I’ve been experiencing drastic signs of recovery for a couple of months now. A few times over those months I have got overexcited and made the mistake of getting drunk. It’s the one thing that ruins all progress and takes you right back to the start.
It’s SO SHIT but strictly no booze is the only way.
Cdnuts, can I ask: how long were you in the recovery phase for with these moments of complete clarity? Was there a moment when you suddenly realised everything was normal again ?
Appreciate it,
One more thing…I have also experimented with times at which to workout in the day. I have found that if I workout late in the evening, towards 9pm or later, my sleep suffers alot and I don’t wake up very well rested. 7-8pm seems to be alright. I don’t like working out early with heavy weights since my muscles are still tight in the morning and need loosening and warming up. Also, I have found that the sleep schedule must be very regular, no staying up till 1:00am. 11:30pm seems to be the best time to go to bed for me. Has anyone had similar experiences? I understand that this is proper sleep hygeine (not working out a couple of hours before bed) for normal people but I feel it is even more amplified in cases with people who have this condition.
For those of us doing the paleo/exercise regime…I found this new product to be intriguing. Eric Potratz (from Androhard fame) has a new joint venture for this palm fruit supplement. I was sceptical at first but after watching some of the videos, its seems credible. Supposed to be better than the old Toco-8 and it has essential nutrients not found in today’s diet.
This may be a great adjunct to the paleo diet. Too bad its a little pricey…but they offer an autoship option which makes it a little less.
for the first time in my life, i decided to fast for 24 hours. I did five - 24hrs water fasting and one 34 hours.
Very good results. I´m very happy with results.
(1) Morning wood every day. This is the most dificult in 5 years. Night wood OK, but morning only on arimidex.
(2) Skin oil. 
very happy with this.
(3) Little hair loss. Very happy with this results, enzime 5ARII start working again.
(4) Better sleeping.
I´m preparing my self for a longer water fasting. i´ll gain 5 pounds to start my 5 days fast.
Do yourself a favor…if you’re going to ejaculate, do it with a real live woman, not by yourself. I rarely masturbated myself to ejaculation during my healing. I kept that fire inside for exercise and motivational drive. So much so that I would actually have wet dreams because I wasn’t getting it out. (I’m in my thirties mind you) And I have nothing as far as proof goes in regards to this, but ejaculating with a woman has a completely different effect on your hormones as opposed to ejaculating in front of a computer screen. When you masturbate by yourself you feel drained and wiped out afterwords. When you do it with a woman, it’s just a completely different animal.
This might sound awful, but for your own health and healing, find a girl that you can do this with. Even if it’s just a “practice girl” You guys know what I mean. When I found I was ready to start dating again, which I hadn’t done for years because of this fin shit, I was amazed at how much the company of a woman made me feel more like a man. I got hormonal surges from this. It made me a better man, a more complete person. The regular sex added to this.
Be honest. Tell her you’ve “been out of the game” for awhile and to bare with you. You’d be amazed at how understanding some woman can be. She can help work the kinks out of you mind, which at this point, believe me, you’ve got some mental baggage that needs to be cleaned out because of this mess. The regular sex will do wonders for your recovery. BELIEVE ME.
Not sure if its the female pheromone, the physical contact, but it gets things going in the right direction.
Agree. I don’t believe the program was followed EXACTLY as laid out. There is a reason why it is set up the way it is.
This “initial period of abstinence” is the key. I’m going to say this is going to be longer then most folks would appreciate. Two months doesn’t sound long enough to me. Six months to a year would be better.
Yes. It was the summer of 2012, July. After having phenonmenal success and making great strides, I was rarely having any bad days. The bad days I was having were just normal, didn’t get enough sleep the night before, drank too much the night before, worked out too much prior…normal stuff. And the bad days were nothing like a bad fin day. I just realized out of nowhere, I had done it. My eyes welled up and I felt extremely proud of myself for what I had done. You see, I had made this program my way of life. It was just normal. The food, the exercise routines, the supplements…it was just how I lived. I started dating, I started having regular sex. Life became good. Life became…normal
The darkness was in the past. My days were bright and filled with promise again. I had things to look forward to. Hitting the gym, going to the beach, my girl cooking dinner, SEX, etc. Normal shit.
This is what I’m trying to tell you guys. Just do the damn program religiously, Make it your life and don’t think about it. Make it what you do. And just get on with life. Eventually, life will just fall into your lap. Stop coming here…YOU DONT’ HAVE A PROBLEM.
Best time to work out is between 3-6pm. This also just happens to be the best time to workout if you’re backloading.
Hi CDNuts,
First off thanks for commenting, it really brings hope to us all, I spent hours reading through your thread and making detailed notes yesterday and am preparing myself to fight to get my life back, whatever it takes. I do however have a quick question regarding how you would play things in my shoes, and would really appreciate it if you could take a moment to advise.
A quick bit about me, I am 28 and from the UK and have been suffering with this for nearing a year. I took the drug for 7 years with no issue whatsoever, started noticing weaker erections last December and quit the drug, then had the ‘crash’ at the end of January. I have spent the last year with the same frustrations as the rest of us being dismissed by endo’s in the UK and then flying over to the States and am now under the care of a Doctor recommended by many on this forum, but basically over the course of the last year I’ve been on medication the majority of the time to try to help, with no benefit found. I have had extensive bloods and urine panels, am currently on clomid, anastrozole and cabergoline, and have such a high estrogen level I take 1mg a day of anastrozole and it is still above top of range. Clomid seems to send everything into overdrive for me.
In terms of my symptoms, I have quite severe erectile dysfunction (need 100mg Viagra for intercourse and its still not perfect then) and loss of libido, and curvature of the penis. Although my sexual symptoms are severe, I have been fortunate not to have the cognitive and physical issues (curvature aside) that many guys seem to have. I have had anxiety and depression but get the feeling it is more situational than linked to the drug. Also, I still have full sensation during sex and orgasm still feels great, its just arousal that’s the issue.
My query relates to the water fasting element… I have looked into it and with flights and everything else all in for True North would set me back $3,000. That is no problem, i’d pay it in an instant, you cant put a price on health and i’m really determined to fight and beat this. BUT my main concern is the weight loss and subsequent strength loss. I am currently in quite good shape, very fit and active and already training in the gym 4 times a week (I will be modifying to your protocol of exercise now), but basically I still look and feel good in that regard. I don’t have a great deal of weight to lose and am already quite thin.
My question is, given im not ‘in the shitter’ physical health wise, do you think a period of extended fasting may not do me good in this regard and i’d be better off pushing on with all other elements of your protocol and not fasting, or do you think that given I’ve essentially spent the last year taking pharmaceuticals to battle this issue I would especially benefit from a period of fasting?
As I said, Im ready to do whatever it takes, physically and financially, i’ll be going there within the next 2 months if you recommend it as what I should do, I just don’t want to end up worse off than I am right now.
Thank you man and do all of us a favour and enjoy every moment of your new life, you sure as hell have earned it!
cdnuts. A very relevant personal question, which I hope you can answer. What was your journey like job wise, or while you were recovering? Were you poor and on the skids? Eating healthy can cost quite a few bucks, especially if your living in a shit poor situation, sick like this, and stuck. As a result of getting cognitively changed, from using propecia, I don’t know about you, but I took a tremendous tumble financially, as did many on here, that reduced me to poverty level borderline homeless person for years…
Bravo for your recovery man!
You’re an absolute hero man, massive respect for what you achieved and coming back to help all these people.
Thanks again,
You’re definitely going to have physical set backs from the fast. You’re going to lose strength and you’re going to lose weight. You’re also most likely not going to like the way you look for a bit. All of this is secondary to the goal, which is cleansing.
As I’m not in your shoes, I can’t tell you what you should do. I know fasting will be beneficial seeing as you’ve never done it before, but I also can’t say how long it’s going to set you back in your training and everything else. It WILL set you back.
If you do end up worse then you are now it will only be temporary, that’ for sure. Fasting isn’t going to make you worse in the long run, only better.
It’s only a decision you can make. If you’re going to True North, you can always fast for a week and then switch to juice for a second week. They are very easy to work with there.
Either way you will be doing yourself a huge favor, whether you think that immediately afterwords or not, you will be.
I say go for it. It will be a very humbling, profound life experience that can’t be put into words. Their program is top notch.
WOO HOO! Can’t wait!
For those of you caught up on drinking, not worrying about alcohol whatsoever has given me a freedom to focus more on recovery. I don’t get messed up at all, eyes on the prize and on the steps needed to get there, nothing else.
Btw, fasting went very well. You should all consider it. I’ll try and update my thread soon, but I’m busy.
Hey cdnuts, just wondering if you had digestion problems when you were still having issues, I suffer from this disgusting taste in my mouth like food is just putrefying in my stomach, I feel great when I don’t eat but as soon as I eat I deal like shit, can u relate?
I have been where you are at now. The workouts would make me feel worse, running of any kind especially. I followed the advice of another former PFS sufferer who took three years to fully recover by doing away with any kind of running especially in the initial stages of recovery where your body is still very damaged from the effects of the drug. The plan was to gradually phase in tougher and more strenuous workouts very slowly as time went on. To give you an example, perhaps in your current state you should workout only twice a week with heavy weights for only say 20 minutes each session. Then after about 4-6 months increase the length of the workouts to 30 minutes and then perhaps try 3 lifting sessions per week lifting heavy weights (you must give max effort each lifting session). This must be done consistently, you can’t simply try it for three months then give up and have a few drinks. Alcohol, caffeine, tobacco, bread, dairy, refined sugar, processed foods of any kind are completely forbidden. You must be extremely disciplined and if you cheat any little progress made will be wiped out and you will regress faster than you progress. This must be your way of life for at least a few years. It may take several years to see big improvements unfortunately. After about the year and a half mark, I was healthy enough to start sprinting again (long distance running is simply out of the question). You have to continually test your boundaries based on how you feel. I tried sprinting about a year into the regime and I still felt bad so I waited a few months and tried again and I was ok. The changes occur very very slowly but if you are consistent I believe you will start to see improvement. In the initial stages, it was a real hard struggle even going to the gym week after week and giving max effort until I felt light headed and even nauseated. This is what it takes if you want to go the natural route in my opinion. I am not sure those trying drugs and unnatural means are faring better. Also, keep a very regular sleep schedule and never go to bed too late and don’t oversleep.
By the way, I also continually doubted whether this plan for recovery would work or not. I had many doubts indeed along the way. I kept saying give it another 6 months before judging, and then another, etc… I am finally reaping some of the rewards for all that work.
I haven’t read all of the posts in this topic but wanted to chime in about my recent personal discovery, on the topic of diet. I started going to the gym about 2 months ago, supplementing on whey with a litre of milk a day. I started to noticed a dull ache in my penis that was so uncomfortable and lasted all day. It was really wearing me down until I wondered if the milk or whey was responsible. I swapped to water with whey, and noticed my situation immediately improving. After a fair few weeks off whey now, I realise milk is definitely a trigger for me, so I’ve switched to alternatives like almond milk.
I’m still not 100%, by far. My libido is still poor, maybe I get a sexual drive twice a week instead of daily - before I took finasteride a few years ago. It makes me wonder what else in my diet I can remove/add to aid a recovery, and why milk should be such a poison to my system now.
Hi cdnuts, bizzbee and others,
I’d like to hear your opinion about the following. I’ve been following the paleo diet for about two months now and so far that is fine. What bothers me however is that I don’t know what to drink when going out. I guess that the only drinks that are allowed in this diet are water, herbal tea and fruit juice. I read several posts on this forum and on other websites related to fitness, where people advise against fruit juice, apparently because the high dosage of fructose/sugar. I don’t mind drinking solely water at home or at work, but in a bar or restaurant, that is different. Since alcohol and soda are no options I have been drinking fruit juice when going out. But now I doubt whether this is a good idea. Is fruit juice bad? Are there any other options? What do/did you drink when going out? I appreciate any advice. Thanks!
Hi Cdnuts,
I’d like to know about any metal changes pre and post recovery that you can share. Like in my case, late in taking Finasteride or maybe shortly after stopping, I realized I didn’t have any nightmares or that my nightmares would be less intense. Some dreams, like me falling, would be so intense… my mild fear of heights is still with me but I haven’t had that dream in years since finasteride! Also, I remember dreams where it was a mission to take a piss - I would try going everywhere in my dream, frustrated never bein able to relieve myself, only to wake up and find that I had a rock hard boner and needed to piss like a monster in real life. Lately, I’ve been noticing dreams becoming more intense because of the protocal but I’d like to know will my mental state return to normalcy too?
This drug changed me as a person, I’m not even sure who I am or who I will be once fully recovered. Another mental side effect is I use to get so incredibly nervous in certain situations like being around a hot girl or going for a public speak. It was a thrill and a bother at the same time to get a rush of adrenaline throughout my body as I prepaired for something that made me nervous. I feel these butterflies in my stomach even more so now as my recovery seems to be gaining traction. I would like to know if your mental sides have also been fully cured?
Is there anything still lingering?
Thanks!
Cdnuts,
Thanks for getting back to me. I appreciate it.