Recently ive been having a lot of visual disturbances, I think this is mostly due to my bad disassociation but I am worried that this could further develop into schitzo/psychosis since recently when I look at my phone or photos the text seems to move back and forth slightly. Im wondering if there are any reported cases of psychosis from finasteride. I have searched the forum and only heard a few reports from other people that it can happen but have not read direct anecdotal statement from someone who has developed the issue from fiasteride.
Can you describe the visual disturbances you have?
its mostly related to things moving slightly, when I look at my phone text seems to sway back and forth or bend slightly. This also happens to things not on my phone, but is much less common.
It could be, but I think that is one more the more uncommon symptoms of PFS. For me I see hallucinations when I don’t get enough sleep, or when I drink too much caffeine. I suggest starting a strict sleep routine, go to bed at the same time and wake up the same time.
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Do you mean the negative or the positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
I’ve been thinking about and reading about psychosis and it seems there are some similarities between the emotional flatness symptoms of PFS patients and the negative symptoms in schizophrenia.
The dopamine hypothesis in schizophrenia explains the negative symptoms by a decrease in dopamine release, thereby less stimulation of D1 and D2 receptors, and thereby a lower response of involved neurons, caused by glutamate. This causes lower prefrontal cortex activity and negative symptoms (flat emotions etc).
It would therefore be interesting to look into what effects atypical antipsychotics (eg olanzapine, clozapine, quetiapine) would have for an effect on our symptoms, since these are known to have more of an effect on the negative symptoms in schizophrenia than the classical meds. Even though they’re mainly dopaminergic antagonists.
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I was mainly referring to if anyone had heard of people displaying the positive symptoms (hallucinations/delusions). I think its interesting that when googling finasteride with psychosis that there has been studies using fin as a new treatment for psychosis
This doesn’t sound like psychosis/schizophrenia symptoms. You aren’t seeing/hearing things that aren’t there. Your issue is more vision related, more like visual impairment. Visual impairment is somewhat common among PFS sufferers. Like some other PFS sufferers, I have eye floaters and some blurred/double vision occasionally, especially when I’m tired. Eye floaters can distort your vision. You might be experiencing similar issues. What do you think?
From a pharmacological/biochemical perspective I would find it highly unlikely for finasteride to cause the positive symptoms of psychosis.
I would expect the post finasteride syndrome to be even somewhat protective against psychosis since most of us actually experience emotional flatness. Hypothetically speaking, we’re missing the synergistic relationship between the androgenic and dopaminergic/noradrenergic circuits.
The disturbance in our androgenic system has hypothetically somehow caused our central nervous systems involved in emotions/motivation to be (permanently) toned down.
The visual impairment, and all the other physical symptoms like dry hair, hard stools, dry skin, muscle loss, different fat distribution etc. are most likely the cause of either long term lower androgens than before PFS (T, DHT, E2 etc), or the insensitivity of all these tissues to these androgens, caused by for instance different receptor density (AR, ERa, ERb etc). Visual symptoms could be explained by vascular degeneration/abnormalities under the (lower) influence of androgens due to either of the two mechanisms outlined above.
Dysfunction of all these tissues/systems under the influence of lower androgenic stimulation has all been described in fundamental studies but the connection to post finasteride syndrome, and the exact mechanism, has not yet been scientifically proven/shown. Unfortunately.
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There could be a connection between the pregnenolone-progesterone-allopregnanolone pathway and SCZ:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306453017314488
what do you think this could mean for me?
I know someone who was in psychosis for 9 months post crash off dutasteride. Absolutely terrible.
Did he recover naturally or did he need anti psychs? do you know him only personally or is there a profile on here with his story that I can read?
He’s not on PH. He’s on another forum (the one everybody thinks is a fraud) I know the guy though. Talk to him on the phone a few times. His story is pretty wild and he’s recovering through a lot of hormone treatments, optimizing neurotransmitters / neurosteroids / demethylating / etc based off of all the current research that we have.
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Do you know what his symptoms are? if you have a link to the forum could you please send it to me. I am in a really bad spot at the moment and would greatly appreciate it.
What were his symptoms of psychosis?
I’m not sure, other than the possibility that increasing the levels of the hormones/neurosteroids shown to be reduced on average in SCZ patients (who’s symptoms overlap with PFS) may help your symptoms (there have already been several trials along these lines involving pregnenolone helping with SCZ). It’s best to get your blood levels tested first of course and go from there. I only just now realized, 10 months after quitting Finasteride, that my E2/estradiol levels were far lower than my baseline (skewing my androgen index far too testosterone dominant) which had been fucking my libido, tiredness and cognition in general. To address this, I am stopping Tongkat (and anything else that would lower E2) for several weeks, eating hypercalorically, taking a break from intermittent fasting, and eating more cholesterol/saturated fat. In the short term, to support my estrogen levels/signaling, I’ve also been taking 2 capsules of “NOW Supplements, Soy Isoflavones, 60 mg” and 1-2 capsules of “Pregnenolone - 100mg Per Serving by Double Wood Supplements” each morning and my cognitive and libido/sexual symptoms have virtually disappeared within 1-2 hours (better each day). I will get my E2 checked again after a month or two off Tongkat to see if I’m back closer to my setpoint (16 -->25-30 pg/mL).