and that one life is riddled with severe pfs, what a gift…
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Update 11/10/2025
I finished my five sessions of shockwave therapy. I had the first full erection with thoughts since before I crashed off finasteride in early July 2025.
Overall the penile pain has gone away finally.
Going to be trying the following therapeutic efforts in the following months.
Memantine 10 MG for obsessive-compulsive disorder and general anxiety.
Bipolar Androgen Therapy & Potent HDACi for PFS symptoms
9-Me-BC for ADHD/Anhedonia
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Upon further inspection of the paperwork… I have a corporo-venous leak. If I’m being honest, I’m just so tired of this. It’s one issue after the other. It’s constant torture that is unimaginable to deal with this. I haven’t felt joy since mid August 2025.
Besides anhedonia and anxiety, not being believed by people you used to consider “friends” is revealing. It separates the real from the fake. I’m glad my family at least believes me.
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the believe it but since they can’t even being to fathom what it’s actually like to suffer this horribly it’s kinda pointless. if only they at least understood the depths of our suffering it would help
@LifeSucksBalls It’s a level of human suffering I didn’t think existed. Truly just survival and no quality of life.
Update 11/17/2025
I took 2.5 mg oral Cialis two days ago and I bet you can guess what symptom I gained… Tinnitus woohoooo!
Current Symptoms - Anhedonia, Anxiety, Depression, 24/7 Suicidal Thoughts, Sadness, Tinnitus, Venous Leak, Fibrosis, Loss Of Fullness When Erect, Penis Swaying To The Left, Penile Scarring, Loss Of Morning Erections, Loss of Nighttime Erections, Damaged Internal Penile Tissue, Mild Libido, Mild ED (Can Only Get 3/4 Erections That Stand Up When Standing Up), Weight Accumulation In The Waist (Feminization), Dry Brittle Hair, Genital Numbness, Premature Ejaculation/Hypersensitivity (From The Few Upper Glands That Are Not Numb), Loss Of Spontaneous Erections, Loss Of Sense Time, Cracking Joints/Bones, Slight Neuropathy (In My Fingers), Zero Confidence/Androgenic Aggression.
I didn’t mean to type this all out in that pretentious way capitalizing every single word but I’m so exhausted I don’t feel like revising it.
I decided to sit down and document every single symptom, some came at different times most notably my Wellbutrin induced anhedonia, the neuropathy and bone/joint cracks came from either hydroxide or eating a lot of sugar in early September. It’s important to note I don’t have any gut issues and haven’t experienced something like that again. The loss of sense of time and dry brittle hair began before finasteride and were caused by chronic stress and an episode of depression.
For some good news, the Mematine seems to be helping with OCD at 5 MG at nighttime which will titrate up to a higher dose and twice a day at some point. The thing with OCD though is it’s usually rooted in stuff out of reality. In this case, the obsessions/instrusive thoughts are rooted in reality as the PFS/anhedonia I’m suffering from is indeed real.
I sometimes think how this could be of have been prevented and how a $45 prescription of 1 MG oral finasteride ruined my fcking life. I haven’t felt joy since mid August and often daydream of my previous life.
11/20/2025
I’ve crashed myself into further hell and now I’m really considering ending it from BAT.
I have full blown emotional blunting - blank mind, worsened anhedonia, no anxiety, and no depression, no inner monologue, and no visualization.
While the relief from anxiety is nice I feel more dead inside. This is almost like PSSD victims who get blunted severely.
No reaction to porn after months of finally gaining that down the drain.
guys, there is no supplement on earth that can fix pfs, by taking a bunch of shit, doing experiments etc you will only further fuck yourself up
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11/26/2025
I’ve been taking the Memantine and will eventually be titrated up to 10 MG x 2 (once rising, once in the evening). This has assisted in relieving the anxiety.
I’ll be starting 250 UIs of hCG triweekly following what @Joekool did next week. I achieved a prescription from Dr. Irwin Goldstein.
I have scratched off doing BAT as I honestly do not think that is a viable option anymore. Some of the fatigue has gone away since that disaster. Sexual function is slowly returning to baseline.
12/1/2025
I have some unfortunate news to share. I will be ending my life this Christmas. I have finally come to this conclusion after realizing I cannot reverse the venous leak and the penile tissue damages. It’s impossible to reach pre-PFS state.
I always told myself that if I couldn’t achieve this I would die. This will most likely be my final post.
Please don’t do that. I know it’s hard but you gotta keep going. Please.
@Manofthenight @HopefulRecovery Appreciate the responses. By Christmas it will almost be a month of hCG. I’ll make judgement from there. The PFS gulag is hell on earth. The anhedonia/emotional blunting and perma dick damage is making my SI reach unhealthy levels.
12/5/2025 Update
After two doses of hCG, I’m noticing some morning erections and emissions. If this works to any extent I’ll be pleased. I continue to take Memantine which has had no adverse effects.
The Board of Medicine in the state I live in got back to me about the complaint I filled against the dermatologist who prescribed me this poison. I’m not sure what good will come from this but if she never prescribes it to anyone else again I consider that a win.
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12/20/2025 Update
Fortunately due to my severe anhedonia and emotional blunting my biological inhibition to stay alive has gone out the window. I’ll say if these were not present I’d stay around longer but fuck that. My condition is permanent. Side note - hCG is a massive cope and does not work for PFS. JoeKool used several stuff before “recovering” with hCG.
It’s really sickening how pharma can permanently ruin your life and you are left to finish the job. I wish I just died off my first dosing in late May 2025. I really hope some day they get to the bottom of this mess. Last update, sorry everyone.
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2/3/2025 Update
Still alive. I don’t want to jinx myself but I think I’ve found a combination to alleviate my symptoms. I even had sexual function that was almost like pre-PFS besides the genital numbness and venous leak. It was utterly insane. I did end up crashing where the sexual function went away, but I think I know how to get this to work. My genital burning is also gone, which is so relieving because that was a torturous symptom. It goes to show this is possibly reversible. Still have horrible anhedonia/emotional blunting and derealization. Hope to have a better update in a few months.
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2/19/2026 Update
This will mostly be my final update unless I have good news (full recovery). The first week of March I’m trying DHT-E, Estrodial Cypionate, Memantine IR 10 MG x 2, and Etifoxine 50 MG nightly. The DHT-E and E2 doses will start low and I’ll titrate up slowly. I’ll do this over the course of three months. If this doesn’t work, I’m out and I mean it. My most bothersome symptoms are genital atrophy (I believe this is permanent), complete anhedonia/emotional blunting, and the burning sensation in my prostate/pelvic region. It’s truly hell.
In roughly three months, will be a year of this nightmare. I honestly can’t believe that sometimes. The thought of suicide greatly scares me. I don’t really want to die like something who’s severely depressed but I just want the uncertainty and suffering to end. It seems like there’s no end in sight. Even though I’m emotionally blunted, suicide has such a horrific effect on loved ones, friends, and probably even friends I’ve made on this journey. Writing this even brings great tears.
I remember when my late cousin committed suicide. He’d be suffering from schizophrenia for a few years but one week the hallucinations and insomnia got so bad he was forced to end his life. I remember vividly my dear mother was in so much sorrow. I can’t even began to comprehend how she’d react to her youngest son committing suicide.
I even began seeing a new woman whom I’ve felt a connection with. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world and I was even brought to tears because I hadn’t felt that in forever. To remove someone’s sexual function and ability to feel emotions is the worst crime a person can commit (which has no repercussions).
Anyways, if this works great and if not I’m sorry it had to come to this. Merck and the derm who prescribed me this can rot in hell.
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I’m really sorry you’re in such dire straits man. I’m almost three years in, and it got a lot better 1.5 years in.
I had burning and pins and needs all over my body and I had to pee every two hours, even if I didn’t drink any water, and the urge only got worse after going.
Relief seemed impossible, and I contemplated suicide seriously several times.
I believe through a combination of daily excercise, going through the motions of doing hobbies (even when getting minimal pleasure), and distraction, my body has gotten to a much much better state.
I say all of this to say that one year in, I still thought I was on a downward trajectory. Then, by the end of year two, I was a bit better, and by year three ive found that im even better still. This is a long and grueling disease, but the arch can trend upward, very very slowly.
Try to just keep living man. It sucks, but it might not always suck so much.
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I appreciate your kind words but I’m under the belief this doesn’t improve with time in a severe state. I mean, even if I got to 40% recovery, that’s still less than a half-life which I’m not able to come to terms with. I don’t know how people live with constant physical pain, no emotions, and little to no sexual function. There’s no Medal of Honor for surviving with PFS. There’s no meaning to all the suffering it’s just a void of hell with no end. Even if there’s a cure for PFS I have perma irreversible venous leak so I’ll never have a proper erection again.
I guess you could say I’m just beaten down by PFS and I want out. I may not even attempt the above experiment because of a 100 percent way out which would be tragic but arguably logical in this situation.
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I get what you mean. Although I said I’m at a functional state now, which is true, I now have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, so I’m in physical pain most days and my joints fail randomly all the time, Peyronie’s diseases, so my penis is physically deformed compared to pre-fin, and there are a host of sutble ways I’m different beyond that, which I won’t delve into. All of that sucks, but lingering in the feeling of meaninglessness is a dead end and a distorted psychological framework of analysis, which is something I know after having gone on many, many laps on the nihilism/depression merry go-round.
The funtionally cured state I’m in is a matter of relative comparison, but its almost moot to me now. When I was still actively crashing every day, I only wanted to die, but I was too afraid to do anything about it and didn’t want to traumatize my loved ones, so like some sort of urchin clinging to life I just kept living.
And now, even though I’m fucked up and my erections arent that firm and my body is more lax and injury prone, the sheer hell of constant physical agony is gone, and in comparison, because I still remember the crushing depths of that rock bottom, this new sorta shitty baseline is amazing in contrast, and trust me man, when you can finally grab a branch and perch your feet on some foothold that lets you get out of the worst pit of it all, you’ll get hope again, and that hope will be borne out in reality as real progress, slowly, and the better it gets, the higher you go, and the better you feel about it all.
I wish I never took that single half pill three years ago, but i did, and here i am, and im fucked up, and its really really so much better man.
You can say that’s just a cope. You would probably be right. But ultimately, I think life itself is one long cope. It’s just a matter of much you have to do it to make it to the end as gracefully and peacefully as possible for yourself and those around you. Some have it easy for a long time and coast until they can’t, and others, like us, reach that shore sooner. There’s no medal for that though - you’re right, it’s senseless and cruel. But that’s life. We all face a tragedy in the end, and that would be true with pfs or without pfs. But even when it sucks, our tenacity to cling to life is strong and compelling, and when it sucks but not nearly as much as it used to, the question of suicide fades away, mostly. Then the question isnt “how do i end this,” but “where do I go from here.”
I don’t have that answer for you, and you might not have it now either. But you’ll slowly crawl out of this hell, and you’ll find out what to do then.
It gets better.
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