Does Finasteride make caffeine intolerant?

Symptoms
#1

I used to love coffee and drank it every day. I could drink 10 cups of coffee or 1.5 Liters of energy drink and still fall asleep when I went to bed.

Since I tapered off Finasteride and crashed with Post-Finasteride-Syndrome symptoms, my caffeine tolerance completely changed.

Now just everything more than a tea spoon of instant coffee after midday, let me stay awake for the whole night. As I found this rediculous and I couldn’t believe it was true, I made the mistake again and again and drank more than a teaspoon. F. e. yesterday I drank a quarter of a cup of thinn coffee. In the evening I was extremely tired but didn’t fall asleep for 10 hours.

I find this extremely rare. Does anyone have or had these symptoms? I am still tappering of since a year (now 60 micrograms).
Is there anyone who has a biochemical explanation for this phenomenon, other than coffeine? I mean what changed in my body that I could drink 7 cups of coffee a day and now I am limited to half a teaspoon of instant coffee powder?
@strider, do you have any idea what pathways changed?

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#2

I was a big tea drinker even with pfs but approx 2 years ago i staryed getting all sorts of symptoms from caffiene and theanine. Dont know the reason why but i drink hot water now

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#3

What kind of symptoms?

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#4

Same here. After I was done with saw palmetto, now even one cup of tea makes my heart race when previously, I barely felt coffee let alone tea.

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#5

Worsening of insomnia, anxiety, cold limbs, cotre body temp drop, pins and needles in face handsand feet.lots of foods also cause these symptoms in me

#6

I tried a tea for the first time in months and no symptoms, sometimes a lengthy abstenance can help.

#7

Tea, at least 1 green tea in the morning for me is okay. But rediculous amounts of coffee make me stay awake the whole night

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#8

Green tea = 5ar inhibitor. That’s got potential to cause trouble for some people here.

Tagging @LazarusRy in this just to make sure he sees it.

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#9

Most healthy foods have some 5ar-inhibiting effect: all kinds of mushrooms especially shiitake, hibiscus, turmeric, cinnamon, rosemary, spenty more spices, everything that contains alpha linoleic acid like flax seeds, polyphenols in berries and colorful plants, beta carotene, zinc, nuts, ginstein in coffee…

I would have to eat only McDonald’s food and I think with PFS I should take care of my cardiovascular, diabetes and dementia risk.

Are there more cases with adverse for green tea? My impression is that people here there is a 5ar-inhibiting compound in the plant and then they report increase in symptoms. Can we objectively say with foods make more adverse side effects in the long run? I really would like to know!

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#10

Yeh Greek I had to ditch green tea a few years ago upon realising I had PFS. I may have the odd black tea going forward and see how I go as currently drink hit water. Cheers

#11

I’ve gradually become less strict on these things as time has gone by but it’s worth mentioning as we have had occasions here where people have shared that a particular food might be helping them and then someone has eaten large quantities of it in pursuit of relief. A cup of green tea may or may not be harmful, but 3 litres of it a day could be more likely to cause a problem.

One that I half remember is someone crashing themselves through eating large amount of asparagus.

I know it seems crazy to note these things.

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#12

Something worth noting is caffeine, and other stimulants, can make me feel more tired depending on my state. If I’m already tired, caffeine actually makes me more tired. Think it has something to do with my adrenals

#13

I dont believe some food or food supplement can make some huge impact on endocrine system. For example people saying they ate cocoa nibs or drank green tea and ‘crashed’ is complete nonsense to me. Steroidal drugs are perscription for a reason, and finasteride which for example depletes 99% of DHT in prostate, can’t be compared to some foods that maybe showed little inhibiting effects in vitro, and are most likely extremenly minimal in body tissues.

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#14

This happened to me many times with foods, supps and teas. They would be part of my daily routine then bang and I couldn’t touch them again. Almonds, kiwis, carrots, beetroot, tumeric, turkey kelfar, sauerkraut, honey being amongst the worst to hit me.

#15

I go with strider. Shiitake is one of the most potent 5aI, able to block some of the 5ar-enzymes by 80% in vitro. Yet I have never heard anyone crashing from mushrooms.
I think there may be foods that have a temporary slight positive or negative effect. But the risk of sedundary diseases of PFS like cardiovascular diseases or diabetes are far to high to not eat all these healthy foods.
For coffee and green tea it is probably the coffeine or the effect on the aromatase enzyme.

#16

I don’t have this problem, my tolerance to caffeine is as before, but if you not tolerate it, not consuming it for a while is a psychotropic substance, which can give problems to some people in a situation like this.

#17

Bumping this thread as I’ve recently started to drink decaf coffee because I miss the taste of regular coffee so much.

My tolerance was fine the first few days, however today I can still strongly feel the effects of the tiny amount of caffeine at this time in the eve. I’ve had two small cups; one at around 10:30 then a second at roughly 1:30.

A cup of decaf coffee contains around 7mg of caffeine - a regular cup contains 80-100mg - so it’s very odd to be feeling so alert and ‘wired’ at this time.

Can’t help wonder what’s causing such a peculiar reaction…

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#18

That’s good that you don’t feel that mushrooms will affect you, but the correct stance to take is that though you may feel they are a safe food, some people have been affected so better to either acknowledge that or not comment. Both myself and axolotl have had bad experiences with mushrooms. Whilst I acknowledge that not everyone will, there is potential. If more sensitive cases are better informed, then there is a lower likelihood that they will worsen their situation.

I know it sounds crazy.

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#19

Thanks, no it does not sound crazy. Mushrooms, especially shiitake mushrooms are one of the strongest 5ARI in nature. Therefore I was wondering, why guys are crashing on all kinds of things, but I never heard of mushrooms - there it makes perfectly sense.

Did you also experience side effect from cinnamon, rosmary hibiscus and some other spices?

#20

I have been avoiding lots of foods, but those aren’t ones that were on my list.

In fact, recently I relaxed some of my restrictions - I have recently started eating nuts again, as I know some have had issues and as someone who has experienced a cross section of symptoms, I want to be careful. I can’t say how things would have played out if I hadn’t been careful over the past 18 months, but I am of the opinion that I had little to gain and much to lose by just eating as I always had done.