crashing while on it

Member Stories
#1

  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- propecia + autoimmune disease

  3. What is your current age, height, weight?
    39, 6 feet even, 170 lbs

  4. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
    I go in bouts of regular exercise, then stop. Alternating cardio w weights

  5. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
    Ate terribly for a long time. Last 4 years a bit better. Now, moving towards paleo.

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

  7. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
    almost 12 years

  8. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
    27ish (2000 or 2001)

  9. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
    weaning now (39)

  10. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
    I am tapering

  11. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
    propecia

  12. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
    1mg/day

  13. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
    not until 2012

  14. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?

Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[x ] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[x ] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[x ] Loss of Morning Erections
[ ] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[ ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[x ] Watery Ejaculate
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

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

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

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

[ ] Other (please explain)

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
    No gluten, no dairy. Trying to exercise regularly. Various herbal teas for help sleeping (Valerian, Camomile, Kava, rhodiola)

  2. If you have pre or post-Finasteride bloodtests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug (pls post your test results in the “Blood Tests” section and link to them in your post)?
    Waiting for results…

  3. Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?

  4. Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.

It’s incredibly late so I hope I’m expressing my thoughts clearly. First off, this forum has already helped me find some doctors who will actually BELIEVE me, and that is huge. Essentially I am outside the rules of the forum but I hope you’ll make an exception. I am still on propecia, about a 12 year user. About 2 1/2 months ago I am fairly certain I crashed while on the medication. I deduced this mostly from obsessively reading this board over the last few weeks. I have had many of the side effects listed here. Right now I just need any thoughts. Despite the crash I kept taking the drug. I didn’t know better and thought the crash was from just plain stress, my life has been super-stressful as of late. 2 very young kids, stressful job, stressful marriage, and back pain. Once I discovered this site I began to wean, did about a month of 1/2 a tablet. Then this hurricane in NYC happened and I was stranded without it for the last 2 days. Back on it now, continuing the wean, I feel like I plummeted again. I am now freaking out, I don’t know if I should just go cold turkey now, cut down to 1/4 tabs, or what. I have read all the info about weaning and the biochemistry of suppressing 5AR but it hasn’t helped me figure it out. I am dreading the coming day, having to make the decision about taking another tab, but afraid to go cold turkey in case it results in an even larger crash. I wonder if it doesn’t matter anymore.

I have consulted with Shippen and Jacobs and am awaiting blood results, but neither will advise me about weaning off the meds.

As far as the actual whole story, my crash had to have been caused by excessive stress, fatigue, and alcohol. The week leading up to my crash I was really under a lot of job stress. Any of you guys with little kids know that home life is not a break from work. I found that after lunch, around 2-3pm every day I would get hot for a few hours and feel restless at night. So I would have a glass of wine with dinner each night, watch a comedy and pass out. Each night that week I would successively wake sooner and sooner, getting 7 hours, then 5, then 3, then 1, then NONE for about 2 days and that was the crash. I realize in retrospect that probably most of my peculiar health issues in life may have been caused by this drug. I am waiting for hormonal bloodwork, but preliminary blood tests from my primary doc have ruled out autoimmune diseases or latent STDs. I am scared, like a lot of you have been. Honestly I love my family but my wife thinks this is all in my head and with the kids there is no chance of catching up on sleep during the day. I have been able to recover a full 8 hours sometimes but lately it’s 2 hours max.

Thanks for reading.

#2

i too crashed while on propecia and like you kept on taking it as i had no idea at the time what had happened to me either,after 3 or 4 weeks of feeling like death and connecting the dots i quit the drug cold turkey,that was in 2007,thinking that soon i would be back to normal like it said on the leaflet which came with it,that was 5 years ago and still my libido etc hasnt returned,i also was under a lot of work and home stress in the weeks leading up to the crash,ive often wondered myself could this have contributed to the crash as ive heard a few people on here say the same,i had been on propecia since 2003 (4 years) with hardly any side effects,just a small drop in libido which was barely noticable,then one day in 2007 something switched off in my body and has stayed that way since,at first doctors i would see were telling me it was all in my head etc,i remember at one point i was even convincing myself that maybe it was all in my head after all,if only that were the case eh,we could all be fixed fairly easily,anyway best of luck to ye,hope ye recover…

#3

Thanks robbo. Did you see any improvement at all after quitting? At least in your general energy? I hope you too can recover someday. Did you find that the drug in general made you deal with stress more poorly? When I track back every major health problem I’ve been through in the last 12 years (mono, tinnitus, joint pain), stress seemed to always be the trigger. And while on this med (again in hindsight) it seems that even mildly stressful things would set me right into adrenaline mode. It seems a lot of people reference stress and alcohol.

#4

pfs seems to affect each person differently from all the stories etc ive read on here,some seem to get the side effects worse than others etc, but for me the first year after the crash was the worst,aswell as having zero libido,i was getting flu like symptoms on and off for around a year,3 weeks ill then ok for 1 week then 3 weeks ill again and so on,my immune system must have been shot,things have improved some as far as energy is concerned,there was a time when i could hardly get off the sofa,just wanted to sleep all the time,but my pre propecia drive and motivation are nowhere near what they were,i also find i deal with stress poorly since the crash,my anxiety levels are through the roof somedays over the smallest things etc,the worst for me has been the sexual sides,i think it is the worst thing that can happen to a man,to sum up after 5 years off propecia im left with zero libido,bad anxiety,depresssion on and off,no aggression or drive these days just feel passive,still theres members on here a lot worse off than me,some have shrunken genitals and can barely function the brain fog is so bad…

#5

Quick update, now 2.5 months after stopping the poison. I am working with Jacobs, but also a naturopathic doc in NYC. There have been lots of downs and ups, and mostly I feel like a car that keeps stalling and rolling back down a hill. But I am making some ground. Fortunately I had holidays where relatives were doing a lot of my child-care for me and I got some good sleep. The fatigue, brain fog, muscle loss, and low motivation/depression were the worst side effects for me. Sometimes anxiety. Melatonin was a gift from the gods in terms of being able to sleep more than 1 hour at a time. I’ve been able to get a real 8-hours on rare occassion, but mostly I can sleep an initial 3-4 hours, wake up for 15 minutes, then sleep another 3 hours and I can’t really complain about that. Brain Fog comes an goes with seemingly no correlation to diet, exercise or supplements. But right after NYE, I had one of the longest stretches of “up” I’ve had since coming off the poison, and I was grateful every day. Clear mind, sharp vision, lowered tinnitus, and great nocturnal erections. A few days ago I had a downturn. I can’t figure out why. I worked out that day (no more than usual) and went home. That night I felt the anxiety swell up again. I use herbal teas to calm down when that happens, and although it got me to sleep, in the middle of the night I woke up in a hot flash and by morning felt depressed. I would love to hear from some other guys who have kids and are coping with fin sides. I am really envious of the single guys who could (theoretically) jet off to Caribbean to try and recover. I know if I were single that would be my first stop!

I tried a so-called liver cleanse recently from my naturopath. It consisted of 3 things. Taking psyllium husk, a vitamin/greens supplement, and then a milk-thistle/greens powder. The husk and vitamins seemed to help over time, but the milk-thistle/greens powder ALWAYS set me back. I would feel horrible after the 2nd day, and then stop it. Tried again after coming back from it, with the same effect! I did read that MT had great effects on some, but adverse effects on others.

My current regimen is

Multivitamin (NOT a megadose vitamin)
Vitamin D, 5000 iu/day
Turmeric, 1 capsule/day
5-HTP 50mg/day
Fish Oil 3000mg/day
Melatonin .50 mg at night.

I was taking a calcium/magnesium/zinc supplement for bone loss but I think it was making me feel worse. Stopped that. Got new bloodwork, will post when results arrive.

#6

My personal opinion after reading hundreds of user stories is that stress accompanies about 85+% of the crashes. Stress in the form of anxiety, work/school/gf stress, illness/infection, binging on alcohol or drugs, not enough sleep etc. Considering that nuerosteroids like allopregnenolone and THDOC are meant to counter and aid us in combating stress; and they are 5alpha-reduced…its fitting that stress + 5ar inhibitors cause us to “break”.

The reason that milk thistle likely causes a minor relapse is that it is a 5ar inhibitor. I’d stay far away from it.

#7

Exactly! I would say I am textbook in that way. Stress and drinking in the same week did me in.

Lots of people mention avoiding anything that inhibits 5ar. Oddly though, I find green tea sometimes helpful. It would be great if there were a clinical chart showing how strong natural 5ar inhibitors are vs finasteride.

#8

Guys,
I’ve read the entire topic and I couldn’t leave without saying something to you. When I look back in retrospect, like all of you here, I can clearly see stress. However, I must say that life is exactly the same way it was before I started taking finasteride. Basically, what changed is that we can no longer deal with things and tend to make them bigger than they actually are.

Believe me: it was not the stress that made you crash. Life hasn’t changed.

I also had all sorts of health problems like many of you. Bad liver, vision issues, zero libido, ED, high cholesterol, below range 3 adiol G, genital numbness, depression, etc etc etc… All my current health problems are somehow related to finasteride.

That’s it, guys. Just wanted to highlight that the stress wasn’t the culprit after all. This drug made us crash, nothing else did.

#9

I would have to agree. After stopping Propecia, I never had the “DHT rush” and quick 2 week recovery before the crash. I was gradually recovering over six weeks or so, then one day at work I found this forum and a couple other sites describing people destroyed by Propecia. My natural anxiety kicked in, but a thousand times more intense. That sudden intense stress and horror must have triggered the crash, because it kicked in immediately and I was more or less bedridden for two weeks.

#10

Did you recover at all after those two weeks? Hoping so.

#11

Yeah, I’ve gotten a little better. Shortly after the crash I was able to get an erection just thinking about something and received a beej from my gf. Other times we would make out and it would at least attempt to fill up. That went away as I became more and more depressed over my situation. Recently I had a string of days where I was feeling pretty well. Mentally I felt close to 100% and for the first time in a while I was very horny a couple times and even got an erect from visual stimulus once. I think my body is trying to recover but my extreme stress has been keeping it down. I’m trying to chill out as much as possible while maintaining a healthy diet and working out. I’m more hopeful about my recovery after this past weekend than any time before. Don’t underestimate the power of stress and obsessing over this issue. What really inspired me was a friend’s story of his friend who has sent cancer into remission 4-5 times. When he was sure he was fucked and was very depressed about it the cancer thrived. When he remained positive and did everything he could to fight it, he sent it into remission, and every time it came back after that. Also check out this guy’s story: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=601

#12

That’s great to hear, especially seeing the dark place you were in prior. Stick with it! Healthy diet, positive mindset and careful exercise. I have found being out in the sun for a walk helps me (although some are intolerant to sunlight).

#13

A couple of updates, now approx 4 months off of fin, I’ve posted new bloodwork which show my levels moving into a low-normal range. I would describe my sides as on the mild side, with the exception of an inability to deal with stress. That is moderate and sometimes severe. During stressful times I find myself either slipping into depression, hyper anxiety, social withdrawal, or extreme anger. It is easily set off by simply adding one too many things to a to-do list. My other sides (listed in the beginning of the thread I think) are still all there, but have decreased quite a bit. I’m optimistic that continuing diet and exercise will help my body recover over the course of the year.

I really owe this board a big thanks. Sometimes during those awful anxious/sleepless nights it was very helpful to read about people’s improvements over time, plus there were lots of good suggestions for how to deal with sides naturally. I’ll continue to check in periodically.

#14

So a quick update. I had a few days this week where I felt (inexplicably) fantastic. Then a few days where around 3pm (that always seems to be the hour) where my mind fogs up and my vision seems more blurry. BUT overall I still feel I am on a verrrrrry gradual upslope. I have opted not to take any scrips during this time and am trying to do it naturally.

As I’ve mentioned before I have 2 young kids at home- the younger is still a baby (born in the midst of all this bullshit) and waking up all the time. That’s a bit of a handicap for me and sometimes makes it difficult to gauge if I am having a PFS kind of bad day or just a shitty sleep bad day.

A few weeks ago though I went on a 1-day trip for work. Away from the wife, kids, and stress. I ate well, saw some old friends, and slept almost 10 hours that night (in 2 shifts). The whole time I felt amazing. So when the kid starts sleeping more, I might be able to better evaluate things.

Something I’ve been doing workout-wise is this little fad:
well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/0 … kout/?_r=0

Also I’ve been reading “The Ultramind Solution,” as was suggested by someone on this forum. Dr. Hyman is a bit controversial among MD’s but basically he is just pushing better eating habits, and is fairly good at explaining the neurological connection to diet. If anything positive has come out of PFS it’s an awareness of how terrible American eating habits are- and how the typical food in supermarkets is filled with GMO’s and other chemicals which could have a negative impact on the body.

It is a quick but vigorous workout and moreover you can easily measure your progress (e.g. I did 10 more pushups today than yesterday). I still don’t feel the awesome “burn” from a workout but it often helps me get out of a depressed mood, and I noticed that the workout is getting easier to do.

I’m due for a bloodwork soon and a bone scan, will post results as they come in.

#15

yo, this happened to me. There used to be lot of times 10 months ago when my mind was seriously fogged up and it was like that for the most of the day. Then… gradually and slowly, close to sleeping hours, it got a little better… The evening got a little better but apathy was still hard so it was hard to tell improvements… slowly it happened that the last 2 hours was really fog free which suprised me. Then in the course of months it became 3 hours before sleep. The evening became a little easier… then i messed up by jumping directly to T3, it made me too awake at certain hours…

10 months later (now), I wake up and spend the day mostly without easily noticable fog but it does return if I don’t eat at 3-4h intervals while avoiding some foods and last 4-5 hours are fog free and if i want, I could not eat in these hours and still not get fogged. So i’m fairly convinced that the brainfog problem ive had all this time is not just food-related allergic reaction but it’s adrenal fatigue (and also hypothyroidism) and it affecting blood sugar metabolism.
I’ve actually studied this a lot. When i get fogged, I could when necessary clear the fog by taking L-tyrosine 500mg (but remember to not to take actively), which means that the fogginess in large part is possibly an acute lack of dopamine.
If you want, im doing a certain diet modification of paleo and if this works, i can also chime in if it helps fog at all. Im still not sure if it works but anecdotes looks promising. I also use chelated Chromium but still unsure how much it actually helps me vs. regular eating habits (to avoid stress on adrenals).
Actually, i probably forget to tell you if it works so maybe i remember to mention it in my posts or member topic or something. EDIT oh lol, it was you who i speaked about the high-glucose diet. Yeah, i try to see if it helps me in the following months.

#16

So it’s now been about a year off the poison and I thought I’d post an update. Overall, I am doing way better. It’s been a gradual climb with lots of crashes in the middle, but somehow each crash was less severe than the previous one. I’m not 100% but certainly way, way better than I was when this all started. Here’s where I am symptomwise:

STILL DEALING WITH:
Difficult to build muscle (but not impossible)
Back/Hip pain, bone pain. Not every day anymore, mild to moderate.
reduced libido (but I’ll take reduced over none!)
eye floaters
tinnitus
slightly lowered mental acuity
lower tolerance to stress (I am overcome with negative thoughts/anxiety wihen stressed)
dry skin/eyes, usually later in the day, comes and goes.
gained some weight back in the stomach/moobs area. Not too bad.
motivation- still hard to get motivated, but a good workout helps out.

BIIIIIIIIG IMPROVEMENTS
Sleep- I don’t remember when but I stopped taking Melatonin and don’t need it anymore. I can sleep a whole night if the kids let me.
Libido-Nocturnals have returned in full force, I can get hard from fantasizing about girls/porn. Not at pre-fin levels but I’m grateful for what I have.
Mood- I now can really laugh again at jokes, comedy, make jokes again. Some days I feel quick-witted again.
Energy- I can work a full day now and don’t get that 3pm horrible crash in energy/mood. This took a while to return to me.

I was draconian in the beginning with the paleo diet. Eventaully loosened it. Still gluten/dairy free for now. I try to only eat whole organic foods, nothing with 50 ingredients. I make sure to get lots of fiber and veggies.

Supplements are still Vitamin D (and making myself go outside during the day), fish oil, multivitamin. I have a cup of either Kava or Chamomile Tea in the evening.

I can’t really recommend a regimen to anyone since we’re all different but I’m glad I didn’t go the pharmaceutical route (TRT/Clomid, etc). There were days (weeks really) where I thought I would never get any better, but it can happen. I think now I’m just dealing with the residual damage done from having messed up hormones for years. I will keep checking in with the group. Meanwhile best wishes for the speediest recovery possible and eat your veggies.