I have been off Avodart for 11 days now, I have a Hormone Replacement Therapy Doctor and have had my blood work done right before I was on Avodart and I was perfect. My HRT doctor seems to think my symptoms will get better as the drug leaves my system (it has a 5 week half life and will decrease by 50% in 5 weeks and then another 50% in another 5 weeks). I am like you guys living in a hell right now, although I am able to jerk off and cum again like twice a day (which is 1/10th of what is normal for me).
I have an appointment tomorrow with an Endocrinologist, I intend to not tell either doctor that I am going to 2 different doctors, I live in South Florida and we have a lot of doctors here. A lot of old people live here, so lots and lots of doctors, top doctors, so hopefully I will get some answers. I am not sure if I am losing muscle, but I can’t gain any right now, my muscles have a hard time recovering from workouts. My muscle tone improved a lot since my crash 11 days ago.
I was on Finasteride for years, and only 1 week on Avodart, I am giving off a small scent from under my arms again which is new, I was giving off no scent like a prepubescent boy when I quit. This is devastating to me, I was huge and busted out of shirts, and while my body looks fit right now, I am a lot smaller. My strength seems to be the same though, so it is almost as if the testosterone I inject is somehow able to maintain what I had. Though when I inject testosterone, it doesn’t work or feel like testosterone, it feels like the opposite and does the opposite.
I believe Avodart is preventing my body from converting testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, I also am starting to freaking lose hair, just got hair transplants, but they haven’t grown yet. So I guess I am starting to produce some DHT if I am starting to lose hair again (I wasn’t losing any till a couple days ago). While I may recover from this, I have all the symptoms everyone else here has, but I have decided to bring my social life to a halt, my dating life etc… I will be living at doctor’s offices till this is resolved, and I intend to try radical treatments. Let’s see what the Endocrinologist says tomorrow and what my hormone doctor says next week, I will post my results as I am getting a blood test monday, we can then compare what changes have occurred in my hormones.
I agree with some here, we cannot focus on trying to make Merck pay for their crimes, the fact is that medications cause problems sometimes, I don’t know about you guys, but I rather focus my attention on finding a treatment or a cure. It could take years for them to do anything about this (if they even ever do). Are any of you guys actively seeing Andrologists, Endocrinologies, HRT doctors? I will not go quietly into the night, this really sucks to be happening to me at 34.
That study says it is some kind of androgen deprivation damage, so I started in the meantime taking high doses of creatine as I read a study that it can increase DHT by 50%. If I am at some critical period that I can prevent the damage permanently, I am going to try, till I get to my doctor. Friends, hang in there and please all go see Endo’s and HRT docs and Andrologists. If we all go to these doctors and compare notes, perhaps one of these doctors will find a treatment or a cure, has that occurred to you guys? One smart doctor may find something that works that could help us all, rather than trying different things on the internet to self medicate, that’s how I got into this mess to begin with.
The foundation is great, and the forum is great, but we must all work to help ourselves and each other.
DGreene - I think you might be wrong here. This is turning into a very unique case. My girlfriend studies proteins for a living in the research setting and when I showed her this she was fascinated. Its localized change in tissue - if you read the study it was change of AR in two types of tissue - but not the muscle tissue. Why? 5AR is found in the two types of tissue with the change. If this isn’t the smoking gun implicating Fin in the long term sides, its just a matter of time now.
So unlike Vioxx - where Merck can claim heart attacks are caused by a list of confounding factors - how can you explain such a localized and unusual change in previously healthy men?
Merck can deny that Fin does this - but read the research - the authors THEMSELVES implicate Finasteride. If Merck continues to deny this, they could have a PR disaster on their hands. Especially once the Harvard and Baylor studies come out. Then when the world realizes they carried the drug in the US for almost three years without a warning of permanent damage…watch out. The media will have a field day.
I am not a lawyer - but I don’t see how Merck can explain this one away.
^ Like. I also think this study (and others like it) could start to really generate an interest within the medical community at large. This is definitely a big deal, but it’s one of many big deals we will likely be seeing henceforth.
I hope you are right, but Merck killed around 50K people with Vioxx and got away with it. I can easily see them getting away with this too. Sure they may have to pay out millions in settlements but they’ll still keep going on as a company and no one will go to jail. They’ll claim they didn’t know or something. Maybe someone who is a lawyer can comment on this.
That’s right: It’s likely that no Merck staffer will go to jail – if you follow THEIR playbook.
That is, if you take some meager financial settlement, sign a non-disclosure and gag order and go crawl back under a rock and feel sorry for yourself.
However…
If you exercise your right as an American to protest and all gather together to tell Merck, and the FDA–in the loudest possible voices–that you’re mad as hell and not going to take it any more, then Congress may be forced to act.
And I don’t mean just Propecia victims. I mean Vioxx victims, Fosamax victims, Januvia vicitms, NuvaRing vcitims–victims of all Merck’s killer products.
Get 1,000 people to show up on their lawn screaming like Al Pacino in “Dog Day Afternoon” and the world will take note.
Just in case anyone wanted to read the full study, PLoS One is open access.
You can find a pdf here:
Actually i was thinking that this AR density issue may not be result of finasteride usage but may be genetic predisposition.
is this result gives any treatment solution hope is this damege reversible how can we commet this
The permanent damage for many of us extended far beyond the warning label as it is today. What caused the permanent inability to sleep properly, vision problems, Dry eyes & mouth, fatigue, digestion issues, ect. None of that shit was listed as permanent. Does the study implicate Fin. for this as well? Also permanent means we are screwed then and we are just proving it with studies? I am not sure how long I can live like this.
All those side effects are downstream from a fault in how we process androgens. Thanks to this study and the ones to come this will become clear to any physicians and scientists with an understanding of what androgen deprivation does to a man, and the focus will move beyond just sexual side effects to the other areas.
As for permanent, I read it as permanent as things stand. The more knowledge they get the more likely they will be able to find something to treat it, see the last sentence: ‘A better knowledge of molecular events occurring during and/or after finasteride use could suggest possible remedies against severe sexual side-effects in fertile age young men’.
Also, one of the participants in the study was the member ‘Chi’ who has now recovered which at least shows that these common markers can be overturned even now in some.
To what extend can physical changes be reversed over time / or with a cure? (smaller adams apple, thinner neck, less pronounced jaw and chin/cheekbones, less fat in the face, dry thin and wrinkled skin, colorless and thin hair)
It would be interesting to see what a second biopsy would reveal about Chi’s condition. If he has genuinely recovered, his results could not only benefit other PFS sufferers, but the science community at large.
How do you know Chi was in that study? and what was his status at that time? full blown PFS?
I dont think he will do that. He is against researchs.
Keep in mind, the AR up regulation may not necessarily be causing the problem. The severe lack of neurosteroids (which also act peripherally) may result in up regulation of AR as the body tries to compensate. Increased AR may just be another result of the primary problem, not the cause of our symptoms. Nonetheless, it shows a difference. Also, I think the scientists concluded via their two studies that anyone can develop PFS. I don’t think they found a genetic predisposition so far.
Luckfax- it ain’t permanent. I had completely numbness. Now full sensitivity.
Depressedguy- I actually 100% agree with you, I think the poor gene/receptor expression is an affect not the cause. That’s my belief
Finatruth - What sides do you still have?
Out of interest - how long did it take for your sensitivity to return?
For me I feel like my glands are more sensitive then day one of PFS, but probably only abour 40-50% of baseline. I’ve been off the drug for 15 months now.
I’ve only read the synopsis but can anyone explain why upregulated Androgen Receptor expression would give less sensitivity to androgens?
Judging by his posts I find it difficult to think of Chi/James7786 as anything but a neurotic-hypochondriac case, if an articulate one.
But I also find it almost impossible to think someone can travel to Italy from the UK and actually get a biopsy of their genital skin unless they at least thought they had a genuine problem. I suppose somatoform disorders are very real illnesses and have driven people to do less. Theres no way of knowing.
It should also be noted that 10 men went to get a biopsy but this study only mentions 8 as taking part, viewtopic.php?f=33&t=5282&start=80#p40696