My ED problems started only after I STOPPED taking Avodart

General Discussion
#1

Hello,
I have been taking Avodart for 8 months (one 0,5g pill every other day), as prescribed by my hair-transplant surgeon and I didn’t suffer any sexual side effects. Then, two weeks ago, I stopped taking it and immediately I was hit with all the sexual side effects described on this forum: Erectile Dysfunction, low libido, low semen volume, probably penile shrinkage…

Have any others experienced similar case and can you suggest what do I do?

  • Do I go back to taking Avodart, in hopes that it will restore my functions?
  • Do I go back to taking Avodart and than slowly decrease dosage in the course of maybe several months?
  • Do I just wait and hope that my functions will restore itself?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

#2

Why did you stop the treatment if you didn’t have any side effects? I would definitely not go back on the treatment. Avodart has a very long half-life, so there’s a chance that you’ll recover after some months.

#3

That is exactly what happened to me. I was on propecia for ten years with no side effects. I stopped taking it and I have had side effects now for the last 8 years. It seems like a lot of people on this forum had minor or no side effects when on propecia and the major side effects started when going off it.

#4

So, have you tried going back on pills at some point?

#5

Probably because the body suddenly gets a rush of androgens after a decade and freaks out forming antibodies to various things sending the person into a huge meltdown

#6

So what are my chances of symptoms going away over coming months?

#7

if your body has permanently entered a new state then taking dut again is unlikely to help. There was one guy on him gizm who took saw palmeto crashed then started taking it and felt better. So we do not know. But we do no 5ars can be dangerous for some.

#8

So, after 8 months of taking Avodart with no noticeable side effects, I got off the pill and felt the PFS symptoms right away;

It’s been around 20-25 days off the pill; what is the best course of action for me now?

  • I exercise regularly (heavy lifting)
  • I take Zinc
  • I don’s smoke, don’t drink alcohol or coffee
  • I get 7-8 hours of sleep every day

What else can I do to minimize the damage?
Is there some time-frame where I should expect the symptoms to get worse?

I feel like I’m wasting this crucial period by just watching and waiting.

#9

I have not gone back on it. I have read about people getting worse when restarting it. You may see improvement in your symptoms with the passage of time. I have tried a million different things suggested on this forum and have not seen more than a minor temporary improvement. My symptoms have improved a little bit only with the passage of time.

#10

If you can sleep 7-8 hours and exercise regularly then your body has every chance of recovering. There are those of us who sleep 4-5 hours per day and cannot exercise or can only do very little. Going back on the drug that caused this sounds like a bad idea. With your current sides it sounds like you can live a fairly normal life. Just don’t get obsessed with trying to make things better and go and make things worse. It’s this obsessive side of our personality that lead us to these awful drugs in the first place. If you haven’t been there already, Solvepfs has lots of blogs from guys trying to make improvements. Time will heal some of us, 20-25 days is not long enough, it could take you a year or two to get fully better. You could work on your gut and diet as 70% of the immune system is in the gut and it should aid your recovery.

#11

why did you stop it if you did not have any sides?

#12

Don’t get in the worry of finding a response in the forum. There’s really no common agreement on what to do in the first period to avoid getting worse. Actually there’s not much discussion about this, because no one has a reply, therefore, over time, everyone naturally shifts to the search for a cure. So don’t set yourself in rush mode, you’re only doing more harm. Continue your search for informations, do medical exams, but keep calm and go on with your life. My personal opinion: those that get worse over time are probably those that engage in unhealthy practices, like drug/supplement bombarding in order to find a cure, or those that have other issues than pfs.

#13

Update after a month post-crash:

[]Don’t experience any strong mental side-effects, besides waking up after 5 hours of sleep and struggling to fall back asleep;[/]
[]First two weeks libido and erection were ok but then both kinda declined;[/]
[]No morning or nocturnal erections[/]
[]Eating 200g raw spinach every morning[/]
[]Yesterday started taking supplements: Zinc - 50mg; 5-HTP - 100mg, D3, Omega-3[/]
[]Took blood test, will post results in a few days[/]

Questions:

  • What can I add to my regimen?
  • Should I expect mental side of things to get worth over the coming months?
#14

Update - 7 weeks off

I don’t feel any side effects besides ED;
Here are my test results:

Result (norm. margins)

[]LH: 5.8 (0,7-7,4 IU/l)[/]
[]FT: 9.4 (8,0-22,0 ng/ml)[/]
[]Progesterone: 0.81 (0,1-1,0 ng/ml)[/]
[]DHEAS: 6.3 (1,1-7,9 ng/ml)[/]
[]PRL: 20.4 (1,8-17,0 ng/ml)[/]
[]FSH: 7.8 (1-14,0 IU/l)[/]
[]TT: 3.94 (3,5-8,6 ng/ml)[/]
[]Inhibini B: 80.6 (25,0-325,0 ng/ml)[/]
[]Estradiol: 39.7 (19,0-51,0 pg/ml)[/]

[]TSH: 0.4 (0,3-4,0 μIU/ml)[/]
[]FT3: 2.2 (1,4-4,2 pg/ml)[/]
[]FT4: 1.7 (0,8-2,2 ng/dl)[/]
[]TPO Ab: 9.1 (<30 AU/ml)[/]
[]TG Ab: 2.1 (<8 AU/ml)[/]

What should I make of it?
Also, should I expect my sides to get worse over coming months?

Thanks

#15

Please, bear with me, as I’d love to hear your opinion on my case; all these months I was sure, that I had PFS, but now I’m a bit confused…

So, I’ve been taking 0,5mg Avodart (Dutasteride) for 8 months with no side effects whatsoever and got off the pills three months ago (I have a varicocele and my doc advised to stop taking pills).
About one week in, it suddenly clicked, that I’ve had no sexual desire during that whole week and as I already knew of the possible side effects, I had a huge scare and started frantically searching for the related info online and that’s how I found this site; after reading through the posts, I became more and more assured that I had most of the PFS symptoms (though, now when I think about it, I’ve had only ED and irregular sleep pattern);

so I started “self-healing” right away:

  • started taking D3 / Omega-3 / HTP-5 / Zinc daily;
  • L-Tryptophan before bed;
  • started eating lots of spinach for the first two months and replaced it with sorghum around three weeks ago;
  • started lightly exercising every morning

For the last three weeks I’m feeling that my libido is going back to normal and it’s easy for me to have an erection after 30 seconds of watching porn or while undressing a girl; and generally, the less I worry about it, the better I get;

Now, please, don’t get me wrong - I am absolutely certain, that PFS is a legitimate issue and that the severity of it varies from one victim to another; so, I just want to make sure - do I genuinely have it, or was it all in my head all this time…

Then there’s also the fact, that Dutasteride have a lot longer half-life and all the PFS symptoms might develop during a year or so, so it kinda makes thing more complicated for me.

To finish it off - is there any one symptom to certainly know that I suffer from this syndrome? And generally, what are your thoughts about my case?

Thanks

#16

I had no sides on finasteride, only 2.5 weeks after I quit, then BAM I crashed HARD with Excruciating Brain Fog, and Slow Motion Vision 24/7, ED, Watery Semen, Head Pressure, ETC.

You very well may have not had PFS, your only symptom seemed like ED, either way just consider your self very very lucky to be healed, and never look back.

Going back on avodart could potentially give you the worst “brain fog” you could ever imagine, so I would steer well clear of doing that.

Now that your better, move on with life and don’t worry about your symptoms man, just please if your ED did come back(it most likely WONT) do NOT take avodart again, because you could get much much much worse sides, that you cannot even imagine.

I Am Very happy for you man,
Good Luck

#17

Other than some testicular ache within the first couple weeks of getting on fin I never experienced any negative sides either. In fact I felt really good on fin, better than ever really. Increased libido, increased motivation, well being, and more. In fact if I could be guaranteed that if I could go back to that state, then I’d take fin again in a heartbeat. But I feel that it would be extremely risky and once you’ve had PFS, who knows how the body would react to fin again. And the reports of people getting back on fin after pfs seem to be scarce. But anyway yea after I got off fin is when the crash came. Some people have reported crashing while on fin, but seems most are here for problems after stopping, hence the name post finasteride syndrome. Not sure how different avodart is in terms of PFS but your regimen looks good and if you’re getting some benefits and improvements then that’s all that matters. And I think if you’re asking if it was in your head, then you are in a very good place and could be much worse off because if you crash bad there is no mistaking it. But if things get worse then there is a lot of good knowledgeable info here from people who have been there, but like I say sounds like you are in a relatively good spot.