My Recovery Plan

Member Stories
#1
  1. Where are you from (country)?

USA

  1. 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?)

Googled “low libido due to saw palmetto”

  1. What is your current age, height, weight?

18 years old, 5’8", 140 lbs

  1. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?

lift weights 3x per week

  1. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?

Currently going gluten/dairy free, going paleo soon after

  1. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?

I took saw palmetto for prostatitis

  1. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?

5.5 months

  1. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?

18 years old, October 2013

  1. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?

18 years old, March 2014

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

cold turkey

  1. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?

saw palmetto

  1. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?

roughly 320 mg per day

  1. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?

A few weeks

  1. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?

Put an X beside all that apply:

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

Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[x] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[ ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts

Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[ ] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ ] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature

[ ] Other (please explain)

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?

vitamin d, fish oil, other various supps without much research

  1. If you have pre or post-Finasteride bloodtests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug (pls post your test results in the “Blood Tests” section and link to them in your post)?

  2. Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?

  3. Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.

In late september 2013 I was diagnosed with prostatitis. To this day I don’t know if it was actually prostatitis or tightness of the pelvic floor muscles but it has since cleared up. I was advised to take saw palmetto for general prostate health so I started it immediately. After a few weeks my libido started dropping, which I assumed was due to the prostatitis because it’s a common side effect of that as well. I tried a plethora of other things, all the while continuing saw palmetto and my libido continued to worsen. It was helped a bit by zinc but soon the effects wore off.

About a month ago I found this website as a result of looking up whether it might have been the SP that lowered my libido, and lo and behold, plenty of stories about guys just like me. I quit immediately but continued to feel the downward spiral of libido that hasn’t stopped yet. I very rarely get morning erections, never ever get spontaneous erections and am never thinking about sex. I have still been able to perform with my girlfriend when necessary though.

I’ve had multiple blood tests and found that I have very low normal free t. On a normal scale of 10-30 I’ve tested at a 13.2 and an 11.9).

I’ve also lately experienced mental sides, with pretty bad brain fog and fatigue on some days, which is even worse than the loss of libido and has been really freaking me out.

I know that I don’t have it as bad as a lot of guys here but it’s still pretty awful nonetheless, and I’m taking action immediately. I have a pretty positive outlook about this and know that there’s no way I’m gonna let this beat me. In my next post I’m gonna outline my protocol that I’m starting now.

We can beat this.

#2

Now here’s my protocol. It’s roughly based on cdnuts but with a few things thrown in and taken out.

PHASE 1

DIET
-Currently going gluten and dairy free, tons of spinach and other healthy foods, and soon to go paleo
-Carb backloading on workout days

FITNESS
-Lifting weights 3x per week followed by a protein shake. High weight, low reps, big muscle groups (bench, squat, leg press etc.)
-HIIT sprinting on off days. Haven’t started this but will very soon when I’m home from college

JUICE FAST
-When I get home from college in 3 weeks, I’m gonna start a juice cleanse for as long as I can handle. Still working on what type of juicer and what vegetables to juice
-Goal is 7 days, don’t know if I’ll make it that long

POST FAST TESTOSTERONE BOOSTING CYCLE
-Going to cycle 6 test boosters that I’ve decided on after extensive research AFTER my juice cleanse. The cleanse will make my body much more open to hormonal manipulation
-Supplements:

Tribulus - tribestan
Horny Goat Weed - World ABS icariin 60
Tongkat Ali - Indonesia Tongkat Ali Extract
Cordyceps - Cordygen5
Forskolin - Forskolin 250 by New You Vitamins
Mucuna - NOW brand
-I will cycle these over a 6 day period, and then take 1 or 2 days off

ESTROGEN CONTROL
-DIM by smokey mountain naturals LLC
-taken every few days depending on how I feel

CORTISOL CONTROL
-Ashwagandha gold by Nutrigold
-I’m using this because forskolin is known to raise cortisol and my cortisol is already high
-taken every night

PHASE 2

After a month or two when I’ve optimized my health and boosted my low t, if I still feel shitty (which is expected) I’m trying this next part of the protocol. I’ll continue the workouts, diet, and possibly t boosters as well.

PROGESTERONE AND PROGNENELONE
-5 to 10 ml per day to stimulate estrogen receptors/fight estrogen dominance

I’m excited and confident about this protocol, and will report results every few weeks

#3

you are healthier than us so i dont suggest to use progesterone cream. its risky.
you dont want to be worse.

#4

I wouldn’t call having zero libido healthy. And I’m going to see how I feel after the test boosting first. You seem to have an unfounded fear of prog cream based on the other thread. It has a really good track record and there’s only one person that it seemed to really mess up, and I don’t doubt that he made a dosage mistake or his health wasn’t optimal.

#5

I think it’s a very sound plan even without the prog. I think you’ll have a lot of success. Good luck!

#6

Cap I feel like I see you around a lot. Has anything worked for you for an extent?

#7

Nope.

#8

After doing research on what exactly saw palmetto and propecia do, I’m adding in a few more things to my regimen. One effect of SP (which according to recent studies is also done by fin) is that it is a competitive inhibitor of androgen receptors in cells because of its similar shape to DHT. This means that it effectively blocks DHT from getting into cells. For anyone who’s taken some micro-bio, they know that in our case, a competitive inhibitor is better than a non-competitive inhibitor (these would wrap the androgen receptor itself, making it impossible for DHT to bind to it). Because it’s a competitive inhibitor, and there’s a limited amount of it, its effects can be counteracted to an extent by overwhelming the system with the compound that it competes with.

So there’s a few more things more things that I’ll be doing. First, I’ll be adding l-carnitine, because this increases te amount of androgen receptors in cells. The more receptors, the more that are open to DHT because there’s a limited amount of SP in my system. Also, I’m gonna start the methylation protocol. It’s obvious that we have a genetic predisposition to this, which has been proven by many 23andme results, and perhaps the most significant is our messed up methylation pathway. If you improve this pathway, you improve androgen receptor function.

So the 3 pronged plan to overcoming androgen receptor blockage is:

-increase amount of receptors
-increase functionality of receptors
-overload body with testosterone as previously stated

Who knows if this’ll actually work, but it’s a theory that hopefully will take me somewhere. In my opinion it’s better than just blindly throwing things into my system to see what works.

#9

You also may want to consider doing a short water fast before all of that. Members who have done it here have not only noted general improvements, but that it made their bodies more receptive to supplements and whatnot. So that may make the rest of your regiment more effective.

#10

Thanks for the input dude.

I’m a bit worried about a water fast (very worried about muscle wastage after having spent a lot of time in the gym recently), and honestly just don’t know how long I could handle it. I definitely plan on a juice fast though, hopefully for a week, and I’m hoping that’ll have some of the same effect. Perhaps I’ll incorporate a day or two of water fasting into my juice fast.

#11

I’m not talking like a super long water fast. Maybe 3-5 days, a week if you can take it. You’ll lose muscle, yeah, but no fast is going to get you the results of a water fast. And from what I understand post-fast you build muscle like a beast. Just do research on it like you have with everything else.

#12

What is the logic behind why taking progesterone may help
Us. I notice it mentioned a lot around here on diff threads. Don’t know anything about it. Sounds like there is evidence to suggest it can make us worse and evidence to suggest it can help us. Matt or someone else could you explain.

#13

I should probably update this. I actually never went through with this plan, because after a lot of research and learning from other people’s experience, it probably wasn’t going to help that much especially since I took saw palmetto and not fin. I’ve tried several other things, including arimidex for several months which ended up doing nothing. Now I’m going to try some things that increase 5ar like DHEA and trib, and will report back

#14

Another update with no real good news. My state has continued to worsen and now I’m pretty much the worst I’ve ever been. I tried cycling DHEA for several months and it did nothing. I then scheduled an appointment with shippen, which I had in early January. For the past 2.5 months I’ve been almost entirely gluten free, and it hasn’t really seemed to help in any way.

Shippen put me on HcG and a lower dose of arimidex. I did this for three weeks and got blood tests, but felt no different. For a time in January I was very strict with no gluten, minimal carbs, no caffeine, and intermittent fasting, and this seemed to possibly help with my energy and brainfog a little bit. However it was very hard to keep up and a combination of coffee and weed brought the brainfog back full force.

I’m now going back to strict no gluten, no caffeine, minimal carbs and intermittent fasting, along with finally getting back to the gym. I’m in college, so cutting alcohol would mean destroying my social life, so I’ll just be limiting it. I’m definitely cutting weed entirely though because that will bring on extremely heavy brain fog. I’m also experimenting with trib for the first time, we’ll see how that goes

#15

Best of luck to you.

#16

please tell recent story

1 Like
#17

Hahahhajaj

1 Like