My personal recovery

Member Stories
#1

I came back after many years to tell you guys what happened with me since.
Back then the website was different, and I forgot my username and password. I could not post my recovery on the recovery section for some reason…

Anyway, this is my story.
I was The best student in my year in the best university in Israel for sciences. I was so successful, and I thought I will definitely make it.
Then I started losing hair. I was 24 and went to the doctor, I thought it would be smart to “fix it” fast. Yes, I was a total idiot.
The first year was ok. I got erections, they just didn’t last long. I did not suspect the drug. I started having to read things twice and being forgetful, slowly my body turned cold. People would touch me and tell me I’m cold, and I felt cold in the Israeli summer even, which is crazy.
While I was in my masters degree I realized something is VERY wrong. By then I had constant mind fog, I’d sit for hours in front of a page I was supposed to read, staring at it like a zombie.
In retrospect, I realize I had no dreams. Before the drug I always remembered dreams. Since I took it my sleep was short and I woke up tired. I hated life. I felt feminine and lacked my old ambitions.

I felt my sight became blurry and I was depressed most of the time, just sitting in my room alone with my dog (he passed away by now, but he was amazing, and I knew he was dependent on me so I kept trying to get myself together thanks to him).
Then I became sick, I didn’t take the poison for two weeks (before I took a daily pill for 2.5 years no stops) and I gained a clear eyesight again. I started to read and found the old forum.
Today I’m 33, back then I was 26, so it’s a while ago.
To cut a long story short, I stopped the drug, explained to my instructor in university what happened to me, and things improved a little for two months, then I had a crash again, the mind fog returned. My erections never went away, they always came, just hard maintaining them. Most my symptoms were mental- brain fog, blurry eye sight, no libido, cold skin, no desires in life.
As I was no longer taking the drug, after a year, I thought this will never go away…

I tried hard to go on with life, assuming my 50% recovery would be enough to survive, but it was hard, so hard.
My friends did not believe me at all, they thought I’m imagining syndromes that can’t happen from a hairless drug, so I did not talk to anyone about it ever again and just buried it within. I still remember my best friend saying “you just became lazy, you can’t get less intelligent because of something for hair”. I never mentioned it again.

A year ago I started to feel strong erections return, that lasted for as long as I wanted, the brain fog disappeared a year before this, and my desires in life came back now.
I feel like I am the person I was 8 years ago. I’m applying to some very good jobs now with a high chance to get in, I think.
The most important thing that came back is myself. I feel I’m me, I’m not a guy watching a life of someone else anymore.
I can say that it took at least three years to make most of the recovery, and six to get full recovery.
I still feel deep loneliness when I want to talk of the worst in those years, cause my family and friends don’t believe me. “they say the drug can’t do this”…
I hope the symptoms are away for good. I finally have a good sex life, I might get a very good paying job, and pay the debts my previous condition got me into.
I’m about to leave Israel, like I planned many years ago (before I lost my ambitions), and with it, I want to leave the past behind me and start over.

There are many details I’m skipping, I just felt I must come back here after all that time… You guys helped me a lot back then. And yes, I had very suicidal thoughts back then. I think that if my dog did not run to me Everytime I tried something, I’d be dead a long time ago.
I’m glad he did, and I’m glad I did not do anything. True, I lost years of my life, but the last year was amazing.
I’m crying as I write this. Maybe missing my dog, maybe crying for lost years.
I know the suicidal thoughts back then came from Propecia, I never had them before or after, and they were concentrated at the beginning of the post recovery crash.
I hope all you guys recover somehow. I hope we can stop this drug from stealing more lives.

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Success Stories Compilation
I'm at two year mark
#2

I need to add not all is rosy on one front.
I had a sperm count, and I know I have a low sperm count. The doctor said it is too low for my age, but still ok. He was scared it would become worse because of a vericosele. The vericosele showed up a year after beginning propecia. It’s not painful and is smaller now, but didn’t disappear completely. I just realized today by reading some forum posts that maybe there’s a connection. I actually always separated the vericusele from the propecia side effects, but nothing about this poison can come as s shock anymore.

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#3

This was an emotionally tough post to read. Thank you for sharing your experience, and good luck with the next moves in your life!

#4

Congratulations on your recovery you moved me . I felt your story deep in my hearth. Im glad you had a such wonderfull dog to keep you company. Stay healthy. God Bless You.
Congratulations once again

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#5

Congratulations!

#6

congratulations :exclamation:

what signs did u have when u first realizing ur recovery? just got back erections ecc or something else

#7

Thank you.

I am not sure how to define the signs.
First of all my eyesight stopped being blurry. I remember I suddenly was able to read the signposts outside my window (like bus stop numbers) that I couldnt before. This was after a month or two. The brain fog went away but came back after two months, and it left slowly through the years. I can’t say when it went completely. It was there two years ago, it’s not here now. I’m not sure what process happened.

I was trying to think if I did anything. I went to the gym a lot, and I ate healthy, but I did it since I was 26, so I don’t see a reason why the effect would start after 5 years only (?). I can say one thing that happened interestingly together. My strong erections came back at a time that I suddenly lost weight (I wasn’t fat ever, I lost 8 kgs and became thin suddenly and lost all the strange fat that propecia kind of added). I was in NYC for a few months and walked a lot, and this shed the weight. I have no idea if this is really a factor, but it came together, the more fat I lost, the clearer my head and stronger my sex drive. Although, the improvement happened BEFORE the weight loss. So I think maybe the weight loss was part of it. I’d never know… I played with my hormones like a game, trying not to think of it.
Strangely, my cock became bigger than I rememebered it. I felt it shrank a bit on propecia, but I than thought I imagined it. I feel awkward admitting it. But suddenly it became bigger. that was like two years ago, before the brain fog cleared, and much before the sudden weight loss.
Also, this winter was the first winter I did not feel I am freezing to death. I guess my body is functioning better.

I am certain there are still some side effects I am not aware of, or maybe a damage here and there (if not just the psychological damage of losing a few years of life in a zombie like state), but at least I appreciate what I have now.

Oh, and I think there was a stage where I did a diet of red meat and vegetables and avoiding meat, it also correlates to the big changes in my improvement, but I again cannot say what affected what… I did not notice improvements until I notice it’s just not there anymore. A small brain fog is still brain fog I guess…

#8

StartingOver
congratulation on feeling better. Did you ever get any thyroid check? THS, T3, T4. Since low body temp is a clear indication of malfunction thyroid. Is your body temp is normal now?

#9

Congratulations dude. Are you… going to study your body inside out or are you just planning to go on with your life?

And did I understood right that your recovery was pretty much natural and you didn’t do anything, eg. change your diet, stop drinking etc? What did you do exactly?

And re: vericole vein… if i were you, you’d research it thoroughly than trust your doctor on this. any surgery is a big decision.

#10

i’m so happy for you :slight_smile:)

thx a lot for coming back here giving some hope to ppl that struggle for recovery

everyday i dream the day when something like that happens to me and to all of us

so we have only to wait, no meds r helpful, only time …

1 Like
#11

Congratulations. I hope that you can continue the rest of your life in good health.

If you could answer a couple of questions, that would be great:

  1. Did you ever have sleep problems? i.e. waking in the night often
  2. Did you ever feel that your penis was numb/ rubbery?
#12

Sorry for the delay in response, I’ve been travelling.
Never got thyroid checked. I can say this for sure: During my first winter with propecia I suddenly felt it was colder than ever. I lived in Denmark before this, and that winter was in Israel -> so I knew it was not the cold, but me.
Only two years ago I noticed I am no longer complaining about the aircondition and trying to warm the room all the time. Again, mostly in retrospect.

I am not researching anything, I don’t believe I can find the answers myself now, I tried for years.
I did do some things different before the total recovery, I am not sure how much it changed things but:
There was a period I avoided bread and ate a lot of red meat. I always worked out, but I started working out with a friend who pushed me much more than I was ever pushed, so I managed to gain some muscles.
I lost fat.
I then tried to be a vegetarian for a month.

I did have sleeping problems. I couldnt sleep a whole night, and then I would also have bad sleep when I did. It passed after a couple of years, it was one of the first things that healed I think.
My penis was smaller on propecia, and the first year after this. I cannot prove this but I am 100% sure. I know it shrank my penis and balls. My balls kept retracting into the body while on propecia when I was masturbating. This never happens now. I am sure it is not a coincidence. I think my penis was a little numb, there were times I felt i did not enjoy touching it.

The biggest recovery shifts were noticed in a way that would sound crazy.
I did move between Asia, Israel and the US. I suffered bad jet lags, and then spent a cpl of months in a place, then went back home and suffered jet lag again.
Now this is the crazy things: After the jet lags ended, I felt better with all the symptopms.
Now comes the question I asked myself lately: maybe having jet lags from big time difference flights, and calibrating your clock, can make you somehow restart the system a bit?
I know it is a crazy thought, but it just fits the improvement pattern I can recall.
I wonder out of you guys, and of you change time zones often? (I mean 10 hour time zone shifts, not UK-france differences)?

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#13

StartingOver
what herbal supps did you use? if you used any.
what hormonal treatment did you receive? again if any.

#14

Thanks for the answer, StartingOver. No, I really haven’t moved to radically different timezones & try to adjust to them. That’s wild that you improved after those events!

It’s hard to imagine it would do you any good… like you don’t get enough sleep/feel sleepy at the wrong time, have to stay awake, sleep more than usual until adjusted etc… It’s just messed up sleeping pattern. But ofc i don’t deny your improvements, i’m just “pondering the wonder”, hah.

Oh and peace be with you :slight_smile: Live your life to the fullest. I know I will go “all out” in life once I do recover.

#15

This is a very inspiring post. Many congratulations, I’m so pleased for you, and it is great to read that recovery is possible.

#16

we should try a sleep fast…

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#17

Hi guys.

I took no herbal supplements I can think of. I used to drink herbal tea with gingko and green tea and ginger but I do not think it is related in any way.
No hormonal treatments- I DONT TRUST DOCTORS ANYMORE, and I’m sure not playing with my system.

I’m thinking about it a lot since my post.
I think the mental side effects went away fast. In retrospect I had a crash after a month of stopping. I was not aware there could be a crash, but now in perspective it explains why I felt better and then for a while had lousy erections and brain fog returning.
Took one year for mental sides to mostly go away, sexual sides too much longer.

I was looking at dates to understand what happened to me.
I’ll tell you this, two years after stopping, I was with a VERY VERY hot guy (I’m gay), and we were naked, and i wanted sex, but no matter what I did I could not get it up at all. This was like this several times. But two months before this I was almost normal.

The whole experience can be explained as one big nightmare with ups and downs. Fortunately for me, after two years, the downs became less and less bad, until eventually there were no more downs.
The more I think of this the more I realize how this screwed me up. God!!!
I think my cock was 3/4 of what it is not (and was before propecia).
I hope there is a god, and that there is some karma, cause I hope you guys become better and improve, and I hope the Merck people, that I assume knew the truth, get the worst karma ever.

There was one thing that I did that might have helped. I don’t know, but it cold have.
I got an advice from a friend to be aroused but not come.
I’d sit in front of porn, at the beginning forcing myself at night, and try to achieve erection, play with myself, and stop if I wanted to come, I did this every few hours, cause I read it can help testosterone to masturbate but not cum. I have no idea if it helped, but it did not hurt.

I really feel bad, I hope I could tell you guys about a way that would make it all go away, something that would give a clear answer. I am really searching and rethinking about everything I did, but there is nothing I can think of. If I ever come up with something I will tell you. I think that time and exercise and positive thinking healed me, and I think I was lucky. Of course, I’d rather be luckier and never touch this poison. I’d rather if the FDA never approved it.

In Israel they keep putting adds for it everywhere.
“If you’re skeptic you’d get bald, there is a pill to stop getting bald”.
Everytime I see this commercial I want to scream.

3 Likes
#18

StartingOver,

By the sound of it, you never lost your libido, based upon your story of wanting to have sex but couldn’t.

Could you Explain if loss of libido was one of your sides? So many of us on here struggle to even want to perform, let alone be able to.

Thanks for sharing your recovery with us.

1 Like
#19

Hi OhioGuy,

I will start out by saying everything is individual.
I took the poison for around 2.5 years.
The loss of libido was slow as hell, and I did not realize it at all until I stopped taking it.
The reason I found the original forum (I wish I found my old messages there now) was my total brain fog and strange depression that I never experienced before. My best friend told me he read something about propecia and depression and I searched for it on the net.
The total loss of libido came somewhere when I stopped the poison or before. I am not sure. Honestly, we are talking about weeks where I was sitting in bed and I was so depressed I did not move.
I also got strong heat waves after quitting for several weeks.

Then I stayed with extremely decreased libido. We are not all the same, some lose libido completely, some have a little but almost non.
I was left with smaller penis, bad erections (and I had to work hard to get one), and low libido.
Now, it’s difficult to explain this. Maybe some of you could understand:
When I was with my bf, my mind wanted me to fuck him, to be normal, but my body did not feel anything. There was me in my mind knowing I WOULD LIKE TO DO SOMETHING, and me- the body- not giving a damn.
Makes any logic to you?
In retrospect it seems so bizarre.
Now that things are back to normal I realize how unbelievably crazy everything was.

My best advice if I had to give one is weight training, if possible with a vicious personal instructor. It probably helped me.
There were years I could not build any muscles, and two years ago I suddenly could, even though not much changed- this was also weird. Forgot to mention this.

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#20

Thanks for the reply. And yes, I totally get it … there seem to be as many inconsistencies as there are similarities among us and our side effects. Regarding libido, I’ve had a day here or there where I felt pretty horny, albeit not 100%. I’ve also gone weeks where it was the furthest thing from my mind.

As far as weight training, I’ve been pretty consistent with lifting 3 days a week, as heavy as I can, since crashing 8+ months ago. Not sure if it’s helping me, but at least it makes me feel like I’m doing something good for my body. I did see a 20+% boost in my Total T 2 months ago, when I last had it tested.

Thanks again and good luck holding onto your improvements.

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