Brongfog's Progesterone + Selegiline Log

Therapeutic Efforts Pharmaceutical
#1

Based on Light at the End’s recovery I’m creating this as a log for my progress or lack thereof with using the protocol outlined in the thread here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7026

I have a prescription for Selegiline and my progesterone which I’ll be taking 2.5 mg in the morning and 2.5mg in the evening as I’ve read that by the end of the day it starts to wear off, this should keep a somewhat steady flow in my bloodstream and avoid a hormone roller coaster ride. Going to be taking it with Tongkat Ali, Macca Powder B-Complex and Vit-D3…basically just like the protocol that cured him.

I’ll be logging how I feel over this course of several weeks / months. I have zero expectations for this protocol as I’ve tried far too many things in the past that didn’t work and so I just don’t have it in me to get excited about a protocol anymore. I promise to do my best to give an exact report as to how I feel without being fooled by placebo which I’m pretty good at recognizing. I’ve been taking supplements for awhile now and am really in-tune with my body, I can feel very subtle changes in a big way.

I won’t really be discussing the theory behind this protocol of “how it will work” “how it doesn’t make any sense” or anything like that, I’m just giving it a go and will see what happens puts on guinea pig costume

As for my symptoms, here’s my story viewtopic.php?f=3&t=5805
stats below:

I should state that I have occasional bouts of brain-fog, it really goes back and forth but I’ve found that 50mg of zinc Gluconate daily keeps me pretty clear. I’ll have to continue this during the protocol because I’ve found without it I’m too scatterbrained.

  1. Where are you from (country)?
    USA

  2. 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?)
    Google - Finasteride Side Effects Long Term

  3. What is your current age, height, weight?
    32, 6’2, 182

  4. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
    Yes, aerobic

  5. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
    Organic veggies with meat sparringly

  6. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
    Hair Loss

  7. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
    11 years

  8. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
    21, Nov of 1999

  9. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
    32, Sep 2011

  10. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
    I started taking it off and on and then decided to stop, so I accidentally tapered you could say.

  11. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
    Started with Propecia then went to Proscar after 7 years.

  12. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
    1 propecia pill a day. After I changed to Proscar I cut one of those in half and ate half of it a day.

  13. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
    I never realized it until I stopped, then I understood how it had changed me…now I’ve crashed.

  14. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
    Brain fog, lowered sex drive, slurred speech, unmotivated.

Put an X beside all that apply:

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
[ ] Watery Ejaculate
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

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

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

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ x] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ x] Lowered body temperature

[ ] Other (please explain)

#2

My first day was 03/04/2014. I measured out 2.5 mg by doing one full pump which is supposed to be 20mg and then used a knife to split that into four quadrants so I could see what 5 mg looked like. I took a picture of that (see attachment) and then split that dose in half to get my 2.5. I’ll be holding a dime in my hand every morning and evening while I do the pump in order to be sure I get the dosing correct.

I took 2.5 mg in the morning and rubbed it on the inside of my left arm. After about 10 minutes I felt a little hyperactive which was pretty short lived, after about thirty minutes I felt no effects. That night I took another 2.5 on the inside of left arm again and felt nothing different. I took 2.5 selegiline that morning (seperately also) and didn’t notice any effect from anything.

03/5/2014 I took 2.5mg and rubbed it in on my neck (you’re supposed to rotate the sites that you rub it into) and took 2.5 selegiline, felt nothing. Took my 2.5 prog on the inside of the right arm that evening and felt nothing. Riveting, I know.

Light wasn’t specific to the dosing with Tongkat and Macca, but I’ll start taking D3 every day along with a B-vit every day (b-100) and will do some cycles of Tongkat. I’m no stranger to Macca or Tongkat which have had little effect on me in the past. Tongkat gives me a little more energy but that’s about it. I’ll be sure to note when I take the macca extract and / or powder.

More to come.

#3

Are you cycling the test boosters? What sort of tongkat ali are you using?

#4

I’ll be cycling them and using the real Tongkat Ali by Pasak Bumi 1:200 extract.

#5

Did 2.5 mg x 2 of progesterone again today on the inside of my right arm along with 2.5 mg selegiline. I have a slight increase in libido and overall motivation, this isn’t surprising as I’ve tried selegiline by itself before and felt the same thing when I wasn’t using the progesterone so most likely it’s the selegiline. I felt this a little yesterday and slightly more today. AFTER I felt the slight libido boost I took some Maca powder (probably four hours later) which is known to be a libido booster but I have taken it on and off for years and it never boosted libido for me at all.

Other than that I haven’t felt any changes at all, negative or positive.

If any MODS want to move this thread to another place feel free to do so, I don’t want it to be annoying constantly getting bumped to the top every time I update.

#6

Today will be my seventh day on the protocol. I’ve been continuing 2.5 mg x 2 a day for a total of 5mg progesterone daily along with 2.5 mg Selegiline. I haven’t felt anything negative, definitely not like what other people have posted about it being really awful etc.I 'm starting to wonder if people were dosing incorrectly. In the original thread Light said he did 5mg a day, I think people were probably doing more like 10 mg a day and greater and I’ve confirmed this one person already (they are doing 10 mg a day, not 5).

In any case the main difference I see is that I’m having strong nocturnal erections that previously did not happen unless I was taking some herbs like Foti and a slight lift in libido (nothing to rave about). There may be a slight increase in overall drive to do things during the day but not anything that really stands out. I’m going to continue like this for awhile and may consider upping my dose to 10 mg a day but am going to try and talk with Lightattheend first and show him the picture of the 5mg dose and see if this is actually what he was using or if he underestimated his dose.

I haven’t started taking Tongkat Ali (longjack) yet (will start very soon) and have been taking a dose of Maca powder every day along with 5,000 IU of D3 and b-100 as stated in the protocol.

#7

Interesting. As I reported I was probably doing like 10-15mg with one application and I crashed within a day. I had numb penis and bright red forehead the following day. It’s taken me about 2 months to recover and now I’m getting less numbness and stronger nightime and AM erections. I was thinking of givng it another go, maybe I used to much, maybe I overstimulated the estrogen receptors instead of slowly building up.

Brongfog- is this the first time you have experienced such good nocturnals before?

#8

Hey Fina, I could get good nocturnals similar to this by using Longjack, or Foti, or other hormone enhancing herbs but I haven’t had either of those in several weeks (will start tomorrow). Without using anything I typically would have very weak nocturnals that would be dead by the time I made it to the toilet to use the restroom.

#9

I hope you’re working out as well. A lot of people overlook that LATE was hitting the gym pretty hard during the protocol.

#10

I’ve been working out with heavy weights as well and doing aerobics (I play soccer at least twice a week and jog). I’ve been continuing the protocol and I feel pretty good, possibly better, more fluid thoughts but feel like I haven’t been sleeping as well. I’ve started doing Tongkat Ali (2 x 1:200 a day) and haven’t seen anything drastic and wasn’t expecting it as I’ve used Tongkat many times before in the past.

I’m probably going to continue this awhile and possibly up my progesterone dosage and see what happens.

#11

I’ve been on the protocol for two weeks now and haven’t seen much happen. I feel a little better but it’s exactly the way I felt when I was on Tongkat Ali by itself (definitely not a vast improvement, I don’t really recommend). I’m going off for four days and then back on again for two weeks - I’ve contacted “Light at the End” with a picture of my dose to see if it looks similar to what he was taking as I suspect he may have underestimated how much he was taking…probably closer to 10 mg rather than 5 but will stick to the protocol until I hear otherwise.

#12

Took a couple of days off from progesterone and haven’t really felt anything different. I haven’t received a confirmation response from Light at the End about the dose so I re-read through his original thread and although in the original post he said he was taking 5mg he said later (several pages later) that he was taking half of a pump, which means he was taking 10 mg a day as I suspected. I increased my dose to that today and have felt changes already. I actually feel pretty good but this was the first day so nothing to get excited about as it could be just a “good day” for me. I also stopped eating peanut butter as I feel like it may be bringing on some brain fog and I may have an allergy/sensitivity to it that has affected me in a small way that I never knew about.

Today I’ve just felt like doing more than usual, typically the only thing that sounds good is sitting around staring at a computer and nothing else. Just the thought of going out to do something makes me want to curl into a ball and go to sleep, but today I felt like working out (I’ve been forcing myself to workout but today I actually wanted to). I actually had a moment today where I was inspired, I thought about how I want to get back into writing and acting again which is very unlike me, I remember being motivated to do something ambitious when I was a kid but haven’t felt like that in a very long time. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t do anything really productive today other than grocery shopping so it amounts to nothing but it was a feeling, not just a thought which was different. I also had to jerk off today but that’s not too abnormal, I’d say about once every three-four days if I don’t see my girlfriend.

I should also make a really important note that I had a craving for fruits today so I went out and bought a ton of it…like bags full of 6-7 different types of fruits and have been eating that which is more sugar than usual so maybe it’s just that but I highly doubt it because I’ve done things like this before and didn’t feel any changes. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

#13

I also read splitting the dose into two applications a day may be beneficial so it’s working all day and not 8-12 hours.

#14

Ok so I’ve continued to do 5mg doses twice a day for a total of 10 mg and I feel pretty good, meaning I don’t feel bad as others reported but on the other side of that I don’t really feel better. The last update I did I was talking about feeling motivated and some other good things and I think that was just a good day (as I speculated) because today and yesterday I just felt as I typically do. If you notice the previous post was dated march 20th but it was done early in the morning so it was an account for march 19th so two days have past since then.

Overall I can’t really say that much has happened. I’ve been on this for about three weeks now and if I do feel better it’s very subtle but it’s still too soon to tell. I think I may move to doing an update once a week or so because I don’t want to spam the boards and have this keep popping up to the top, this is here to be informative if it turns out to give me progress, not annoying.

So the updates from here on out will be when I reach landmarks and have actual changes, otherwise it just means I’m rubbing cream on my body and nothing is happening.

#15

I’ve had to completely stop this protocol as I have started having breathing issues for the past couple of nights. At first I thought it was a one-off night but it happened again last night. Basically right as I drift off to sleep I wake up and I’m gasping for air, almost like my breathing has completely stopped (maybe it has) and I have to manually do it because it’s not happening automatically. I read up and see that this is a side effect of Selegiline and Progesterone (difficult or labored breathing).

In any case I’m obviously stopping all everything until this resolves and will probably not return to it, I’m disappointed because this wasn’t happening to other people so maybe it’s something else but I’m not going to risk it.

#16

hi, i just read this and I want to suggest you to take whatever supplement is making that, during the morning.

i had the same problem,or so it seems, with anti depressives and the solution would be to either take them in the morning (but they were for sleep), or to take them with clonazepam.

i dont take any supplments after 6pm

#17

Thanks for the suggestion. After visiting the Dr and getting my heart and blood checked (everything looked fine) I felt I was safe to try the protocol again as I feel I may have started it too close to another protocol that I was doing which caused the adverse effects.

I’ve been on 10 mg of progesterone with 2.5 Drep for the past 7 days taking nothing past 2PM and have had no breathing or heart pounding issues whatsoever. So basically it looks like the negative effects reported earlier had nothing to do with this protocol or I was taking the 2nd dose of progesterone too late at night (I now do one full 10mg dose at once).

thanks again

#18

Hello, I found your post while searching for deprenyl and breathing problems. I recently started talking deprenyl and now I can’t sleep because I wake up every few minutes from not being able to breathe. My throat is always dry. I like the positive effects of deprenyl so I was wondering if you have found a particular solution to the breathing problem. Thanks.