disguise. In contrast to many here, I had low libido and some degree of ED before taking anything. Saw palmetto actually made me feel high libido and if anything gave me a problem keeping erections DOWN. When I was on it, I also felt more energized, outgoing, and lively than I had since I was 13 years old. I feel worse now than before, granted, but at least I know now that I CAN feel normal, and that there is a solution there somewhere.
As for the blood tests, I’m in the peculiar situation of wanting them to come back abnormal. I’m sure some of you must have felt this way too. If they’re abnormal I get taken seriously, I have a better shot at getting referred to an endo, and I have a route towards getting some treatment. If they’re fine, I’m still in the dark, may need to do more tests, and may even get turned away by the doc.
I’ve never been so excited about something so ridiculous.