hi cap
my sexual improvements came in waves - i would have a few days of good, followed by bad, followed by slightly more good and slightly less bad. Around the 6 month mark i had a week of bad and thought i’d had a second crash, but it has improved and i haven’t felt it since. Mental effects have continued to cycle but have become increasingly rare and noone near as deep.
I didn’t take anything for the sexual sides and am so lucky to be able to put that behind me.
I see. So you have a good few days (like I had about a month ago) then a lot of bad days. Then a few more good days, then more bad, and slowly it reverses itself. I see, that makes sense. Makes me feel better about not seeing a lot of huge progress. Did you not feel like you were progressing sexually a lot of the time?
I am very happy for you (and jealous!). It sounds like you’re going to naturally make it out of this pretty soon. I hope I do the same. The good day/bad day cycle you describe has definitely been noticeable in regard to my mental sides, so hopefully if those are resolving relatively quickly and on their own, the sexual ones will follow suit.
I’m going to keep this short because I’m trying to limit my time on the site to try to curb depression, but reading improvements always made me feel better so I wanted to post to perhaps give someone else some hope.
Last week I had sex for the first time since quitting five months ago. It was rough at parts, like when she had to go to the bathroom and I had to keep it going by hand a bit until she got back, but it was totally unassisted, initiated by me with actual libido out of nowhere, and I had not been working out, taking supplements, or eating healthy for a week beforehand because I was super depressed, so I know it wasn’t due to any surge caused by whatever. I had even masturbated the day before. Needless to say, this event made me very, very happy, and while I am nowhere near recovered by a longshot, barring any sudden worsening of symptoms (knock on wood) I am now very confident I will be able to make a recovery at some point, it’ll just take time. Improvements are coming, just veeerrryyyy slooooowwww. I’ll keep you all posted. Keep up hope!
Great news. This thread and your comments elsewhere in the forum are a daily fix for me. Hearing positive stories like this is a huge morale booster. Keep them coming, please.
Thanks man, that means a lot to me. I know hope can be in short supply with this mess, it certainly was for me and still is a lot of the time. But if anything I’ve posted has given you or anyone hope, I’m glad. Any recoveries or posts about improvement always make me feel a little better. I’m trying to limit my time on here because I definitely think staying obsessed can impede recovery, but I’ll definitely update this thread with improvements or the opposite (hopefully the former, lol). I’m really starting to feel like I can beat this thing. It’s just going to be painfully slow. But a light at the end of a long tunnel is better than no light at all. On a positive note, I’ve already put on quite a bit of muscle after only going to the gym for 2-3 weeks. By the time I’m 100% again I’m going to be built like Hercules. lol
Oh, one other thing I almost forgot. My best friend is transgender and informed me that she actually took Finasteride along with a cocktail of over stuff like sperenolactin (or however you spell it) over the course of 2 years as part of her transition to being female. After stopping all that stuff she said it took about a year or so for her to get back to 100% sexually. She didn’t pay much attention to it because naturally for her she didn’t really care about that aspect. While on the stuff she had zero sex drive and genital function but she said that all came back eventually. So there’s another success story for you.
That’s really good to know. You know, I wish there were a forum category on here called “Improvements”, with a subheading like, “Discuss any temporary or permanent improvements in your condition”. I’m sure about fifty people have already beat me to that observation. There is actually a lot of positive information in this forum but, as you point out, you have to wade through a lot of gloom to find it. Personally I would read an Improvements section every day and only venture out into the rest of the forum when I was feeling up to it. That way I could just be logging in to see that “WampaFan79” or whoever got a random boner watching a Miley Cyrus video.
I’ll join in. Took fin for 9 years been off 10 months. Felt like zero improvement first 8 months, since I still have downward turns but not as bad and not as frequent. I have noticed improvement in muscle twitches in my calves, digestion problems are getting better, cold intolerance improving, Eustachian tube dysfunction, pressure in forehead, brain penis connection is almost always there now. In fact for about 4 weeks I have had an incredibly high libido. I actually had to relieve myself I could not sleep I was so turned on. This is so much better than the first 8 months of basically testing out everything to see if it works. Still have red face, dry skin, bloating, thin lower arms and legs, bent penis. Much of my cognitive problems have improved and have translated to better sexual functioning. I can tell you that I believe when your scalp starts to itch and you have shedding (not balding but hormonal telogen effluvium shedding) you start to see improvements
gsc,
Next to actual posts that share recent improvements, yours is one of the best I’ve read in a while. Great suggestion and one that I hope a site Admin. can incorporate. I’m not sure I would ever report that a Miley video triggered an improvement, but if that’s what it takes, I would be posting in a matter of minutes.
… it’s the climb.
haha, nice.
There are actually tons of improvements and actual recoveries spread across the forum if you look hard enough. At one point I searched the forum for the term recovery/recovered and saved a ton of threads where people got better. I have quite a collection now, most of which aren’t in the recovery section. I’ve found other recoveries on other forums as well, like one dude that just naturally recovered after 9 months and another that recovered after he started lifting and taking iodine. It’s very depressing to see like 5 threads in the recovery section, but please know that the odds are much better than that. That’s not an accurate representation of people getting better. You also have to factor in how many people post their initial story and then never come back. There are 16 pages of threads in the member section and the vast majority never returned. I have to think that a decent percentage just got better. This experience is incredibly traumatic and I think most people would never want to see this forum again if they got better. There are a few recovery threads I have saved where it’s a year or more later and the person even says, “hey I wasn’t going to ever post here again but someone said I should. I’m fine now” etc. They could have just as easily never posted again, and it would seem like they never gotten better or blew their head off or whatever, like most of the threads in this section. So think of it that way and it should give you some hope!
Your improvements are very inspiring considering you were on the poison for nine years. I’m hoping I follow suit. I’m also hoping the ridiculous hair loss I’ve been experiencing is just the shedding you’re talking about and not accelerated balding. It’s really frustrating.
On a side note, I’m thinking about starting a fast this week, but if I do I won’t be able to work out and working out has been pretty positive. Not sure what to do. What do you guys think?
EDIT: Oh, one other thing related to recovery. If you are able to sleep, make sure it’s at night in total darkness. I’m fortunate in that I don’t have sleep issues, but I’ve always been a night owl and thought that as long as you’re getting 8 hours of sleep it doesn’t matter when, so I would sleep mostly during the day. Recently I learned that when you’re asleep your body releases melatonin, which is the most powerful healing agent in your body. However, if you’re asleep during the day and your body senses light, it interferes with that and the melatonin isn’t released, or if it is it’s a tiny fraction of what it should be. This can really fuck you up. So much so that (fun fact) people who work night shifts are at greater risk for health issues so their insurance is different. So it’s very important that you not only get sleep, but that it’s all at night. This is why people who get their sleep sorted out see massive gains. Their body is finally churning out that powerful healing agent again. I reset my sleep schedule and get more of my sleep at night now. I’ve noticed I started dreaming again, which I take as a positive sign of recovery. I’ve also been sleeping for like 12 hours, which is weird. lol
Small update.
Observations:
This could very well just be in my head, but I feel like the texture of my scrotum is improving lately, though it’s fluctuating wildly. It’s usually kinda rough and clammy, like I just sat in the sauna, but lately it’s sometimes soft and smooth. I will concede that this could just be in my imagination.
Testicle size also fluctuates quite a bit. The left one is consistently mostly normal and the right one is consistently small, but sometimes the right one will get large or the left one will shrink. Both return to their previous state eventually. I’ll take that as a good sign, that they’re trying to sort themselves out, but I hope they don’t regress. They also fluctuate between being kinda hard and being soft. Not sure what that means. Oh, and while they usually hang pretty low, they respond to hot and cold okay. So like if I take a cold shower or walk out in the cold they’ll pull up, when I’m hot they’ll lower back down. So that’s a good sign, I think.
I didn’t realize this until yesterday but I have been seriously craving sweets lately. Yesterday after my workout I felt compelled to stop at the gas station and get a Milky Way and a Hershey bar. Not just like “that would be tasty” but like “MAN I NEED THAT.” Then I thought back to the previous weeks and I’ve been buying one of those things pretty much daily. I remember a dude on here who recovered eventually said that craving sweets is a sign of adrenal fatigue. Maybe I could investigate that further. I ordered a book about it.
I’ve noticed sometimes when I’m doing my maintenance fap (checking orgasm, ejaculate, etc weekly) sometimes I actually get a surge of libido during it (suddenly think “damn she looks good” or whatever and get really into it) and my erection gets rock hard until that libido surge dies shortly thereafter. This makes me further think that my main issue is brain to penis connection and/or libido and once that improves everything else should fall into place. This is further supported by when I was able to have sex a couple weeks ago. When I summoned up some libido I banged my gf for quite some time with no issue. I could have continued well beyond when I did, but I got really into it at one point and finished. Unfortunately, libido seems to be one of the hardest parts of PFS to solve. The only thing that’s going to do that is time, so I just have to wait. It’s equally frustrating thinking you might actually recover to thinking you’re doomed because you’re constantly like “HURRY UP! I WANT THIS TO BE OVER ALREADY!” but recovery is slooooooowwwwwwwww. Plus you don’t know if you’ll lose any tiny gains you’ve had at any point, so that’s nerve wracking.
(This one is less an observation and more of me venting for a sec, so skip if you want.) I really wish my hair would stop falling out so fast. I have a pretty tight grip on my PFS depression these days, but seeing hair everywhere really makes me sad. I wish I had known that before I took Fin. I didn’t plan on taking it very long. If I had known my hair would have fallen out even faster after stopping I would have thought, “what’s the point?” Same goes for the mental sides. Those aren’t even on the package. Thanks Merck. I guess if anything it teaches me a lesson about vanity. I suppose I could always get a transplant in the future. It’s just frustrating to know I would have been totally fine for many years had I never taken this shit. I’d have avoided this whole other mess with my sexuality as well. 
I’m still on the fence about trying out a fast. I don’t start my new job until April 1st so I have time to kill, I could do it easily. My main concerns are:
I’d have to stall my workout routine. While I haven’t seen any overnight improvement from it, I can only assume the small little rays of hope I’ve had since I started the routine are because of it. It could also have been stopping the condition from getting worse. This is my main concern and stops me when I think, “well what do you have to lose?”
Fasting is awesome and I’ve read about it clearing up mental sides, but not much as far as sexual sides and that’s really all I have.
My first instinct is to just be like “continue what you’re doing” but, I don’t know, I’m getting to the point where I really want this all to be over and want my life back (as I’m sure everyone feels). Maybe that’s anxiety flaring up, I don’t know. I know there’s no button I can press to make that happen, but I can try different things. I haven’t really done anything outside of just eating relatively well and working out because I’m scared of making things worse. At the same time, some of my recovery stories I have saved are along the lines of, “I didn’t see any improvement until I tried X, now I’m fine” so a part of me feels like “you could be cured now! Try shit!” It’s tough.
What do you guys think?
RE: hair falling out, I think I would gladly shave my head tomorrow if I could have my health back. So pissed that my insecurity about losing my hair got me into this mess. That may not be what you were asking about, but I just felt like venting too.
Oh, sorry if I wasn’t clear in the post. I was asking what you guys thought about dropping my workout regimen for a couple weeks and doing a fast.
But yeah, I hear you. It’s especially frustrating for me because I didn’t really have a hair loss issue in the first place. It was going, but incredibly slow. I probably would have had another decade of a pretty awesome head of hair. It just seemed much worse to me because I have always had anxiety, which warped my perception of myself. So I’m in this mess because I took a medication for a problem I didn’t really have in the first place, then the medication actually created the problem I didn’t have on top of all the sexual issues. I beat myself up pretty often about it, reliving the many moments I almost didn’t take it and wishing I could go back. It’s pretty lousy. But I guess all I can do now is hope I make it out the other side. If I’m ever myself again I’ll have an incredible appreciation for life and I’ll never take anything for granted again. I’ll also never trust a doctor again. lol
Also, I’m going to check this thread a bit more over the next few days to see what you guys think of the fast idea, but past that I’m going to try to take a break. I saw some improvements when I tried to stay off the forum and chill out. I’ve been checking it pretty frequently the last few days and I can feel myself getting very worked up. I can’t help but read the stories of people messed up years later and think, “that’s going to be me.” That makes me depressed, anxious, etc, then I start beating myself up over getting myself into this mess. I definitely think depression impedes the body’s ability to recover, so I need to try to cut that out. It’s just difficult as I sometimes want to read recoveries or try to read about something that caused someone else to recover. Anyway, if I have any awesome improvements like the one a couple weeks ago I’ll definitely update with that.
Don’t know what to tell you on the fast. As far as working out, I’d say stick with it, but maybe throttle it back. I know as soon as I start feeling better and working out harder things start to go south, including my sleep. It just seems as soon as my body starts sensing a rebound it shuts down my improvements. So frustrating.
Good luck with whatever you decide & keep up your posts. They’re some of the best reads on this site.
Thanks man. That means a lot to me.
I think if anything the fast would be good to kind of flush my system out and “reset” everything but I may hold off on it for a while since I’ve had some improvements lately. Although now would be the ideal time. It’s tough. On some level I’m actually kind of scared to try it, like I’ll get worse or something, so my natural anxiety is coming into play.
As for working out, I haven’t had a negative reaction to working out in any way, if anything my head feels a lot more clear afterward. It’s kind of hard to describe but lately when I do my sets some days I feel kinda jacked and have this thought like, “I CAN DO MORE” and I want to lift more weight and work out longer. Not because of PFS and wanting to get better sooner, it’s more of an in the moment feeling, this urge to push myself more. It’s strange. I’ve never really worked out in my life so I’ve never experienced it before. I was going to really push myself but maybe I’ll just keep up the normal pace per your advice. Maybe we should sloooowwwllly ramp it up.
Hello all. I’m going to try my best to begin my forum break now. I get a lot of PMs, which is what brought me back to checking the forum regularly again, so I wanted to let you know about the break here before I go so you don’t think I’m ignoring you. I want to check here frequently, I just get depressed reading the stories of people messed up years later and I think, “that’s going to be me” then my anxiety, fog and all that flares up. As one guy said in his recovery thread, “…a huge part of recovery deals with not being obsessed about the problem itself. Obsession leads to constant thinking about your issues, and thus leads to depression. Depression is not good for recovering from any disease.” Staying positive is very important, especially because (as Fina pointed out) we may have a dopamine deficiency. Staying positive could quite literally heal you! lol
BUT, just so I don’t leave you (for now) on a low note, here are a couple observations I made in the last day or two.
Last night I went out to a club. Toward the end of the night my mental faculties cleared up to a level they had previously not. I’ve felt pretty clear headed before, but rarely have I gotten my actual personality back. Before Fin I was very goofy, making fun of everything, doing weird voices, speaking very quickly, etc. Last night, at least for a bit, I was back. It felt good. I think brain fog is a lot like penis sensitivity (and probably this condition in general) in that you don’t know how messed up you really are until you start healing to new levels. I don’t feel like I have any penis sensitivity issues, but when I’m 100% again I’m sure I’ll be like WHOA.
Even more interesting was yesterday or perhaps the day before I was browsing a forum and I saw an erotic picture. It was a girl semi-dressed in a pretty seductive pose. While this in and of itself wasn’t strange, my reaction to it was. For the most part, my libido is totally shot. However, when I saw this picture I hung on it for a while, really taking it in. I even scrolled past it after a minute, then scrolled back. The next day I even went out of my way to find it again to look at. Clearly I thought she looked good and was interested, though I had no reaction downstairs or in my body. However, I did have this feeling… almost like when something is on the tip of your tongue. It’s there, but it’s not there. It’s very, very hard to explain and I doubt I ever could, but I’m guessing it’s part of the brain to penis connection. Like the brain is sending a signal and the body is like, “I don’t know what to do with this.” The point is, if my libido is absolutely destroyed, why was I so interested in that picture? Why did I keep feeling compelled to look at it? It didn’t produce any reaction in my body, but clearly there was some kind of reaction in my head. I was compelled to look at it on a level beyond intellectually deciding to look at something. I actually had something similar happen a while back at a club. There was a go-go dancer who had one of the most rockin’ bodies I’ve ever seen. I had absolutely no physical reaction to her (heart beat, erection, “that urge”, etc) but I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. It’s all very minor and may not mean anything, but I took it as a good sign. Something in there is still stirring around and when it bubbles to the surface, like two weeks ago when I banged my gf half to death, almost everything falls into place. So here’s hoping that continues!
Stay strong, everyone. This situation is horrifying and more than I can take most of the time, but we all have to keep fighting. One day we’ll all be 100% and we’ll be stronger for having gone through this mess. I thank those of you who have taken the time to speak with me when I’ve felt low, I hope my posts and PMs have done the same for some of you. I’ll talk to you all again soon, probably whenever the next major improvement/decline happens (hopefully improvement!)
You and no one on this forum should EVER forget that our bodies are struggling for homeostasis. That it doesnt want to stay “out of whack” and that hormones are tricky as is whatever biologically/neurologically that happened to us. Try toi stay positive, to be honest it may have been the best thing that has helped me so far.
Cannot agree more!!
Btw, there are many fin users who have recovered completely using/doing-
-regular exercise
-diet changes
-zinc
-pyco+l-arginine
-B12
Forums will have majority of those who are still suffering and seeing symptoms but Not those who recovered. So, don’t get discouraged by reading things which indicate that there is no solution to this probkem and life is crappy forever…Just relax and take your mind away from ED etc for next few weeks and you will see slow improvements…
Hello everyone. Since I am about to begin month 6 post-Fin, I thought now would be a good time for an update. I think monthly updates are probably the best idea, unless there’s no real progress that month. So the next post after this one should be in May, unless nothing happens or I get worse.
Also, before I begin, I want to thank those who have been speaking with me via PM. To those who were answering my questions and making me feel better, thank you very much. For those who were sending me similar messages, I hope I helped. Anyway…
Recent Observations: (I like to use the word observation instead of recovery or improvement, since they fluctuate so much)
I noticed that in the past week or two, I’ve gotten erections from visual or mental stimulus more consistently. By “more consistently” I mean that between crashing and the past couple weeks I could count how many times that has happened on one hand. In the past couple weeks it’s happened as many times as the previous 6 months combined and then some. The erections still aren’t reliable and are variable in quality, most are pretty weak, some are pretty decent, a couple were pretty awesome. But I take anything happening at all as a good sign of healing.
Related to the previous point, I’ve also experienced some surge of libido. Nothing constant, but occasional moments that are noticeable. For example, two days ago I got an invite to a party on Facebook. I looked at the guest list and noticed a few cute girls were going. I immediately got turned on, thinking about hooking up with them, and fantasizing about getting it on with them in the bathroom or something (I have a gf so I wouldn’t actually do these things, but I’m sure we can all remember these thoughts finding their way into our head as normal men in the past). I got horny, and I mean REALLY horny. Were my gf around I would have annihilated her. (Side note: While writing that section and thinking about the girls, the bathroom fantasy, etc, I can notice a slight reaction in my pants. I’m getting that feeling in my taint where it kinda swells up before an erection). Anyway, I actually spent a good chunk of time jerking it that day cuz I had the urge constantly, though I was very careful about not finishing (though I fucked that up today, more in a sec). On that note, I also noticed the head of my penis is having an easier time filling up. Before, even when I got a decent erection, the head would always be soft. That’s still mostly the case, and it’s the first part to go soft, but there’s definitely a bit of improvement there. Erections still die without stimulation. Bend still the same.
As mentioned, I fucked up the “no finishing” thing today. I woke up and decided to fap for some reason (don’t recall if I actually had the urge) and accidentally finished while straddling the line too much. So I’m sure that will blunt the recent improvements somewhat, but I’ve done that before and still had improvements later (I actually came last week sometime, maybe a few days ago, don’t recall, so that kinda proves the point I guess). Also, on a high note, I noticed the resulting orgasm coursed throughout my body in a way it hasn’t in a while. It wasn’t 100% by any means, but these days it’s usually a slight half second tingle in my penis and then nothing, so it was light years ahead of that. Semen volume seemed pretty decent, quality was so-so. I didn’t notice any yellow to it or chunks, which is good, but it was still like half cloudy and half transparent.
To cap off the sexual side effect section, I must ask myself what I usually do when I see any positive effects, which is, “what caused it?” I haven’t been very good about hitting the gym lately as I had a period of depression, crying, etc, so I don’t think it’s that. I’ve been bad about my diet, eating pizza, Taco Bell, soda, etc (I do that when I get depressed) so I don’t think it’s eating healthy. I did decide to finish off the bottle of Maca I have, so I’ve been taking that, but the first half of the bottle had no effect. Also, there’s maca in these other pills I have with a bunch of other shit in them like horny goat weed and when I took those they didn’t have the same result. The only other things I am taking are Vit D3, a Calcium/Magnesium pill, and Iodine with kelp. I took all of those things for the first few months post-Fin with no results. Maybe it is just natural recovery, in which case I can only hope and pray it sticks and it continues. I know this condition fluctuates and I’ll go back to my shitty state soon, but hopefully this is an upward trend. It was only 3 weeks ago or so that I had a surge of libido and had sex, so perhaps these recent observations are signs it is slooooowly reversing itself. (Knock on wood.) Oh, and I also can’t rule out the power of sleep. As stated before, while I never had sleep issues, I was getting my sleep during the day when the sun is out. This inhibits melatonin production and mel is one of the most powerful healers in your body. I’ve been doing everything I can recently to make sure I’m asleep in absolute darkness, going so far as to sleep in my closet when too much light is coming in through my window. I definitely noticed I slept like a rock and woke up feeling very rested, though my back hurts from sleeping on the floor, lol. Also, recently I had a day where I had a MASSIVE hair shed. It’s been falling out way faster than ever before, but this time was ridiculous. It made me really sad, but maybe it was a sign of hormones fluctuating or something. It happened around the same time as the other stuff I mentioned, so maybe they’re related.
Finally, I haven’t noticed much difference in the mental sides, though those are more difficult to quantify. I have times when I can speak like my old self and times when I feel like an idiot, unable to communicate effectively. This has been one of the most difficult things to deal with, as the thing about myself I had the most pride in pre-Fin was my quick wit and intelligence. Losing that was my worst nightmare, and the regret of lobotomizing myself, not doing enough research to have found out about that side effect beforehand, etc is a big driver in my anxiety and depression. I have an okay grip on those things most of the time (though I had a really rough patch recently), as long as I can keep the situation I’m in out of my head and vent about it when necessary sometimes. I’m hoping my mental faculties are improving, and shifting to my pre-Fin self over time, but it’s much more abstract than “oh my semen looks better today” and thus more difficult to track progress. This really worries me, as my career dreams are utterly crushed until this goes away. It’s sad, because I had everything in order to finally begin pursuing them this spring. I didn’t even plan to take Fin beyond the new year. I thought I’d just thicken up the mop a bit before I head out to Cali. Thanks Merck! It’s ironic that something I took to help achieve my dreams ended up destroying them. =/
That’s all I can think of right now. I do this mostly to track my own progress, but I hope reading improvements gives some people some hope. I know it always did for me. When you feel depressed, just remember improvements could be right around the corner. A couple months ago I tried to blow my head off and the only reason it didn’t happen is because a friend caught me with the gun, trying to work up the courage to pull the trigger, and being much larger than me he took the gun from me. But in the last month I’ve had sex again, something I thought I would never be able to do again, and I could have done it again yesterday had my gf been around. I might have never lived to see that improvement had I given up. It’s not easy by a long shot, and I know many have this far worse than I do, but try to hold on to hope, even when it seems hopeless.
The next time I post should be in a month or so. I’ve been cheating a little. I’m going to try to be better about that. I will also be seeing a Naturopath doctor that was highly recommended to me. At the very least I will have a range of blood tests done finally to know where I stand in that regard (I’ll post them), but maybe they can offer some advice on non-drug treatments and stuff, too. I’ll keep you posted.
That’s all for now. Stay well, everyone!