Source: topix.com/forum/drug/proscar … 9QC3CDB54V
Hi All:
I have a few ideas and comments which might help some of the sufferers.
First the background: I’m a health nut / fitness buff with a degree in chemistry and thirty plus years of nutritional research. Within the constraints of my knowledge, I have used myself for a fair amount of experimentation including some rather lengthy tests with high levels of soy protein as well as saw palmetto, and I have (for a period) actually induced in myself the same kinds of side effects many of you have experienced through use of finasteride (Propecia, Proscar) such as decreased libido, difficulty / inability to achieve or maintain erection, and increased emotional sensitivity and fogginess of mind along with increased sleeplessness and decreased energy.
The reasons for this in me were:
a) soy contains isoflavones which are actually phytoestrogens. They are, particularly in soy, very strong mimics of human estrogen. Our bodies cannot tell the difference so by consuming the excess soy, I was actually increasing the estrogen to testosterone ratio in my body. Since only estrogen or testosterone can occupy the rather promiscuous receptor sites in the body, any site occupied by estrogen or estrogen mimics cannot be stimulated by testosterone. The net effect heightened my emotional level and decreased my sex drive.
b) saw palmetto is an herb that is also a 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor (this is what finasteride does). 5-alpha-reductase is an important enzyme required by the body for a number of hormonal processes, but the most important of these is the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. By consuming regular amounts of saw palmetto, I actually reached a point where I couldn’t get it up for a few days straight no matter how hard I tried (yeah, I was a little worried at first).
Now, many of you may have been told DHT is bad and causes hair loss. In part this is true, but DHT is also responsible for all of the characteristics which make us males male – hair growth, deeper voice, sex drive, potence, and so on.
While we are young, we don’t have much problem with our DHT levels. We grow hair AND get it up; however, as we get older, we might start losing hair and we might suffer from impotence. Why?
Normally there is a systemic cleansing process which “washes” the receptor sites of the hormones regularly; however, with male pattern baldness, it seems this cleansing system is partially broken down. The DHT sits in the hair follicle too long and eventually causes the follicle to die. My suspicion (from what I’ve observed and tested through the years) is that this improper systemic cleansing is actually caused by diet – years of eating the wrong stuff for our bodies thereby accumulating toxins which simply put our bodies into overload.
Anyway, concurrent with this, it is my belief that the key to restoring the hormonal balance and hormonal cleansing process is to change our diets, but I don’t want to get into that here. What I do want to say is this which might help some of you get your libidos back (see part 2):
Part 2, con’t
Cauliflower is a great vegetable which contains large quantities of indole-3-carbinol (this is actually true of the entire cruciferous family, but cauliflower is the best). This compound is extremely effective as helping us men remove excess estrogen in our bodies. This may help some of you purge yourselves. I suggest eating it raw, and do not take any vitamin C for two hours afterward as vitamin C will interfere with the i3c mechanism.
Please note that indole-3-carbinol will interfere with iodine uptake in the thyroid so you’ll need to make sure to add a small amount of kelp or iodized salt at some time in your day when it is several hours away from the time you ate the cauliflower.
The quantity I’d suggest eating is a large clump of it daily for awhile (not a whole head, just a large floweret). It may take a week or three until you begin noticing any difference depending upon how out of balance your endocrine system is.
Next, Korean ginseng and Siberian eleuthero are some pretty good herbs which help increase your energy levels, and there’s some speculation that they’ll increase your testosterone levels / outputs though this is not yet substantiated in research.
I CAN say that I personally have experienced a major increase in sex drive with these herbs. It’s like where you want, no you NEED, sex two, three, four times a day.(Needless to say, I don’t take these herbs regularly. I have too much to do that wouldn’t get done otherwise!)
As always, there’s a trade off. These herbs may increase your blood pressure
slightly. If you have any hypertension, be extremely careful using ginseng and euleuthero.
That said, I suspect there must be some reversibility of finasteride side-effects, but it may take a long time – perhaps years. When I quit my experiments with soy and saw palmetto, it took me a good year and a half to finally stabilize my endocrine system again. I had plenty of fluctuations!(These days I actually consume small amounts of soy again with no ill effects, and I have now for at least a couple of years, but I don’t overdo it anymore.)
So if anyone is curious at this point, I currently have a normal, active sex life (3-5 times per week, sometimes multiple times per day, sometimes skip a few days – the usual), and I have a whole lot of hair on my head that I need to cut all too often plus I have a lot of energy all of the time so I’m definitely doing something right.
Lastly as a disclaimer, I must say I cannot accept any responsibility for how this advice is used or potentially misused. You, the reader, are on your own and accept full responsibility for how you use anything I have written here. That said, I wish you all the best and hope I might have helped in some way!
Fredman