Hear me out I know it sounds crazy. I first started getting PFS symptoms nine months ago. A week after taking my last pill, I became hypogonadal, lost ridiculous amount of muscle mass, facial atrophy, etc,. pretty much all the symptoms that we all have. I was in a pretty bad state for about 6 months. It seems like every time I made a slight recovery with various supplements that I have at my disposal, I would experience a crash soon after. Unlike most of you guys, I had previously been on finasteride for several periods of time with only slight decreases in libido. Every time I quit during those times, I actually had notable increases in my sex drive, muscle mass, etc,. For whatever reason, cessation of the pill nine months ago caused a dramatically different effect.
That got me thinking. Is it actually finasteride that directly causes our problems or the rapid shift in hormonal environment from DHT-poor to DHT-rich after quitting. I am currently in med school and one of the common themes of endocrinology is that rapid increases in hormones can quickly lead to a dramatic lowering of the hormone’s receptor and level of hormone synthesis. After six months of feeling like shit, I decided to test this out by taking fin again. After 2 days of taking 0.25 mg, I felt even worse. I completely lost hope and decided to quit again, sooner than I wanted to. Several days after I quit, I noticed increased muscle mass and facial and body hair growth, improved bone densiy, larger adams apple, all signs that the androgens in my body were actually working again. I was essentially back to myself pre-fin. I was shocked to say the least. This “recovery” lasted about a month and a half, my longest yet. Although I have steadily been going downhill after that time, I am still much better than right after the initial crash.
This experiment leads me to believe that our problem is mostly due to androgen insensitivity. The rapid return of potent androgens (DHT) after quitting may have actually caused a dramatic reduction in the androgen receptor. In turn, this may have caused all the feminizing symptoms that we had. This may explain why while most of us experienced some side effects of the drug WHILE on it, we only had the complete crash AFTER cessation. I believe that by retaking fin for a short time, and lowering DHT once again, I may have actually induced androgen receptor upregulation which allowed me to feel completely like myself again. While I am definitely not advocating anyone going back on fin, this finding might allow us to figure out the best way to treat this condition.