How long realistically do you think finasteride lasts in our body after discontinuing the drug?
I would say about 2 years, whilst others might argue, it remains for a life time?
I’d also like to know your thoughts as to WHY it continues to destroys us after discontinuing?
Your thoughts please?
Also, what is the alleged half life of this poison according to Merck?
I think it has a 8 hour half life.
I dont think the drug still been inside us is the problem I think the problem is that it has some how altered our bodies.
So you believe the damage caused by finasteride was only done whilst on the drug?
I massively disagree and think that the most harm is done off the drug.
Even if Finasteride was still inside us, that still wouldn’t explain the symptoms. Therefore it must have triggered some other disease process which can persist.
The reason ‘epigenetic’ is the big buzz word is because some people have the idea that the androgen deprevation caused by finasteride may of caused epigenetic changes (AR changed to resist androgens).
Unfortunately there is no evidence that anything like this is possible, despite cancer research being focused on trying to make such a thing occur. It would mean re-writing medical textbooks. Its also an elaborate explanation for ED and doesn’t even explain the more serious symptoms.
In my humble opinion Finasteride has triggered an autoimmune reaction against 5aR2 and to a lesser extent 5aR1, causing neurological problems including neuropathy. (We know there is a problem with the enzymes.)
I think this simply because; Only three diseases can effect enzymes 1. Too much, 2. Too little, 3. Autoimmune. An autoimmune reaction against an enzyme, caused by an inhibitor, that gets worse after stopping, is known to occur already! Autoimmune endocrine diseases are a common type of endocrine disease. Neurological diseases or often autoimmune. Autoimmune endocrine diseases can also cause neurological problems.
Oscar- there are some that are absolutely 100% fine while on the drug, and then upon fidiling with doses or slowing down doses, or stopping completely experience the crash. So they must be differentiated from those that have some symptoms while on the drug, and get worse upon cesation.
I think its neurological, but I think the receptors are completely imbalanced. Unfortunately I feel it can take years and years to re-establish balance as some people have claimed this recovery has happened.
If it was androgen insensitivity I dont think I would have steady (but painfully slow) upward improvement from my baseline. This also coupled with What Oscar said.
The absolute key to uncovering this mytery is figuring out what this drug can do to someone in one dose. In other words the guy who has taken one pill, sometimes a half of pill, and goes running to the bathroom with testicular pain and inability to get an erection.
Finatruth! I am one of those people that crashed after stopping! Since an autoimmune reaction can lead to a crash I can only assume individual variability determines other peoples reactions. Or maybe some people just suffer from low DHT sides?
Look, a rare side effect of HMG-CoA Reductase enzyme inhibitors (statins) is an autoimmune reaction against the enzyme that gets much worse only after stopping. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 … .30156/pdf
All I’m saying is that this closely matches in many ways the ‘crash’ after stopping Finasteride, it is also caused by an enzyme inhibitor like Finasteride, therefore it should be tested for. I’m not saying this is continuing in everyone, since it causes neuropathy, which itself can be permanent.
Btw, How do ‘unbalanced receptors’ cause a shrinking penis? or no orgasms? or muscle loss?
What I am trying to say, is that it wasnt really a matter of getting worse after stopping because it wasnt bad while I was on it. Some people had symptoms and then stop and those symptoms become exacerbated (the crash). I had the substance in my body for 9 years and was nothing but muscular, horny, loved life etc. So for me while yes technically “i got worse” but getting worse seems to imply that things were bad while on the drug and then much worse after.
In any event, here is something interesting, and I think we are in the same boat in terms of body appearance since i remeber you also talked about thinning legs, lower arms, and of course sitting in a chair hurts. The one thing Dr. Jacobs got spot on was he diagnosed me with something called pseud-cushings (high cortisol). It isnt cushings (caused by a tumor on the adrenal or thyroid etc) He rulled this out with a dexamethasone supression test. Now what correlates to pseudo-cushings is my appearance, thin skin, loss of libido, impairment of vascular functiong, disruption of the central nervous system and sympathetic nervous systems (here is your s, penis shrniking experience, pelvic pain, neuropathy etc), fatigue, loss of libido, impaired testosterone production, weight gain in the midsection, loss of subcutaneous fat in your lower legs and lower arms (gives it almost an atrophic look), rounder more red face (actually someone today was looking at a picture of me an commented that my face is more round now then a few years ago). So the look we represent is a cushings look or pseudo cushings look.
6 hours.
Dribble.
This is pretty much the one thing we do know. Read the Merck data sheet if you haven’t.
So what are people’s general feeling then, that the drug fucks us up on it or off it or both?
I personally think I’m far worse off the drug.
After discontinuation, I don’t think the tiny amount of Finasteride circulating in the body is the cause of the problems.
The alpha-blockers change something in your body while you take them, and it’s not predictable when and if the crash will happen.
In my case I took Finasteride for 1 year with mild side effects, then Dutasteride for 5 years with no side effects. Stopped Dutasteride cold turkey and felt alright (it may be easier to roll of Dut because its half life is ~5 weeks, much longer than Fin).
Never I would have thought that Dutasteride left a time bomb in my body:
after a hiatus of 5 years I took Dut again in Dec 2012 and in just 10 days it destroyed me and left me with hypogonadism.
I had side effects from the first day, but I thought “hey, I’ve been on this drug before, this is just temporary”. I was a fool, I wish I had done more research before taking this poison.
This means that something stayed altered in my endocrine system even after 5 years of discontinuation with no side effects.
i was fine for 4 years taking propecia 1mg per day,i did notice a very small dip in erection strength and libido right from the start but this was hardly noticable,i thought these were the possible side effects which were mentioned on the paperwork which came with the drug,i was still very horny etc and felt 99% so thought this was a good trade off to keep my hair,like i said i could barely notice the slight side efffects,i even came off the drug in those four years 2 or three times for maybe a month or more with no crash or any problems but soon went back on it when i noticed my hair starting to shed again,then the last few months i changed from 1mg propecia per day to quartering a 5mg finasteride pill,so i was taking roughly 1.25mg per day,that is when the problems started,all of a sudden i felt dead inside and didnt know why,like a fool i kept on taking the finasteride for a few more weeks thinking this would pass,ofcourse it didnt i just got worse and worse,so for me it was the change in dose what screwed me right up,that was six years ago,i only started quartering the 5mg pills to save a litte money,i could kick myself for being greedy and ruining my life…
Interestingly I also only starting having problems after changing dose, however rather than increasing it I was reducing it to 0.5mg every other day.
Ironically I did this as precaution against all the horror stories I’d read, with the intention of tapering off the drug as I concluded the risks weren’t worth it despite 6 months without significant side-effects. Low and behold, full blown PFS.
I started noticing a slight decrease in my vision roughly 4 months on the drug (1.25mg day). I thought this was due to allergies or a typical refractive change in my eyes. So, I didn’t even think about the Fin. One day my vision fogged over; kinda like a cloud in my corneas. I was also very sensitive to light; especially fluorescent bulbs. This led me to stop the Fin (and Rogaine) immediately. I didn’t know what the cause was at the time, but a year later I know it was the Fin.
I also had brain fog while taking (and after) Fin, but it didn’t get bad until I stopped.
Since stopping I’ve “collected” more sides including: sinus and ear infections, tinnitus, dry eyes (severe for a few months), and dry itchy skin (horrible in a cyclical nature).
Not sure if I’d be worse or better if I continued to take Fin.
What I do know is that Fin is definitely the cause of my sides (nothing else makes sense after striking out with multiple doctors and seeing this site), and that I first started experiencing some of the sides while taking the drug
I’m puzzled as to why I still experience muscle twitches and muscle loss despite 4 months off the drug?
If its still not in me or destroying me, why the muscle twitches?
My muscle twitches are quite aggressive and happen ALL OVER my body.
Drives me insane. Could this be an inflammation problem
That people talk about?
Either way, in my case I feel as though finasteride still works within our bodies for many months off the drug and certainly not the classified 6 hour half life bull shit Merck would have us believe.
Tiger,
Fin wrecks the body. We don’t know all the particulars yet, but obviously some of us can’t handle what it changes within the body, and/or our bodies react differently to it then the majority.
Your body is dealing with the aftermath of whatever Fin did to you. It may not be inside you anymore, but the damage it caused still is. Your body is repairing itself, but it takes awhile with PFS.
A crude example: you get a paper cut. While the paper is in your finger it does damage, but eventually it leaves your skin. Do the effects stop there? Of course not. You have bleeding, stinging, and maybe even throbbing for a time afterward. It may take a week or so for the wound to completely heal.
Yes, that is a primitive comparison, but a comparison that kinda works. PFS is obviously larger and more complicated in scale. So, even though the Fin is no longer in our bodies, we still have to deal with the damage it caused.
Simple enough explanation I guess and I see your point entirely.
One thing I don’t understand now though, is why the ‘healing’ process takes months or years if we ever do fully heal?
I broke my arm once; bone snapped in half. I was in a cast for a few months I believe. Then, after my cast was removed, my arm muscles were goo. I had to rebuild my muscles in order to get back to where I was. The whole process may have taken 5-6 months.
There are pro sports players that tear muscles and they take over a year to recover. And those dudes are typically in great shape! Also, they probably aren’t fighting multiple health issues.
Many of us have multiple issues we are trying to recover from.
I don’t think fin stays in our bodies, although there have been some compelling posts over the years talking about how other toxins that stay in our bodies for years, so why not fin. Hopefully the research studies will be checking for fin in the blood in their tests. For me it seems like fin put in motion a whole series of changes in my body that started out slowly at first (mostly ED) but has progressed to cover the whole range of PFS symptoms over the last almost 7 years now. droits suggestion to use methyl b12 and methyl folate has had some positive effects with sleep and nocturnals, but if I take them daily I end up with a chemical brain after about 3 days. My brain is completely f’kd up from fin. I never mentioned this on the site before, but about 3 months before I could no longer get it up (I never really crashed on fin, just couldn’t get it up anymore), I literally fainted in my chair at work while a co-worker was walking up to my desk. She said my head went back and my hands were shaking. I went to the doctor and he ran a few tests and said I was fine. Believe it or not I never connected that episode to fin until quite a while after I quit the drug. That was the beginning of the end for me. I’m with THETIGERSHULL, I don’t think after all these years I’ll ever fully recover. I hope the research studies don’t take forever to publish.
Danny
Having read your member story, you don’t seem to have full blown PFS???
Correct me if I’m wrong but don’t you still have full sexual function, no shrinkage and a testosterone level in the 30’s range?
Have things got worse since you wrote your member story?