My Story

Member Stories
#1

Hi friends !

I am very glad to have found this forum since there are no french or belgian forum about the proscar/propecia issues, in europe it seems that people are not aware about the danger there is of using propecia, except for some italian forum nothing on the french web, nothing on the belgian web, so thanks a lot to the the founder of this great board, because i seriously plan to bring this scandal ti the attention of the media and this forum is a goldmine ( i am currently discussin with a friend who is a journalist).
To make a long story short, I used finasteride (Proscar) for almost 2 years (2004), and it ruined my life literraly, beside the fact that i become agoraphobic, i had brain fog, panic anxiety attack, and a libido close to zero, I wasn’t able to deal with even the smallest stress, avoiding people and confrontation.
As an artist one symptom was pretty weird for me, the incapacity to visualize, have clear dreams, the pictures that were pretty clear and colorful when i was visualising, were all static and blury hard to maintain.

I even envisaged suicide as a solution, it was a real nightmare, the worst thing that ever happened in my life, I used to tell my girlfriend : I lost my soul :frowning:
Only very recently i discovered the stories about propecia and finasteride issues, It was a real deliverance, i was finally able to put a name over my illness, I then stopped taking anti depressant who were in fact aggravating the situation, and kept reading this forum to try to find an answer.
Some stories were really scary and i honestly think that it will be more than important to have a disclaimer on some topics, because we do not know if all the stories are directly related to propecia or depression, and there is that powerful hypnotic suggestion when you read someone telling that your condition is irreversible while this is not proven yet.
Really sometimes it hurted me bad, but i kept hoping, telling myself i won’t be this 2% I WILL RECOVER ! :), but if i had to read some of the topics 6 months ago I probably would have killed myself.

Since I have read this forum, I took an appointment with one of the best endocrinologist in Paris, I explained him the problems, talked about the forum, he was kind of scared that such medication as the propecia is used for treating baldness.
I started dostinex 1 week ago, i do not know if it’s placebo or something else, but i feel so much better, good improvement at the mental level, good mood , good sleep, a slice improvement in libido.

I just started my way to recovery, I ll share my experience, I took a 3 months off work and will concetrate on fighting that curse ! cross fingers for me guys ! :slight_smile:
I have one more suggestion, i know that in the us it’s very expensive to have a good healthcare, so i presume few people can afford medication and try to cure propecia problems, I think it’s essential that people that tried to see a health profesional to cure the problem are segregated from people that tries self medication, because reading both blurs the line of a clean scientific approach of our problem.

Greetings guys ! :slight_smile:

#2

Welcome to the forum.

How long have you been off the drug now?

Did the endocrinologist do blood tests for you? did he prescribe dostinex to treat high prolactin?

#3

Hell yeah! It’s good to have someone with your attitude on this board.

Sounds similar to what happened to me. Would you describe this as “losing your ability to imagine”?

Again, same damn thing with me. The part of my mind that I used to consider being my “soul” is nearly gone.

I also had a good experience with bromocriptine (similar to dostinex). I began taking it to increase my sex drive, and it had little effect on my libido but seemed to brighten my mood substantially. It’s probably not a placebo effect, both of these drugs act as dopamine agonists.

Very few people seem to care about tackling this problem with a scientific approach and too many are convinced that the cure is sitting on the shelves at a health food store.

Welcome, and good luck with recovery and your efforts to focus media attention on this issue.

#4

Hi friends ! :slight_smile:
Thanks for you kind comments, encouragement and support !

Yes totally, before ideas will just pop in my mind with vivid colors,they were easy to remember, after finasteride it was like winter in my brain, nothing would pop out, and i had hard times remembering simple things, like the story of a movie i have just seen !
I forgot to mention one other symptom, my belly always seem to be filled with air, I’am not fat, and I i feel like i have a little balloon at the prostate level, sometime when urinating i felt like my urinal canal was very thin ( a confirmed effect of finasteride) so i had to aad an extra pressure to pee correctly.

I have been off for almost 5 years, i did bloodtest and they revealed an anormally high level of prolactyn and oestradiol, but since i was on antidepressant for a while, results were not reliable to determine the cause, that why i am going into a complete check up (urologist+ endocrinologist) by the midst of july.
He prescribed me dostinex after discussing a while about propeciahelp.com, because first hand he had hard times to believe what he was hearing, he was insisting on the fact that it should be better to check all the possible causes first like urologic issues.
Anyways my mood is a lot more better with dostinex, my mind is pretty clear, no more dizziness or lack of interest in things, I hope it is just the beginning of a full recovery, I will try to document as much as i can my analysis, treatment, on the forum.

Greeting friends ! :slight_smile:

#5

what dose of dostinex are you taking?

#6

0,25 mg twice a week :slight_smile:

#7

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#8

High oestradiol will cause high prolactin.

You can take dostinex to push the prolactin down but it’s only a band aid.

You need to take the oestradiol down which will bring prolactin down.

Source: My experience.

#9

Hi mensrea,

Oestradiol is very important for the organism, messing with them is pretty dangerous, hormonal science is not as simple, when you push a button you trigger another one that triggers another one,
who here knows about vasopressine (hormone that induce good visualisation, social behaviours, monogamy) , or the importance of cortisol in memory ? I won’t try anything without asking my endo first, and trying dostinex is more of test.

here is a good article about the role of oestradiol, lesjta.com/article.php?ar_id=1 , sadly it’s in freneh.

Update about my situation, i tried to post and update but i was logged out so i lost everything i wrote, to make long stroy short, For 12 days now i am back to normal, i am feeling human again.

I ll post about later as i have to leave

greetz :slight_smile:

#10

Absolutely: all hormones have important functions which is why we need optimum levels of them. We all know a good ratio between Testosterone and Estrogen is vital. Low estrogen is just as problematic as high estrogen levels. Cortisol is obviously one of the key hormones.

The dostinex is a good first line approach but it’s not going to cure much in my experience because prolactin is not a core problem for most finasteride sufferers. That said, whatever works for you, keep using it! You mention mental issues, perhaps the dopamine increase has helped you alot. Excellent.

Keep us updated: )