My story, 4 months in. Big thanks to this forum

General Discussion
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#1

Hi all, gonna keep it short.

Took 4 pills of fin in early Nov 2019, suffered sexual sides until Nov 22. I then took 2 pills of fin, one on Jan 27 and then one on Feb 3rd. Sides still continue. Used minoxidil around 10 times overall in life too.

Was taking a lot of vitamin supplements as well, including Vitamin D 10k daily for 5 months starting October. Capsules of Amino Acid, Vitamin C, Folic Acid. Soft Gelatin capsules of Ginseng, Gingko Biloba, Lactic Acid Bacillus with Multivitamin and Minerals. Cod Liver oil and Gamma Linolenic Acid. Iron, Bioflavonoids, Calcuium Aspartate, Calcium Orotate tablets as well… for about 1 month then stopped.

Anyone in a similar situation to me, in terms of the blood tests and recovered, improved or worsened?? Any thoughts would be appreciated, thank you guys, the forum has been more helpful than my doc until now for sure and helped convince him and my family that PFS is real.

Some blood levels which are a bit off.

Prolactin 27.9 ng/mL (Normal said to be between 4-15)

FSH 1.5 (Normal Said to be 1.5-12.4)

SHGB 15 nmol/L (Normal range said to be 13-71)

DHT 724.17 pg/mL (Normal range is 250-990) My pre-fin DHT was around 900

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#2

Hey @infor, gonna keep this brief, blood tests aren’t hugely indicative of anything here, unfortunately.

Can you fill out a member story so we know what you’re dealing with, thanks.

2 Likes
#3

U didn’t mention the main test results …
What’s your total testosterone level ?
And free testosterone level ?
See , your DHT is ok , no one can reduce DHT till 0 ,
So if you have sexual problem , mention your testosterone level .

#4

Yeah sure I’ll do that. What do you mean blood tests aren’t indicative? I mean if something is wrong, it should be evident in either the blood work, an MRI, or some sort of androgen receptor test/analysis?

Have seen some people on the forum post their blood levels and it’s clear that certain things are off. Could you elaborate?

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#5

TESTOSTERONE, TOTAL 552.33 ng/dl (Normal said to be 165-753)

FREE T 17.14 pg/ml (Normal said to be 9.1-32.2)

#6

We see people with perfect blood tests with symptoms. We’ve had body builders who measured their levels before having a problem and we cannot find a consistent link between blood and symptoms.

Some people boost testosterone and feel better, some feel much, much worse. Sometimes life endingly so.

This isn’t a problem that can be fixed by manipulating hormone levels. If it was, this forum probably wouldn’t be necessary.

3 Likes
#7

Sure, I agree and see your point. But some people do feel better by manipulating hormone levels as you said and some worse. What might work for one person might not for someone else and maybe even make it worse.

But for those people who do see irregularities in their blood levels it’s probably worth tackling those concerns. In the recovery section there is some hope. For example, if my Prolactin is high as fuck shoudl I not try to lower that? May do nothing, may do little, may do a lot, who knows until I try.

#8

Just to add to that I have seen some “tests”, I can’t remember what exactly, that offer insight into the functioning of androgen receptors as well on the forum. Now in some normal people as well you may find similar reduced sensitivity of the receptors and what not which is a whole diff topic. I’m not trying to take anything away from your argument that PFS is often not visible in blood tests.

All I mean to say is everyone is unique with regard to PFS and in some cases you can may be able to figure out what’s wrong and improve stuff.

#9

Well, ultimately, we don’t know. Everyone might be exactly the same when it comes to the actual issue that needs tackling.

I don’t want to rain on your parade and I wish you all the best with your plan. I personally take the stance that far, far smarter people than I have looked at this and in the past decade people have been exchanging theories and suggestions and blood test results and we still don’t have any replicable treatments. Even people who say they’ve made major breakthroughs often say that whatever they did stopped working after a while.

The way I think we ought to approach this is to improve visibility, get more people onboard at every level and then get the right people working on the problem. Everything else is a delay to making real progress. We’d be closer to treatment if the community hadn’t spent years trying to exercise / fast / carnivore / gluten free this away. Instead, there seems to be a cycle that we’re all stuck in. Next week the gut treatments will reemerge and after that someone will be “water fasting” themselves into hospital, then someone will overdose on vitamin D tablets, then someone will be boosting testosterone with Tribulus, then someone will be promoting getting sun on their balls, then someone will say “maybe if I go back on the drug it’ll fix it” amongst that we’ll have some suicides and hospitalisations. And then someone will say they’re feeling better since they started eating soy. One of the to moderators will say “that’s really risky, we don’t recommend it” the person will dramatically worsen one day and maybe we never hear from them. Then someone will say “it must be parasites in the gut” and everything will start again.

So, I genuinely wish you well with your blood tests. I am not trying to upset you, or be rude. But until we all get onboard with the idea that this isn’t a problem to self treat or medicate, we run the risk that we will wait forever.

The truth is that I don’t know if your levels being high or low is how they always were or if they changed when you had a problem. Whatever you choose to do, I hope it goes well.

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#10

Basically your saying there is no hope to recover? Even people that are <3 months off?

#11

Again, that’s not what I said.

#13

I see your point for sure.

I mean I know this is nothing to “self treat” but might make sense to follow the docs to start with at least. I have done nothing over the past 3 months and haven’t gotten better or worse. Have just gotten a blood test and spoken to to a urologist once. Following up with the uro and an endocrinologist. A doppler might be needed too, for starters.

Some people out here have posted encouraging recovery stories. Remains to be seen whether they make things better or worse for me, if I do try them at all.

#14

Hey, definitely go to the doctor and report all your symptoms and have all the measurements that are offered.

100% this. I do not advocate avoiding doctors.

I’m sorry it seemed like I was saying something different. I think I misinterpreted your post at the beginning.