I'm in the middle of endocrine crash, what can I do?

Member Stories
#1

  1. Where are you from (country)?
    USA

  2. How did you find this forum
    Google search: “Finasteride Side Effects”

  3. What is your current age, height, weight?
    40y, 138 lb

  4. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
    Yes Running

  5. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
    Organic healthy

  6. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
    hair loss

  7. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
    9 days

  8. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
    40, November 30, 2012

  9. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
    40, December 7, 2012

  10. How did you quit
    cold turkey

  11. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
    Avodart

  12. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
    0.5 mg

  13. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
    1 day

  14. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?

Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[X] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[X] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[ ] Loss of Morning Erections
[X] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[X] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[X] Watery Ejaculate
[X] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[ ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[X] Suicidal Thoughts

Physical
[X] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[X] Testicular Pain
[X] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[X] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[X] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ ] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
    Nerve support: Acetyl L-Carnitine, Carnosine, DMAE
    Hormonal support: 7-Keto DHEA
    Erection support: Arginine, Ornithine, Citrulline

  2. Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.

[Size=4]I’m in the middle of an endocrine crash[/size]
Dutasteride wreaked havoc in my body, and my side effects are getting worse at alternating phases.
For a month and a half after discontinuation I had mild side effects and still a happy sexual life (although with the help of Arginine). Now it looks like something has switched inside my endocrine system, and it looks like it’s going in a very worrying direction towards annihilation.
Up to a week ago there were still days that I feel almost normal, but now it’s sufficient to eat even a mild DHT inhibitor like fish oil or avocado to drive the testicular pain worse. What is giving me hope is that there could be still days when I feel relatively normal, is there anything that I can do to catch this situation before it’s too late, and boost the 5 alpha reductase activity?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated, I’m so anxious that I can’t think of anything else

#2

F*cking hell, no replies? Look man, if you are crashing with durasteride (it seems likely! also, your suicidal thoughts are not your real self so you should write this all over your papers so you can remind this) then couple of things:

  1. Great that you’ve quit it - I can tell you that even if you have kept with it and your symptons might had been more stable (yet still declining), you would had poisoned yourself further in for the long haul/further into the mess.

  2. There’s probably not anything you can IMMEDIATELY do to your sexuality or to improve your erections, save Viagra etc stuff you are taking now.

There are long-term protocols you can try out and I can give you ideas for those i guess.

But you might have to accept at some point that you’re going for the dip and that you have to build your life/sexuality from the scratch again… but then again, we ALL have had to do that! You can do it as well. It’s more about how you take the fall.

  1. Remember, that depression or fears or hate is not going to improve your situation at ALL or make you productive or active to that matter. My life only started to improve once I got REALLY rigid re: depressive thoughts/thought patterns. Besides, it’s going to increase your stress further and that in turn makes your immune system worse.
  2. Drop any kind of grains ENTIRELY and switch to either Paleo or Raw vegan. Avoid trans oils and vegetable oils like a plague (pretty much all cooked foods in all shops, just get uncooked meat and do it yourself). Chris Kresser’s got excelent simple yet elegant site about Paleo diet, you might want to read it.
  3. If you want, you might want to try out 5-HTP for cognitive problems/depression. Take 50mg one pill or two pill a day but not more.
  4. I wouldn’t boost your 5 alpha reductase activity! Creatine did that to me apparently and while it improved me for a little while, it made me crash so f*cking hard. Apparently, anything that boosts or inhibits 5 alpha reductase is a bad idea.

I am curious how you found out about those food items’ mild DHT inhibiting abilities, where did you find that out? Are you taking regular fish oil from any shop etc?

#3

Make an appointment to see your doctor and report your symptoms.

Switch to a paleo diet which consists of:-
Lean Protein
Seafood
Fruit
Vegetables
Nuts
Seeds

Avoid dairy, bread, rice, pasta, processed foods, sugar. Also avoid alcohol.

I’d be very careful with supplements such as arginine - some supplements could make your symptoms worse.
i’d avoid taking any supplements, unless your doctor advises otherwise.
A daily multivit should be ok though…

Also find something to help you relax and unwind such as, regular walks outdoors, spa/sauna therapy etc

Hope things get better soon.

#4

thanks guys for your replies and support. So far the situation has been steady in terms of lack of libido and no erection, but mildly improving on the discomfort side. I’ve been using a mix of Ayurveda herbs with Ashwagandha and I think it helped reducing the testicular pain. I’ve read on the internet that Ashwagandha is beneficial to align the HPG/HPA axis. I don’t know if it’s due to that, but the testicles are not as retracted as before. it could be that more LH and FSH are being produced by the pituitary gland, hard to say. Apart from that, yesterday I tried to take a teaspoon of fish oil with my breakfast and I felt much worse. Many people on this forum use omega oils and say they are beneficial to them, but in my experience anything that lowers the DHT at this stage makes me feel worse. I hope not to have a bad relapse and that it will get better.
And yes, Dutasteride is freightening and very dangerous. The weird thing is that I used it before from 2003 to 2007 with little side effects, but then when I tried it again in December it crashed me, I immediately saw that something was wrong with the libido, but I persisted for another week or so because I thought it was just temporary. I spoke with an endocrinologist and he said that he saw many similar cases with Finasteride, people got sick after quitting and restarting it. Dutasteride and Finasteride change your body and brain, and the effects are unpredictable, you never know when you could get sick, whether after discontinuation, or during the first or second try.

#5

that’s really spot on from your endo. that’s a really common story here. also many people have tried to get on it even here to “remove the side-effects” somehow (like after becoming PFS person) and that’s a bad idea.

i’m sorry to hear about the fish oil thing/the DHT-sensitivity! i would suggest to wait it out until you don’t get such reaction but then i remembered that everybody’s body is different so maybe it’s wise that you do what you are doing. there’s an article about real quality fish oil’s (and why probably normal fish oils “stink”) in Weston A Price Foundation’s page, the beginner’s guide to cod liver oil dosaging if you are interested, btw.

i think noniman said it all well in terms of what you should do though.

#6

Bump. Any news Eli?