I guess that I am looking for some hope here, so I just wanted to ask whether anyone has found that they started feeling significantly better after the 2-3 year mark? when I used to browse through the forum a lot I recall seeing mentions of 2-3 years being when some regulars started feeling a whole lot better. Not necessarily sexually, but with side effects overall.
I donāt know. However, I doubt it. Everybody has taken Finasteride for a different period of time and everybody reacts differently to the medication.
I can only speak for myself. Unfortunately, I am suffering for approx. 8 years. Nothing changed for my. I donāt even have better or worse weeks/months (except for my mental state - somtimes I am feeling better, sometimes worse).
I would also very much like to know the answer to thisā¦ Everyone here seems to think that there is absolutely no cure, no recovery, and no hope - but OTOH people are always saying that we should keep our hopes up, and that some man do recover. There are also rumors of men that have indeed recovered. Even the receptionist at the urologist that I visited today (I actually visited the receptionist - not the doctor) said that some men recover.
It may be that Iām in denial, but I really think that we should try to get our hands on some statistics regarding this. There must be a way to get these figures either from Merck or from the members of this forum.
Iām a software engineer and Iām willing to put my money (or my rather my time) where my mouth is and put together a survey for members. With some fancy statistics to account for the possible bias - we should be able to get to some approximate figures.
I will need a good statistician for this thoughā¦ Statistics are not my forte at this timeā¦
You have to remember that this forum has a small number of the very worst affected men. We will never know about many of the users that registered here and never came back, I am sure there have been other natural recoveries. Although, I think itās fair to say that a large percentage of the users inactive are guys that recovered within 1-3 months.
I think that if your past the year mark like myself, you just have to hope to god that there is something in store for you fairly soon. I have had 3-4 brief recoveries, and the best one yet was very recently - at least I know that my body CAN go back to normal, itās just having it stay that way 
This whole mess is just so confusing. I donāt even want to get involved in theories and the possible science behind it because itās all too complicated and so much information is contradictory.
I am interested to see how many of us have experienced even temporary recoveries, and I am sure others are too so I thought I would make a poll.
I have been off the drug for a year and 3 months and have experienced about 4 episodes where I thought I had escaped from all of this so to speak. In detail, this was the return of my past sexual capabilities/ past high sex drive, along with episodes of sleep lasting more than 4 hours, a general sense of male well being and no anxiety depression.
Feel free to discussā¦
We should be able to statistically adjust for at least some of this. We can send a survey to all members and see how many answer, and what types of recoveries they had, if any. It is likely that people that are already inactive in the forum will have a lower incentive to answer - but this will be reflected in the statistics and we can adjust for it.
If you are implying that your chances are lower than otherās, then this is just a speculation as any other. We donāt know this.
This is the beauty of statistics: It wonāt explain anything but it does give you numbers. There is no āscienceā to understand - we will just get some numbers and have a better idea about our chances.
Iām in this camp too. I feel very grateful for everybody here who is able to take the time and effort to make sense of the puzzle.
Iād appreciate to see some cursory statistics as well. The side effects that people report in their āmember storiesā section rarely corresponds with their current condition.
I definitely have improved in the last 4 years since I have this problem. Virtually no improvement in the first 3 years (actually, messing around with androgens even made me much worse), but since about a year things started to move in the right direction. Specially the last 2 months have been good to me in all areas. So there seems to be hope, specially if you donāt mess around with hormones too much and let your body sort this out by itself (having said this, reasonable androgen levels may be beneficial). However, I donāt feel a recovery thread is warranted yet. My main problem these days is that raising androgen levels is still very problematic for me. I can have a rock solid erection lately, albeit with low sensitivity. If I orgasm (thereby raising androgens, specially if I do it more than once), I typically will have problems in all areas for many days to come. Nevertheless, this hypersensitivity to androgens has gotten better too over time, and I hope it will keep on normalizing. Also, make sure you get enough quality sleep, eat healthy and try to avoid stress. Just commons sense things I suppose.
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That gives me a lot of hope Awor. I am fiddling with thyroid and cortisol hormones right now but after this I am not wasting anymore money on fancy supplements or medicines.
High quality fish/ krill oil, magnesium, probiotics and zinc - and trying to get on with my life as best as I can.
My sleep did normalize very well for a period but over the last 2 months it has gone to constant waking up again. I would love to try GHB to get deep restful sleep but itās very hard to get.
I think Mew should add few more fields in registration page like
Telephone number
alternate telephone ( father , mother etc)
alternate email contact (father, mother,any body he trusts etc)
They should be optional as some people many not like to give these detail , nevertheless we will have some people with real contacts. If it had happened some years back , we would be still in contact with them and would know how they are doing now.
itās good to hear that some of you feel better sometimes for a while. Unfortunately, for me the I have never had any improvement in my situation for the last 8 years. I think I have been hit very hard by the drug.
awor,
you said, that you are feeling much better since one year, especially since two months. Have you taken any meds/supps in order to get to this improved state? Or have you just recovered naturally. Can you tell me how old you are? I am 31 and have problems since I am 23 years old.
One of the things that scares me most is the lack of penile sensitivity. I do not feel my penis (in any situation - in everyday live, when trying to masturbating or when trying to have sex).
I only do low dose TRT (70mg/every 2 weeks) - this dose I found by feeling and not through blood tests. Besides that, I think that my IV Procaine therapy helped, but I canāt say so for sure. Otherwise, I have not done anything else lately*. I avoid orgasm as much as I can stand it (because it raises androgens), and avoid heavy excercise for the same reason. Try to avoid stress and get enough sleep. Also, quitting AD medication about 6 months ago helped improve the situation in all areas. Penile sensitivity is still a major problem. Libido is on and off. Mental sides are a LOT better. Physical sides are at least stable and improving somewhat. Had 4-5 orgasms about a week ago and now Iām not doing as good anymore. Iām sure it will come back, just have to keep calm for a while again.
- In the beginning, I was massively messing around with hormones: super high dose TRT (600mg/week), tried T gel, DHT gel (andractim), Proviron, Arimidex, Aromasin, Nolvadex. Even though some of these helped for a moment, all of these supps made me feel worse after a while. I would highly recommend not messing around with hormones, as this clearly is not a hormonal problem. You can get some short term benefit, but you are very likely to make things worse. I donāt know of a single case on this forum who can claim to have had a lasting effect from hormonal supplementation (or herbs for that matter). Also tried acupuncture and Chinese medicine to no avail.
Again, I am not by any measure claiming that I have recovered. I am just saying that I have had progress, and hope that it will continue.
awor,
You were messing around with sex hormones. If you had āmessed aroundā with the other hormones, you might have improved. You say that nobody recovers by messing with hormones. This is a wrong statement. It is true that nobody recovers by acting SOLELY on SEX hormones (T, DHT, taking aromatase inhibitors, etcā¦). But people have improved or recovered by acting on cortisol and thyroid hormones only, or in conjunction with sex hormones. The fact that you are not acknowledging this is simply unacceptable. The fact that you are so focused on a theory and ignore peopleās recoveries just because they donāt fit is, again, simply unacceptable. See examples below:
JN: he has been messing with his sex hormones first with no stable results. Only after addressing thyroid and adrenal issues, could he get good results.
Dury: he addressed thyroid issues first. He apparently didnāt have adrenal problems, otherwise he would have got worse by messing with his thyroid first. Finally, he did a quick restart on clomid, which worked. He defines himself totally recovered after a few months off clomid.
robocopp from steirodology.com: his T, which was initially 250, increased to 400 by taking 150-200 mcg T4. Then, it increased to 700 by taking Dexamethasone.
(his post is here: steroidology.com/forum/testosterone-replacement-therapy/585761-finasteride-induced-serious-problems.html)
correiovip: improved a lot/recovered by taking prednisone ā5 days on, 25 days offā for a year
Given these 4 examples, how can you still be sure that itās not a hormonal problem?
I donāt mean to be disrespectful. I have tons of respects for your involvement on the academic side of PFS. But while everybody is free to follow their favorite theory, nobody can deliberately choose to ignore real facts.
Iām not saying no one has recovered. People have tried all kind of things and a few have had some recovery from a vast array of substances including antibiotics and GHB. Now go figure. Do we have a common denominator here or are these recoveries that would have happened anyhow? I donāt know. Why donāt you start a thread, similar to the āPost your experienceā one about thyroid hormones or whatever therapies that you believe helped these people. I find those quite useful to get an overview of what is helping people and what is not.
Whatever the case, the hormonal effects that you are seeing (androgens, thyroids, vitamin D, adiol-g, etc) are likely the result of our problem and not the root cause. If you look at ALL the evidence, there simply is no way you can explain things like people getting worse with androgen supplementation, increased hair loss, increased body hair, muscle wasting, hypogonadism, penile shrinkage, suicidal depression, etc. with a thyroid problem. But I really donāt want to start a theory debate with you here. Rather, my focus is to get this problem into a lab. And a first step in this direction is going to happen real soon. In the mean time you are, of course, free to believe anything you want.
Awor - āMy focus is to get this to a labā
YES, THANK YOU! THIS IS WHY WE ARE ALL HERE !!
We need to focus on- Public awareness, interest of a competent labratory, and funding. In that order. And everyone on this board can help toward those goals. We losing sight of the forest through the trees.
Hi guys,
Sorry to hijack this thread, but I was wondering, UK20 and many others have mentioned that they supplement zinc and I am a little unclear on the logic behind this. I realize that zinc inhibits the enzyme aromatase (and therefore lowers estrogen and increases T) but like finesteride, isnāt zinc also a 5 alpha reductase inhibitor? Theoretically, by taking high doses of zinc, are we not recreating what FIN does?
Any clarification would be great.
Thanks in advance,
JayV
Do you guys honestly believe that this will ever lead to a cure though?
Would the medical industry really give a shit about us?
Personally I think we have to get out of this on our own, or nothing.
Because itās a very weak 5AR inhibitor and a decently potent aromatase inhibitor.
If you are deficient in zinc you could find that addressing this could boost your T levels by approximately 30%. This is what my reading has suggested.
Dr Shippen was/is a big advocate of zinc treatment as a first base.
The research community is somewhat different from the phrama industry. Admittedly, not completely unrelated. We all know Merck would prefer we would all just shoot ourselves.
If you can perform gene micro array analysis then why havnt you spoke up? 
We have some good theories that have been developed with the input of scientific and medical professionals. There is a bit more going on behind the scenes than we all know. But, we wonāt get answers until we can look into the microbiology going on. Is it a gene expression problem? Where along the path is the issue? Transcripiton? Are these things normal, do they play a major or minor role or no role at all? There are tests for these things. If all is fine we rule it out and move on. I donāt have the aptitude for this stuff like Mew, Awor, Kaz, 19, Oscar, Mario etc. But, Iāve given some interviews with some pretty prominent publications using my real name. Hopefully something develops there soon. We all need to do what we can.
The point is we canāt get out of this on our own. But, youāre right that we need to help ourselves get out of this mess by having the research done. The way to that goal is to keep this issue in the limelight to the best of our ability.
ps- @Mens Rea- I see Shippen and heās never mentioned āzinc treatmentā to me.