I was going to post this in recoveries section but I guess my new registration account will not be allowed to post in that section.
I do apologize if I have overlooked some protocol in posting this.
Anyway
Prop Help
Hi All,
I will try to give a brief overview of my history, symptoms, details, and the nightmare that unfolded and how God provided a way out of it.
May 2010 I began noticing that my hair was starting to thin out at the corners of my hairline. I was 20 years old. I decided to read up about the problem because I didn’t want to lose my hair in my 20’s and turn out to look like my brother and Dad who were bald men.
Online research and bro science revealed that the “top three” were to be my regimen for years to come. I got a prescription from a podiatrist for propecia. I took it for around 4 years without stopping for the most part. My results, especially in the first two years were nothing short of spectacular. I am not 100% positive that it was finasteride that did everything but the big three treatment was working and I showed 0 signs of thinning/receding.
Fast forward to 2014, I had previously noticed a slight reduction in sex drive in the following years after taking propecia. This followed with a noticeable change in my hair, it was starting to fall out but slowly.
Also this is the start of my nightmare. Now I have read through many posts about PFS syndrome and I have found 0 symptoms describe like mine. You will have to hear me out because this nightmare was pretty bad and you may not believe me (that’s okay).
In hindsight, in 2011 and 2012 I had gotten several small staph infections that resolved without treatment that I attributed to sports (2011) and a very long and dirty camping trip mixed with serious stress (2012). These infections disappeared until 2014.
Sometime ( I don’t recall the exact date) in 2014 I got a prescription for Dutasteride to see if I could stem the tide longer to get into my 30’s with a full head of hair. Dutasteride from the first pill I took KILLED my sex drive. It was certainly repressed under propecia but there wasn’t even a pulse under Dutas. I continued (stupidly) taking it for several months. All the while I experienced severe breakouts and small staph infections. It took me a lot longer to connect the staph infections with my PFS symptoms than I am proud to admit.
I got off Dutas in 2015 and haven’t touched any 5ar systemic since. In 2015 the staph infections became terrible and pretty much wrecked my life. I went through many doctors and antibiotics looking for relief. I eventually started to acquire antibiotics myself and experiment because it was such a headache dealing with doctors who had no idea what was wrong with me (I saw infectious disease doctors etc). So I started with a diet change to see what happened ( I read a lot on what you could do to prevent or cure staph infections.
I got on a diet of 0g sugar (not even fruit), very little carbs, little iron,
So my diet looked like this:
Tuna fish
Corn chips
Rice
Eggs.
Fasting- 24 hour periods
I also started experimenting with herbs/ supplements because I read about the antibiotic properties etc. I will list below what actually helped (I tried a lot of things)
Turmeric (8000 mg daily)
High vitamin cod liver oil (4x REC dosage)- this is pretty dangerous actually so warning there
High IG immunoglobulin colostrum – boosted my dead immune system
While this worked enough to get my by to an almost normal school life, I was still suffering from poor nutrition. I remember that when I contracted a cold I nearly died. I was exhausted all the time and looked terrible.
I wracked my brain for a while trying to figure out what could be wrong with me. I chased down what I thought would be cancer or some other disease for a while…. Didn’t pan out or support my data so far.
I eventually got desperate and had to admit to myself that the only drug I had taken for more than 3 weeks was propecia and that somehow it had to have affected my body in this way.
Quickly looking back at the things that helped me before this realization- you will see that several things 100% help increase testosterone- Tuna fish, high vitamin D intake intermittant,fasting, and turmeric. I didn’t realize this till I made a breakthrough.
I hypothesized that my T and DHT levels were gutterballs. No hormone level check because it was cheaper to test it out in this way: Take something that boosts those things individually and see if my symptoms stopped.
So in some incredible desperation (I was borderline suicidal in late 2015) I bought several supplements and began immediately applying what I learned. Here is what was effective:
Testosterone:
Fenugreek (Not 100% positive this was effective but DEFINITELY increased my sex drive)
Tribulus Terrestris
DHEA 50mg
Boron
DHT- I have read that Creatine will help increase DHT levels about 50%.
These all worked. Also I will add that for some reason the symptoms are cured by frequent masturbation to ejaculation. This might be because of a short term release of Testosterone whenever that happens.
I will say that all those things helped me and I can now eat a fairly normal diet ( still low sugar ).
I wanted to figure out what exactly was doing the most for me of everything so I quit everything but Creatine (which is what I added last). I have to take a lot of creatine but it does work as a standalone treatment. I am in the process now of finding out what adverse effects creatine will have on me long term at this dose and what I can do about it.
However I notice that to be 90% or above recovered I MUST take creatine 2-3 times a day at 5g, 2x a day 1000mg tribulus and 2x a day 4000 mg turmeric.
Sexually I am about 92% of what I was at 15 years old and I can last as long as I want in bed or as short as is appropriate.
Stpah infection symptoms have lessened tremendously but still I get breakouts with I go off diet ( trying to avoid sugar and a lot of carbs).
I will report back in the future if I find anything else that helps. I hope and pray that any of this information will help those who need a way out.