My "full recovery" from a 5ar inhibitor

Member Stories
#1

Where are you from (country)?
USA

How did you find this forum (Google search – if so, what search terms? Via link from a forum or website – if so, what page? Other?)
Google search

What is your current age, height, weight?
6’3 140 pounds 20 years old

What specific drug did you use (finasteride, dutasteride, saw palmetto, isotretinoin/Accutane, fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, leuprorelin, etc…)?
I used Nettle root extract

What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
1 dose 500 mg
What condition was being treated with the drug?

For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)? For 2 days

How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start the drug?
20
How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
Quit December 7th 2018

How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
Cold turkey

How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects?
2nd day i noticed the onset of the side effects

What side effects did you experience that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
I resolved all side effects

I’m just going to leave the list as my initial symptoms.

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

Mental
[X ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[X ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ x] Confusion
[X ] Memory Loss / Forgetfulness
[ x] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[X ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] 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
[ ] Weight Gain
[ x] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[X ] Muscle Wastage
[X ] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[X ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ x] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ x] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[X ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[X ] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears)
[ ] Hearing loss
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ x] Lowered body temperature

[ ] Other (please explain)

What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
Carnivore diet
Butea superba
Creatine
Sorghum
Tribulus
DAA
Catuaba bark
Tongkat ali
Maca root
Choline
Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience?

I tested positive for sibo and am treating that currently

Tell us your story, in your own words, about your usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
I was using rogaine foam to treat my male pattern baldness and i had decided it was not working and decided to take nettle root and developed the symptoms i checked off above. Began treating my symptoms within the first week and am now taking no supplements and appear to be making a full recovery. I would feel guilty for not sharing my experience if it could help someone else out so i will reply to this post with exactly how i believe PFS should be treated based on my own anecdotal evidence and understanding of male hormones.

(I’m going to edit in my plan going forward in case anyone does what i did. And more info on how i recovered)

I’m going to continue to exercise, drink coffee daily, supplment creatine, take lactobacillus reuteri atcc 6475 for 30 days to replace gut bacteria with healthy human gut bacteria. Take butea superba about once a week to acutely increase 5 alpha reductase and gnrh i’m only doing this mostly because it seems to reduce my gynecomastia and i’ve mostly reduced it already and can no longer feel any lumps there is a certain period time from gynecomastia growing that most of it can be reversed but at some point it will eventually become permanent tissue (usually after 2 years is permanent and requires surgery to remove). I stopped lifting weights while i was treating my sibo because the carnivore diet made me have lower energy and the sibo had already starved me pretty good i’m starting with calisthenics again and once i got back to school in September i’m gonna be lifting weights 5-7 times a week and doing sprint intervals 1-3 times a week. Also any of the body/facial hair i had lost has returned and my sex drive feels normal. I have 3 refills of ciprofloxacin but theres no way i’m gonna do any more dieting to treat sibo because i’m already emaciated as it is. I did carnivore diet for 2 reasons one was to burn body fat and 2 was to starve out most of my gut bacteria so i could build a new healthier microbiome from scratch. (I also did a 2 day water fast) I don’t know what my body fat percentage is but highest estimate is less than 4 percent, i dont know how that could be humanly possible but i am pretty gaunt and can see my abs so i definitley have a low body fat percentage. Some other things i do sometimes that help are cold showers, eating sorghum, and a low fiber high cholesterol diet seems to work best for me. I will give an update on how much i can shrink the gyno, beard growth etc.

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Are there people who were cured 100%
#2

TLDR at bottom

To start some more information about myself

I was a college student living a healthy lifestyle with no health problems aside from sinusitis caused by seasonal allergies.
I did not want to have to shave my head until after college so i decided i should use rogaine and once my hair was continuing to fall out decided i should use some type of herbal treatment i had heard that propecia had bad side effects but did not know the full extent. My dad went completley bald by 25 and grandfather on mothers side bald by 35. I had done quite a bit of research on anabolic steroids and prohormones etc and did not want to take any such substances for obvious reasons especially being so young.
Mistakes were made and i took nettle root not realizing the catastrophic consequences until it was too late. I had no sex drive and women looked like rocks as well as the symptoms i listed above.

Take D aspartic acid first in order to restart HPTA AXIS (high E2 not good T booster but almost as good as HCG)
Take tribulus and butea superba at the same time as well and any other testosterone booster you want to add in.
Also immediatley start taking choline and if you have not had a bowel movement do a colonoscopy cleanse prep until clear water come out your :poop:chute

Why start with these things? To prevent permanent damage to your organs and endocrine system you need an amount of male hormones your body can use uninterrupted by estradiol. Your blood tests dont mean shit if a metric ton of E2 is already bound to receptors and will not show up on blood tests.
I also highly recommend doing a carnivore diet because it makes intestinal permeability essentially impossible by killing most gut bacteria or rendering it dormant. If your intestines are permeable “leaky gut” nothing you do will seem to work especially if you are also constipated, why is this? Because you cant piss out estrogen your liver uses a methyl donor such as choline to send metabolic waste (excess estrogen) to your GI tract for disposal via.
I recommend using miralax or magnesium citrate do not use metamucil or ex lax they will cause constipation.
So by 2 weeks in stop taking DAA it has run out of usefulness and is making too much E2
You now want to run testosterone boosting supplements at whatever dose makes your sex drive as high as before or higher do not worry about liver damage it probably wont happen especially if you take choline if you have to take 3 grams of butea superba and a gram of tribulus thats perfectly fine take very high doses and make everything run very well DHT needs to be upregulated and take back dominance from estrogen once this happens you will experience new beard hair growth hair loss etc feel like a man again if not you are not exercising enough or taking a high enough dose of t boosting herbs. Once dht has regained control you now need to taper off your testosterone boosters especially butea superba it is extremely powerful and your own body will not understand it has to make its own LH and GNRH until you either take a SERM (Do not take a steroidal suicide AI they usually block dht as well) or hcg or daa. If you do what i do which is not ideal run and run only daa or hcg only do it for about a week just long enough to avoid testicular atrophy but not build up too much estrogen then work out hard eat cholestrol take your vitamins and pray to jesus your post cycle therapy works. Repeat this if you have too from the beginning until you get it right.
I cannot think of a better or safer and more effective way to recover than running a hard test booster cycle and possibly epiandrosterone if you have trouble getting dht back into dominance. If you have good liver function and now gi disease you should recover as well as possible this way.

TLDR
1 DAA 2 WEEKS
2 Run T boosting supps as hard as possible
(Poop normally and have a working liver)
3 Do a pct as if you are recovering from steroids as best as you can.
4 Pray to God

I’m going to edit in how i think you should think of the main supplements i used when you take them based on the feeling i got from them.

Daa = produce all hormones equally (including estrogen)
Tribulus = make more testosterone
Butea superba = make DHT and upregulate 5ar (i now get the very calming effect when i take butea after not having taken it in a while and that people describe when they use dht gel everything just feels right and i’m mildly euphoric) i believe having supra-physiological (above normal ranges) levels of dht in my system allowed me to recover i dont have blood tests to prove that but i’m pretty sure if i took 1200 mg of butea superba and some tribulus and got my hormones checked later that day it would be above reference range dht levels. Maybe i’ll do that just to prove my theory on how effective butea superba can be since there is only one documented case i know of someone raising dht to such levels with butea superba. Also fair warning butea superba can turn into the coffee your body expects to get every morning give yourself a break from it sometimes you dont want hpta shutdown when you come off if it can be helped

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#3

Let me know if you need something clarified or have any criticisms or other questions i’m happy to help

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#4

What was wrong with your vision?

#5

Would see a dark spot that wasnt really there in the morning

1 Like
#6

Just thought I’d ask for dosages and durations on the above. First off though thank you for sharing this enormously, and I’m very glad to hear you’re recovered friend.:slight_smile:

So, just to get it all asked:

  • How much DAA for the two weeks?
  • How long do you run the test-boosting herbs?
  • PCT eg ‘traditional’ Nolvadex? 40//40/20/20?

…Then leave it a couple months and see/repeat?

EDIT - Good proposed recovery cycle?

Week 1 - DAA 3g/day, moderate exercise
Week 2 - DAA 3g/day, moderate exercise
Week 3 - Butea + tribulus + 200mg R-Andro, hard exercise
Week 4 - Butea + tribulus + 200mg R-Andro, hard exercise
Week 5 - 1/2 Butea + 1/2 tribulus + 100mg R-Andro, hard exercise (tapering down starts here if you feel it.)
Week 6 - 1/4 Butea + 1/4 tribulus + 100mg R-Andro EOD, hard exercise (finish tapering down this week.)
Week 7 - 40mg Nolvadex/day
Week 8 - 40mg Nolvadex/day
Week 9 - 20mg Nolvadex/day
Week 10 - 20mg Novadex/day

That sounding ideal or no?

Thanks again for the offer of assistance.

1 Like
#7

Interesting thing. that DAA reduce testoterone in those who weightlifting and doing heavy exercises. But increases drastically in inactive men.

#8

Hey @MasterofPuppets, thanks for sharing your story, the details are interesting and includes a protocol that is slightly different than most on here. What really caught my eye was the following quote:

As most long-time sufferers on here know, our blood test typically come back normal, leaving us & doctors scratching our heads with what the underlying problem is. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the above quote, particularly around E2 already being bound to receptors and preventing normal hormone levels from functioning? I was curious how you arrived at this insight? We’re chasing a bunch of theories right now as to why normal hormones therapies don’t work on us, the most prominent one being epigenetic changes at receptor level, but a simple blocking by E2 at the receptor site does seem plausible, or at least worth a look. Would your blood tests not show a very high E2 level in this case? Very curious what research, doctor, etc led you to this insight?

Also, what about DAA specifically has led you to that recommendation to try first? It’s not a common recommendation around here, but have been interested in trying it for some time.

Thanks again!

#9

How long was it between the time you quit the nettle root extract and the time you noticed that you were recovering?

2 Likes
#11

…Also following on from my post above, could you even just run the DAA for two weeks, then a prohormone cycle (M1T/Superdrol plus TUDCA for liver) for four weeks, then with Nolvadex 40/40/20/20 PCT, pray and repeat? Or too harsh?

Again thanks for the help. :slight_smile:

#12

Which Butea SuperBa did you used?

#13

So how do you know your gut function is good? And when do you do the colonoscopy? I can’t seem to get this part

#14

Sounds pretty good to me you might not even need to use the DAA for that long and i would use the butea superba at the same time as the daa to keep the estrogen conversion lower

1 Like
#15

Do you have small hard stool?

#16

Swanson

#17

I think that could work too just also listen to your body and try not to let your balls shrink and DAA helps get your endocrine system working again it can make you directly produce estrogen so be mindful of that and use it sparingly if the effects start to plateau its probably run out of usefulness for the time being. You can also add it to the beginning of your pct.

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#18

I started recovering about 6 weeks afterwards

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#19

Thanks so much for that!

Just so it’s preserved here for posterity and clarity, the amended cycle would I guess look like:

Week 1 - DAA 3g/day + Butea (at RDA), moderate exercise
Week 2 - DAA 3g/day (days 1-3 only) + Butea (at RDA), moderate exercise
Remainder of Week 2 and Week 3 - Butea + tribulus + 200mg R-Andro (dosed high enough for libido), hard exercise
Week 4 - Butea + tribulus + 200mg R-Andro (dosed high enough for libido), hard exercise
Week 5 - 1/2 Butea + 1/2 tribulus + 100mg R-Andro, hard exercise (tapering down starts here if you feel it.)
Week 6 - 1/4 Butea + 1/4 tribulus + 100mg R-Andro EOD, hard exercise (finish tapering down this week.)
Week 7 - DAA 3g/day (days 1-3) + 40mg Nolvadex/day
Week 8 - 40mg Nolvadex/day
Week 9 - 20mg Nolvadex/day
Week 10 - 20mg Novadex/day

That looking better?

Might WELL give this a shot. Thank you hugely for the pointers. :slight_smile:

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#20

My stool is fine, guess this means i dont need any colonoscopy

Also how long did you stay on the carnivore dite? Thanks dude

#21

I did that for 6 weeks