Would it not be in the public’s best interest if you shared with everyone what symptoms you have experienced and what helped you, instead of DMing people individually?
No not Paul he recovered via TRT so didn’t have receptor or epigenetic changes
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he could still have those damages but was just a good responder to that treatment
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Who knows possibly, this disease is so variable and individual symptoms, levels of severity and damage to so many systems are different in each of us which makes it reasonable to assume that some respond while others worsen. I responded positively to most things while I was trying to tackle the growing list. Continuing to take fin pushed me into the extreme sensitivities. I expect if Paul didn’t know about pfs and continued taking fin he wouldn’t have recovered. It would be interesting to know if he was or renains sensitive to anti andogens.
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Could you EDIT your post with a link?
Good to hear man! So good to hear you’re cured, and still posting now an then. Awesome to get some hope here! Could you tell us your experience in short? Maybe any supplements and or protocols that helped you? I think other people wpuld love to head your story qs well.0
I agree - here is the sparknotes on my recovery story. I hope this helps someone.
I started to notice that my hairline was receding. A good amount of my family is bald. I started seeing ads for Roman, Hims, and Keeps - Hims marketing got me. At first, I tried out their vitamins and shampoo but didn’t felt like it did anything and was hesitant to try anything that needed a prescription. I eventually caved and got a prescription for Finasteride. Before I took it, I did a good amount of research. But like everyone I thought 1% chance of sides? Pshh that won’t happen to me! I retrieved my Hims prescription and was hesitant to take it. I took 1 pill and but then once I realized that in order to keep my hair I would have to continue taking the pill forever. So I put it back in my medicine cabinet and put it on hold until further notice. Long story short, I ended up caving about 6 months later as my hairline started to recede more. Covid lockdown had just begun and I thought it would be a good time to try it…
First 3 weeks:
6/21/20 - I started taking my Hims prescription. At the time, I was in the best shape I had ever been in and was feeling great. Right before I started taking it, I had a checkup with my normal doctor and told her I was planning on taking Propecia and if I should be worried about it. She assured me I would be fine, and the only thing I could get is ED but 50% of men get it anyway so don’t worry about it…
About 4 days in I noticed I was waking up multiple times throughout the night and had a dull headache in the back of my head I had never felt before. I thought I was dehydrated and needed to drink more water so I ignored it. After a week of taking I started noticing my jaw was clenching off and on. Roughly 2 weeks in my sleep got really bad, but I still didn’t attribute it to fin. I had never had sleep issues, I was always a very deep sleeper and could fall asleep no problem. But all of a sudden I was waking up multiple times per night like a zombie. I thought at first I was drinking too much caffeine or pre-workout. By the 3rd week my jaw was feeling pretty weird, my digestion was horrible and my sleep was bad. But all of the side effects were so weird and random. I would’ve never thought a tiny pill could have that big of an effect. On the 3rd weekend, I partied hard, like I always have. Usually, Sunday can be a little rough after 2 days of hard drinking for me, and by Monday I feel good. This Monday I was still feeling really shitty, but didn’t attribute it to fin. On 7/14/21, I will never forget the day. I woke up and took another pill outta my prescription in the morning. Within 5 minutes, I felt this intense cloud come over my brain. Suddenly I was hit with an intense feeling of anxiety and brain fog but at the time I had no idea what was going on. But I knew something was wrong with me. I started googling symptoms of the vitamins I had been taking and then remembered that I was taking Propecia too. I started googling the symptoms of Propecia and found a Vice article. I started reading through multiple articles and started to lose my mind. Realizing what I had taken and that it was the reason I was feeling sick I started to go into a panic. All of my symptoms were spot on to the article.
I called my Mom and told her what had happened and told her I was scared. I started pounding water just trying to flush it out of me. I started reading all over the internet and found this forum and read through all of the other stories. I would be on work calls and would feel disconnected from reality, its hard to explain how that feels. When you feel emotionally flat, it literally feels like you’re a zombie. I tried to take time off work and focus on recovering for the first couple of days.
0-2 Months After Stopping Fin
The first couple of weeks after I stopped were tough. I would listen to music and it wouldn’t have any effect on me. That was one of the scariest side effects of all. At first, I had no sexual sides and considered myself lucky at the time. I was seeing a girl and everything was fine in that department. The next couple of weeks I started to feel much better and didn’t do any protocol or anything. Just kept on doing what I normally do. I have always partied hard on the weekends and have been outgoing. My group of friends is always doing something. I have always done various party drugs and never had any serious mental issues.
2 months after I pretty much forgot about PFS, felt healed, and considered myself lucky to not be hit hard like some of the people on this forum and I was moving on with my life.
1st “Crash”
I had read about people having so-called “crashes” and considered myself lucky to have not had one and I was in the clear. Until 9/25/20, I will never forget the day. I had the same mental rush that had hit me before and I immediately started feeling horrible. It almost knocked me off my feet, I felt like I had a stroke. Right after that, I started having issues with digestion and my stool was this weird yellow and greenish color in bits in pieces. I want to point out, the digestion issues would continue to coincide with PFS coming back over and over again. I would go through points of feeling good, then crash again, with digestion and stool issues coming right after.
Next came the sexual sides - I never had any issues before. I went to go watch some porn and realized nothing was happening. Which made me freak out even more. My anxiety went through the roof. Within 2 days I was able to get it up but with A LOT of work and finish. But my libido was gone. I was getting numbness and realized I wasn’t getting any morning wood. The ED got better within a month or 2 and the numbness went away but it took some time.
My head was constantly throbbing and it even affected my vision. My memory was horrible and my anxiety was through the roof for the next 6 months.
1-8 months post crash
These were no doubt the hardest 8 months of my life. It was a fucking rollercoaster of ups and downs. When anxiety was at its worst, Xanax helped me out a lot and helped me sleep. My appetite was fucked up, I was going through cycles of depression and I had severe anhedonia. I had never “needed” xanax in my life. I used to take it for fun and now I literally needed it to feel normal around my friends and in public settings. But I knew it wasn’t sustainable. I went to my doctor and told him what had happened and he assured my I would feel better in a couple weeks and to give it time.
So much happened in these 6 months, looking back on it now it seems like a blur. Luckily my job wasn’t very demanding because I was going through a change, and I was at home due to covid so I could rest and focus on getting better as much as I could.
I was constantly in a state of ups and downs. At times I broke down crying for no reason after having overwhelming anxiety and panic attacks. I would have violent nightmares which I never had in my life. I would wake up in the middle of the night sweating with a full-blown panic attack for no reason. I literally felt like I was losing my mind. The Xanax would always make me feel better in the short term but the following day after taking it my depression would be absolutely horrible.
It got to a point where I would start to feel better, then I would go drink or party and I would go back to where I was before. These deep bouts of depression. My sleep was horrible and every day was a struggle. I would check in this forum every day looking for hope and positive stories. But there is a lot of negativity on this forum, which is understandable. Propecia is poison and it should not be prescribed to anyone. I dont think anyone here disargees with that.
Anyways, I decided, if I was going to beat this shit, I would have to do it naturally. I kicked the Xanax and kicked everything else I was taking that wasn’t natural. Like I said before, I partied a lot before PFS. Raves, all-nighters, and festivals all the time. I stopped drinking, stopped taking xanax and went sober for about a month I think. I did wim hof breathing, cold showers, waking up at 6 am, fasting, lifting weights, running, pretty much anything I could find online. I fell in love with Surfing and that took my mind off PFS. I became addicted to it and surfed almost every second I could. I strongly believe it had a huge effect in me getting better. It took my mind of everything, which is what you need when you think about PFS 247. Find something that takes ur mind off of it and do whatever that is as much as you can.
8-12 months
I am not sure what exactly happened, but focusing on good sleep, exercise and avoiding drugs I started feeling MUCH better. I started looking at the forum less and less, and overtime I started to feel much better. I started to drink on the weekends again, but not as much. My hangovers would be worse than normal but slowly started to get less and less. Fast forward a year from taking that poison, I feel pretty much 100%. My anxiety is actually less than it was pre-PFS. I think my body really repaired itself. I will never forget what PFS did to me and I think anyone profiting off of that drug should be in prison for life.
When I was at my worst I told myself to give it a year and see how I feel. I wanted to write this post to give anyone out there who is feeling like I did hope. After reading countless stories on this forum, unfortunately, this drug affects everyone so differently. Which makes this condition so hard to treat. Focus on quality sleep and removing stressful things out of your life if possible. Try to focus on anything that takes your mind off PFS. Give your body the optimal environment it needs to heal and I think that will help some of you in the early stages. I read someone else post who had a quote saying something like this: “rather than beat yourself up trying to reverse the past, focus on. the future and beat PFS” You’ll feel better if you can beat it rather than reverse the past. This is the hardest thing anyone has to go through and I hope you all feel better as well. I left a lot about my experience out but if you have any questions let me know I am happy to help. I check this forum less and less but I hope my message helps someone.
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bumping this , please post if you have recently recovered.
Especially from sexual sides
I’m going to be honest.
I think most people who face side-effects from fin do recover, but their symptoms are pretty mild such as lower libido.
For most of us, our symptoms appear to be persistent and more severe (Physical & mental symptoms). I believe you can recover up to a certain point, but complete recovery for us may not be possible.
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Hey I recognize you,
Say If I never got mental sides but got pretty bad ED and lower libido ONLY. Is there a chance for recovery for me?
I only took 3mg total. (1mg split in 1 week , 2 week break then another 2 mg split over 4 weeks)
I believe there’s always a chance for some recovery.
I just don’t believe complete recovery is possible for most of us.
there are people who complained of those symptoms persisting, who then came back to say they considered themselves recovered. So yes, it is possible- but I don’t think anyone can predict the likelihood of recovery on a case by case basis.
Maybe I should create its own topic, but what is the official/scientific explaination to people recovering with just time, sometimes even suddently?
As I understand it, and I may be severly wrong since my understanding of these topics is very limited (please correct me), our androgenic receptors got altered on an epigenetic level. What kind of body mechanism would revert such changes exactly?
Maybe the research focus should be put on trying to emulate such recovery cases?
Nobody can answer this because all we have are theories and none have gotten proved as of yet.
We don’t really know that yet. It’s a plausible theory and the PFS Network (mods from here etc) is working hard to fund studies looking into this theory.
Epigentics respond to the environment, so it could be a number of things. Epigenetics are a very novel field of science so it’s not very well understood yet.
We must first understand the pathology of PFS, so we know what to look for. Otherwise it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.
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Oh sorry, I thought that this study:
had basically confirmed the whole epigenetic theory and I assumed it was currently the accepted model to explain PFS. My mistake then.
You’re right, Baylor confirmed that a lot of gene expressions changes have been made. But we don’t know yet if the AR being overexpressed is the cause. But it surely is plausible and hence we need to support the PFSN as they’re conducting the studies to confirm it.
If you look at the few studies done on 5ARI and BPH tissue fin ain’t suppose to be able to alter that many genes that the Baylor study showed. Something have heavily malfunctioned in us, although that might not be much of a surprise to the ones who have been heavily affected.
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I would ask another question. How many people who have recovered have continued to write on the forum? I have looked at some cases, and in them the author of the post stops writing after a few months. He hasn’t written on the forum for years. He has no logic. If I recover from the disease, I would continue writing in the forum to encourage people, answer questions, etc. I would do it.
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Yes. I am almost fully recovered. Been almost 2 years since I took that poison. My sleep patterns are probably the only thing that doesn’t seem to be back to 100%. But overall things are MUCH better than I was 6 months post crash.
What about libido? Did you have erection problems?
Only for a few months. Pretty much back to normal now