Hey man how are you doing now did you sort out your strange bloods?
Hey @whathaveidone4669 ! Thx for asking!
I donno yet 
I have bought an iron + B vitamins complex syrup supplement, take it daily since a month now. I havent taken blood tests since. I feel slight improvements in my chronic fatigue though, as if my energy bounced back a little bit, however I developed a new mental symptoms since , anxiety.
I take my next blood test on June 26th. I will post here where I am then.
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Heyy all,
Its been 3 months that I’ve crashed on tribulus to a more severe PFS sympthoms, and 4,5 months I had my crash on fin.
I wanted to give you an update how i am doing, what has changed for the better or worse since.
So here is what I had after tribulus crash:
- chronic fatigue
- penile and testicular shrinkage
- testicular pain
- no sex drive (my least worry)
- burning skin sensation
- hair loss / thinning
- body hair loss
- slowed and weaker beard growth
- horrible digestion (slow and bad stomach, almost never have stool)
- muscle wastage
- easy weight gain
- facial swelling, puffiness
- dry skin on hands palm
- tinnitus sensation
Now here is what has resolved, stayed the same or worsened:
- chronic fatigue (STAYED)
- depression (IMPROVED A LOT, CAN BE HAPPY SOMETIMES NOW)
- penile and testicular shrinkage (PENILE SIZE AND WEIGHT IMPROVED A LOT, HOWEVER TESTICULAR SIZE KEPT SMALLER)
- testicular pain (RESOLVED, REAPPEARS VERY RARELY NOW)
- no sex drive (IMPROVED, I GET DESIRE TIME TO TIME AGAIN)
- burning skin sensation (COMPLETELY RESOLVED)
- hair loss / thinning (STAYED THE SAME, TELOGEN EFFLUVIUM CAUSED BY CRASH DIET AND SEVERE STRESS ON PFS)
- dry hair (STAYED)
- body hair loss (SLOWED DOWN)
- slowed and weaker beard growth (IMPROVED TO ALMOST PRE-FIN)
- horrible digestion (slow and bad stomach, almost never have stool) (IMPROVED, THOUGH STILL GET STOMACH GROWLING SOMETIMES AFTER EATING)
- muscle wastage (STAYED THE SAME, YET I HAVENT GONE TO GYM SINCE FEBRUARYY DUE TO CORONAVIRUS)
- easy weight gain (I CONTROL MY WEIGHT FINE WITH KETO DIET)
- facial swelling, puffiness (GONE, BACK TO LEAN, MASCULIN FACE NOW)
- dry skin on hands palm (IMPROVED)
- tinnitus sensation (GONE, RETURNS VERY FEW TIME)
So as you see, fortunately I made a a lot of improvements within 3 months.
Energy:
My major concern keeps to be chronic fatigue. At latest from the early afternoons I get very sleepy every day, no matter what i’ve done the day before or how much I’ve slept, its just not the energy I had pre-fin. Having said that, with my low energy I have much less motivation or joy to do things.
Muscles:
Feels weaker, and despite doing cardio like 3x a week, I dont really feel muscle gain in legs. I have general muscle mass loss since my fin crash, but i also ceased going to gym due to covid since January. If I see my estrogens decline to normal, I’ll start to raise my carbs intake and with it I will return to weight lifting again.
Sexual sides:
As of the improvements though, my imrpovements of my sexual sides give me the most hope. My penile tissue and weight just seems much nicer since a month or so, not dry and flaccid anymore. My testicles kept being lost in size, but i noticed, they shrink severely before stools. Now I want to ask if anyone has it similar? But fortunately they regain their natural hanging position after, so it doesnt bother me. The biggest jackpot is, that i have sexual desire sometimes, and can get like a 60% spontaneous erection compared to pre-fin.
Digestion:
I believe my digestion improved compared to the weeks after my tribulus crash. Meaning I have regular healthy stools, and no unecessary fat deposition, no bloating after meals. Yet I cant really tell how efficient my fat burning is, because I’m on keto diet since the crash, and i can only tell it is efficient when I return to a carb unrestricted diet.
Hair:
I lost tonnes of scalp hair all over (telogen effluvium), as well as have less dense eyebrows and pubic hair now. Yet I dont worry about it anymore cause I’m sure its reversible, since I suspect the
- crash diet I made (sudden keto diet with very low daily calorie intake)
- 10 kg (I was 80 kg) muscle and general weight loss within 1 month,
- severe mental stress on the fin and trib crash
- sudden hormonal changes (high e2, low free T’s)
which my body went through. I also got very dry and brittle hair since crash. But since these seems to have stabilized by now, they might regrow within 6-12 months. My beard already kicked back to pre-fin level, which tells me my DHT functions again normally, along my improved sexual sides this may indicate it as well.
Skin:
My skin issue was visible on 2 places so far on my body: At my hand’s palms, and my penile tissue. Now penile tissues dryness has been totally gone, (while its weight increased too) and I would say my hands palms also improved like 50%, got back more moisture. So again more tissues, where I can feel DHT is restarting to work again. My hands btw tend to become dryer towards the evenings, giving me a sensation if my hands were dirty, I can see the wrinkles a little bit white, but on the next morning they always fully healthy again. So I wonder if its also caused by tonnes of hand washings due to covid.
I’ve changed a lot compared to myself in January, I became from a muscular, long dark haired energetic youthful looking stud to a skinny, short unhealthy haired, and weak looking aging guy. But having said all of my improvements i would summerize like I found hope that I’m improving from this nightmare. If you like to ask me what have I done that I’ve made so great improvements, I would say I dont know if any of my practices helped, but I’ve done the followings:
- keto diet (only with meat and cruciferous veggies)
- regular cardio excersize (30min at most / day) on empty stomach
- intermittent fasting (14-18 hours fasting every day)
- avoiding PFS forum for most of time (only looked for nutritions what to eat, or not to eat, because peoples symptoms complaints made me often depressed and started myself to have their symptoms as a placebo like tinnitus or skin burning sensation)
- trust I gained in my body after I’ve seen sexual sides improvement
- joy that my brain fully functions (no brain fog, only lack of motivation to do things and chronic fatigue)
- supplements: i take only 1 multivit pill every day withount Zinc, 1 probiotics every day, 2 digestive enzyme supps woth every meal, zero carb protein shake after cardio. I also eat half bar of dark chocolate every day, for minimal amount of resveratrol. Also i take iron supp daily cause i had low red blood count and iron in my last blood test.
Note: I followed many diet and lifestyle suggestions from @Ozeph
I had my last blood results on May 8th, see my post above in this story. I will take my next on June 26th, I will let all of you know if improved physical and mental state is reflected in anyways in my blood picture.
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keep us posted about your progress brother.
Good to hear that you’ve recovered from many of the symptoms.
Would you recommend a tribulus course, since it has helped many sufferers?
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Hey @Casual thx, I wouldnt call recovery on those symptoms rather improvements at this point 
I would suggest to everyone with PFS to stay away of trib. I think it will convert into too high E2-s which might make your dick shrink and all the other horror may follow. I think honestly that that supp is dangerous on us, no matter which brand you buy. even if it helped some, we just donno why it did, why it harmed to others.
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Hey my merck-hater mates! I have my blood test results:
TSH 1,780 (0,550 - 4,780)
FT4 17,12 pmol/l (11,50 - 22,7)
FT3 4,25 pmol/L (3,50 - 6,50)
FSH 6,8 IU/L (1,4 - 18,1)
LH 3,9 IU/L (1,5 - 9,3) lowish
Estrogen 99,4 pmol/l (0,0 - 146,1)
Progeszteron 1,20 nmol/l (0,89 - 3,88)
Testosterone 20,660 nmol/l (5,720 - 26,140)
Free Testosterone 1,30% (1,53 - 2,88) LOW
Free Testosterone concentration 0,269 nmol/l (0,198 - 0,619)
Bioative testosterone conc. 7,290 nmol/l (4,360 - 14,300)
Bioactive testosterone % 35,3% (35,0 - 66,3) LOW
SHBG 54,3 nmol/l (17,3 - 65,8)
DHEA-S 8,07 umol/l (0,94 - 15,44)
Cortisol 470,6 nmol/L (118.6 - 618.0)
Vit D 56,7 nmol/l
I’ve done further tests on red and white blood cells too.
Red blood cells 4,3 T/L - 4,5 5,9 LOW
White blood cells 5,6 G/L - 4,4 11,3
So its a big relieve! I have progress on almost every value, especially by raising T and lowering estrogens. I was supplementing iron, so i managed to raise my blood count. I managed to balance my hormones resulting a better T/E2 ratio. Still, my free T’s are low, yet i managed to raised it, by lowering SHBG. Cortisol levels also lower which reflect my mental progress (posted above) as well,less depression, no stress.
I’m thankful for your thoughts on my blood results, what should i do to progress further, especially how to raise my free T’s. Thanks!
That’s a huge improvement, clap clap It is good to hear that people recover naturally, because all of our symptoms are mostly due to hormonal imbalance. It seems like your body is finding its balance pretty good.
Yes man. To my understanding after researching this forum and pfs on the web, this disease goes like 1. Hormonal imbalance fcks you 2. After your hormones settled you have to see how many of your symptoms did. If you havent improved some of your symptoms after healthy hormones balance, on those areas you suffered AR silencing or neurotransmitter malfunctions (which is a long term recovery on pfs)
Kinda like after the storm is gone you see the damage you have to deal with for long time to fix…
Hey all!
I wanted to give an update about my situation as I reached my 7th month with PFS.
I had an interesting 3-4 weeks of great improvements. I had a bit of returning libido, fuller, thicker penile size and also more pleasure at orgasms. Also nocturnal erections and morning wood returned sometimes. I felt like reborn at these few weeks,completely forgot about PFS those weeks. All I can say improvement happened just when I returned to weight lifting after 6 months of brake.
Then after a 3 night out weekend with drinking and less sleep, my penile quality, libido and orgasm pleasure declined again to my PFS baseline. So did some stress and depression return to some degree. I didn’t change anything, didn’t take any hormonal stuff that could have caused the setback, so I have no idea what did I wrong, other than perhaps alcohol and long nights out could have caused the return of the bad place.
FATIGUE:
my main concern since things have stabilized and I see what are my major symptoms is fatigue.
I cant ever feel fresh even though I sleep well. I dont experience any insomnia since my crash in february, yet I feel exhausted all the time. At worst days I need a huge motivation to leave my house to buy even food.
Only time I kind of feel more energized is when I’m drinking alcohol, its also the reason why I let myself to go out drinking once or twice a weekend.
And also around the middle of a weight lifting session I feel a bit more energized.
So for me behind all of my mental problems (lack of motivation, lack of positive emotions, stress) chronic fatigue may be behind it, because its the thing that constantly reminds me to have PFS.
Question at this point: DID FATIGUE EVER IMPROVE FOR YOU (If you had it with PFS) ? DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPPS HOW TO TACKLE CHRONIC FATIGUE?
On the positive side I still can report some improvement as posted earlier: my digestion feels to have recovered, I dont get bloated of anything, I dont gain unwanted fat. As I started weight lifting I see little bit of strenghtening muscles, but its too early to report if I manage to regain my old muscle mass which was +12 kg compared to now. (i lost 25% of my body weight, with just loosing my muscle mass within a month)
Also positive that I dont have diffuse hair shedding anymore, my hair at least started slowly to recover from this anti-hairloss drug induced hair loss. 
So I’ve seen some great weeks of partial recovery but then fell back to PFS baseline. It gives me hope at least that better days could come back. I took my last blood test in the end of june (see above) I will take my next to see which directions my system adjusted since in second half of september. I’ll post it here then.
Thanks in advance for your help about my question on fatigue!
I have my latest blood test done, after 3 months it was time to see which direction my hormones are balancing. So its as follows:
TSH 2,620 (0,550 - 4,780)
FT4 17,2 pmol/l (11,50 - 22,7)
FT3 4 pmol/L (3,50 - 6,50)
FSH 6,8 IU/L (1,4 - 18,1)
LH 2,8 IU/L (1,5 - 9,3) lowish
Estrogen 145,1 pmol/l (0,0 - 146,1) high
Progeszteron 2,28 nmol/l (0,89 - 3,88)
Testosterone 17,60 nmol/l (5,720 - 26,140)
Free Testosterone 1,59% (1,53 - 2,88) lowish
Free Testosterone concentration 0,280 nmol/l (0,198 - 0,619)
Bioative testosterone conc. 7,580 nmol/l (4,360 - 14,300)
Bioactive testosterone 43,1% (35,0 - 66,3) lowish
SHBG 39,2 nmol/l (17,3 - 65,8)
DHEA-S 9,05 umol/l (0,94 - 15,44)
Cortisol 520,6 nmol/L (118.6 - 618.0)
Vit D 66,8 nmol/l lowish
I’ve done further tests on red and white blood cells too.
Red blood cells 4,4 T/L - 4,5 5,9 LOW
White blood cells 4,8 G/L - 4,4 11,3
Progress: i managed to lower since my crash the first time SHBG (with high protein diet) and freed up finally some available testosterone. I could raise already my vit D a bit with the 1000UI / day supplement
Setback: i have upper edge of estrogens again.
As far as i’m doing:
Progress: I have bit more energy ,hitting regulalry the gym, able to control anxiety finally. Able to sleep 8-9h by the time which is brilliant.
Still bad: I have still testicular atrophy, low libido, low ejacuation pleasure, depressive mood waves. Still suffer lack in drive for life I had pre-finasteride. Furthermore I still couldnt regain my muscle mass, though Ikeep workout with patience.
Opinions appreciated.
Hey man, I don’t know enough about hormone tests (broadly, I think they’re difficult to make use of at all in relation to our condition), but I think your ability to sleep well is a real good sign, and maybe a lot of what stands between a middling and good recovery for you are consistent healthy lifestyle and psychological aspects (ie. your mood, how you are viewing things).
How is your testicular shrinkage? does it vary throughout the day? is it sometimes back to normal? is it mainly much worse around going to the toilet? I have the symptom but because I answer Yes to those questions I’ve kind of come to terms with it as an annoying hindrance but not a serious permanent issue.
If your mind is good (no brain fog) and your penis is basically full size compared to pre-fin, then only the orgasm issue and libido seem like something to worry about, mainly the orgasm one, and who knows how that may improve with more time. I’d say that accepting the testicular issues as superficial and focusing on how far you’ve come in all other areas might lead to less depressive episodes and in general the kind of good contented feeling that comes (as both you and I have experienced) with strong recovery periods.
All the best.
Hey @maybe thanks for your very helpful and constructive comment.
I totally agree, i was at my worst when i couldnt sleep at all at the first weeks after the crash, and then only 4-6 hours every night for around 2-3 months. But sleep has become no issue since around june which was maybe thanks to stabilizing hormone balance or the fact I could handle my situation mentally. I started to find out that in some part I can control anxiety that enables you good sleep and decreases brain fog. I definately think good sleep is the fundament for recovery.
My shrinkage seems to be permanent on testicles. I lost prolly 30-40% of their original size, they feel weightless and empty. Only short period show them hanging lower like in hot weather. Its like if they werent producing any testosterone, its just horrible. And then yes, they even get worse before having stools, they just wanna retract inside my body, pure nightmare. But the sexual sides I could manage to put away and focus on the future with no real sexual capabilities. Frightening that i might never touch a woman anymore because of 4 pills.
I totally agree with you man. I think with only this attitude we are able to gain back the joy for life we left with. I’m really happy to regained my cognitive capabilities prolly to a 95% pre-fin, that I’m able to control and decrease anxiety, that I’m able to sleep well again and even my energy has risen a little bit since a month, getting out of the dark chronic fatigue I got from 4 Propecia pills. I’m happy with what I’m left with if my situation dont worsen over time.
My current goal is to
- decrease frequency of depressive mood
- gain back my muscles mass (lost 12kg of muscles within a month after propecia). Thats why blood test is important for atm, I need to know if my free T’s are available finally again or my estrogens arent too high for that.
Did you also have muscle atrophy? did you experience any improvements in that departments? Thanx man
Hm, I sometimes worry about my testicular shrinkage, because I can’t remember how big they were before, but I think I agree that I might have lost 30% or so. They also do feel quite light, but I can’t remember how they felt before.
I don’t think I ever had any real muscle loss, but I barely did enough exercise before or after taking the drug, anyhow. Maybe a little? Certainly nothing like what you’ve described, however. Hopefully with time you are able to rebuild. Muscle memory should help.
How are/were your cognitive symptoms? Did you ever have any brain fog, or just depressive mood? I continue, 6 months out, to have lingering attention and focusing issues which do vary, but are extremely annoying. Hope you don’t have to deal with any of this, and if you don’t, I’d say that’s a huge win for you man. Just keep your head up and focus on what you’ve still got going for you! I’d give anything to have no mental symptoms (with bad testicular atrophy and whatever) just because I think that’s the most important thing, and if you can focus on how clear and comfortable your mind is, hopefully your mood and happiness can follow!
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I definately had brain fog after crash. I could speak much slower, had difficulty express my thoughts on a high professional level. Note that I have my own company with 4 employees and other than managing my people and partners, I also do active sales to customers (B2B) so for me cognitive capabilities are highly demanded.
My luck was, that after my crash in february covid lock down came, so I didnt have to face customers and partners in person with my severe brain fog and anxiety.
So anyways, I did have brain fog , severe depression and anxiety for about 4 months. They started to improve around June. Why they did honestly I dont know. I suspect
A) my hormones stabilized after being totally altered by Propecia
B) I managed to get longer and deeper sleep again
C) or because I started to control anxiety
D) or combination of those
I’m really greatful indeed that I gained my cognitive capabilities back. I have frequently very challenging negotiations, presentations, meetings where I pretty much acted like pre-fin again, and I’m able to manage and solve problems.
The last bad mental side Propecia left me with is depression. Its too much origin from loss of libido so I havent learned yet to control that as i learned to overcome anxiety.
I’m happy to PM with you man to share experiences!
Hey all! I thought i give you a status update how I am at month 9+ of my new, worse life on PFS.
-
mental sides improved a lot (no brain fog since more than 2 months, depression much less severe and frequent, no anxiety since more than 2 months) I’m able to sleep 8-9 hours with no wake ups.
-
my sexuals seem to fck me for long term. I’m able to get it up most of time but the erect size is only 85% imo of the prefin, my balls have shrunk, they feel weightless and empty all the time, same with my dick when flaccid. The libido of course is non existent. Only thing that has improved somewhat at the sexual department that my orgasm pleasure improved, more sensitive and satisfying by now.
-
physical sides also stuck on me. I’m just unable to gain any muscle mass back, despite having weight lifted for 2,5 months again, couldnt put on shit. Yet my strenght did improve at weight lifting.
I developed a very interesting side at physical department though: I can eat tonns of unhealthy carbs, yet I dont gain any belly or unecessary fat. Its weird cause after fin crash, i got fat easily due to high estrogens, now I’m the opposite, stayin skinny constantly.
My chronic fatigue has maybe improved a bit too compared to like 3 months ago, but nothing like pre fin energy.
Current therapeutic efforts:
- 2000 UI vit D / day
- vit B complex with iron
- intermit fasting every day (no food between 7pm-2pm next day)
- no sugar
- 3x weight lifting / week
I’m planning one more blood test this year, prolly before christmas. Too bad, I cant go to gym now in my country due to COVID alert.
Unfortunately i’m doing worse lately!
I feel further decrease in penile size, lenght and girth as well. My erection is getting weaker, but as a paradox my orgasm pleasure and ejacuation volume increased at the same time (yet sperm is rather watery then thick). Dont know where to put all these, but makes me overall very lethargic.
I did buy Cialis 5mg on doctors prescription, I will start to try them.
My chronic fatigue is worse again and so is depression, memory and information processing such as reading, but that could have worsen due to the complete (covid) lockdown with inability to go to the gym or anywhere.
I have to stress I havent taken any androgenic or anti-androgenic substances since my finasteride crash 10 months ago.
I will consult with a very acknowledged thyroid and endocrine professor online on 29th Dec. He will then decide if he commences a detailed analytics and start therapeutics with me.
I’ll post here updates!
Dear Community!
I have received my latest endocrine blood serum results. Please see here:
Everything seems to have normalized the first time, since I have PFS in terms of endocrine bloods. My DHT - which wasnt on this sheet - is at normal lower third. So far I had no free T and skyhigh estrogens. So everything fine, and thats the bad news, since obviously i have PFS then.
Why?
Because I suffer from
- severe chronic fatigue
- anhedonia
- penile shrinkage
- testicular shrinkage
- reduces penis sensitivity
- less sperm volume
- no libido
- intermittent depression and anxiety
- muscle atrophy
- dry skin on hands palms
+++ NEW! blurry vision maybe by chronic fatigue?
This disease is insane! OK, i do have
- low vit D
- high zinc serum
- high iGF-1
- high glucose
- low red blood count
- low LH
levels, but I doubt that should cause these severe symptoms.
Anyone thoughts on my results? I appreciate my dear friends, you are the only person who understand my issue 
So here I am! Today, February 3rd marks my first year with PFS.
I’m not sure if anyone is gonna read my story of my first year in hell, but it gives me some kind of comfort to have this page to share these things with the only people that understand me how a young, healthy and ambitious man can get physically ,sexually and mentally totally destroyed within 4 days - as it was in my case with Propecia.
February 2020 – darkest days of my life
I will never forget that night. I woke up in the middle of my dreams with pain on my penis which I never had before. I touched it and i noticed it completely shriveled. It shriveled to pre-puberty size, like it was going to start to grow inside my body. And this happened after only 4th pill of Propecia by Merck. I knew I’m experiencing severe side and I found this forum, which scared the hell out of me that I have PFS. But I’ve also read you could naturally recover within the next 3 months, so you not necessarily have PFS.
But here is what happened next.
Obviously along the penile shrinkage I had complete ED, very reduced and watery ejacuation without pleasure, and it was even painful. My semen volume was about 1/10th of pre-fin. Then came the chronic testicular pain, which I guess happens if your testicles fail to produce testosterone. I developed serious anxiety and with it insomnia. I could not sleep more than 2-3 hours every night for about a months and a half, when I was awake during those long nights I was battling suicidal thoughts, stared down my balcony and thought about images how I die if I jump, because I have to.
Because of the severe fatigue and anxiety, I couldnt even eat almost anything. I felt like a final stage cancer patient I was so weak and felt so drained, especially when I noticed that suddenly my ever tight fitting cloths would start hang down on me. I rapidly lost all my muscle mass, within one month!!! I went from 80 kg down to 68 kg body weight (i was constant weight lifting since 15 year, had very lean and well structured body, felt so strong and vital) and gained stomach belly at the same time. I noticed that to hold my hand up would be challenging, I never in my life experienced my hands or legs being so weak.
March 2020 – Full blown PFS
My case is like, if I got the “crash” immediately after cessation of the drug, I did not even had to wait until my androgens returned to overexpressed receptors. Or the first 3-4 weeks were hypogonad symptoms and then came PFS in its place. Anyways, things started to change from this point, after 4-6 weeks my sleep started to normalize. My penis became a little bit sensitive again and I would be able to get erection again, but I noticed the penis became much lighter and ejacuation volume was still decreased and watery. I think the muscle loss didnt stop with arms and legs, but also the hardening tissue inside the penis has disappeared. It feels so light, both erect and flaccid. At this point my testicles started to shrink as well. I really remember to have them hang low and heavy, but since the shrinkage began the size of the complete scrotum has decreased around 40% I’m sure. Just like my penis, the balls feel empty and lifeless. After some months at least testicular ache has stopped and does not really appear anymore.
April-July 2020 – Anxiety and hopelessness
After 2 months of crash I started to develop almost constant anxiety, total depression and anhedonia. Nothing would make me feel happy, nothing entertained me, I was just down 7/24 like never before. I’m a salesman, and managed to establish my own company by the age of 33. I found investors for my company, today I’m employing 9 people, my company distributes a very premium industrial machine manufacturer. This is an outstanding achievement for my age, without any parental help or connection to influential people. I’m mentioning this so the community understands that I was always in my life a very open, ambitious ,happy and center-of-friendships type person. I loved going out with friends, I loved to date lot of women and traveled a lot around the world. I had no reason to be depressed nor anxious, I was really driven for life and it was so perfect that a moderate hair loss didnt fit into this perfect picture and thats why I let finasteride prescribed. So after 4 pills of Propecia by Merck, all this have changed. There are no words to describe how depressed I was, I suddenly didnt see a future and didnt want it, due to covid lockdown I was glad I didn‘t have to meet friends anymore, which suddenly felt like a duty. I was battling mentally to be able to look into the future with PFS, which at this point became obvious that I have it. I was a wreckage.
I was able to sleep enough again, yet I noticed I have a constant and severe fatigue. I could never feel rested, being tired all they long, no matter how much I slept before. Fatigue has become my biggest complaint, loss of libido, loss of my penile tissue, loss of muscle mass, these are nothing in comparison to how severely chronic fatigue effects my daily life, I lose all motivation to do things that I loved, it gives me a harder time to manage my company, it basically takes away the drive for life.
September-November 2020 – Accepting the condition
Around end of summer I started to stabilize mentally. Somehow I began to be able accepting things and get some hope that I can improve naturally in the long term. I started to weight lifting from end of august again, until the gyms closed due to covid in november. I felt some hope in the gym, because I was able to improve stamina and could excersize with constantly higher weights again, yet I have to add, I did not notice much of muscle gain.
After suffering from constant anxiety and severe depression caused by the complete loss of sexual function and physical decline by Propecia, I started to change in my mind. I did take the courage to accept things how they are, and probably will be for the rest of my life. There are no words to describe to healthy people how it is too see your shrunken and lifeless penis and balls every time you take a shower or go to toilet. You have to escape from a huge wave of depression and suicidal thouths, every time you see it. Always when I see and feel my muscles gone I would get very depressed about thinking how much more active and full of energy I was before all of this. I seemed youthful and strong, women would have guessed – just before my crash – that I was 25 years old when I was almost 34. Despite all of that, I started to be able somehow my mind to be immune to such thoughts. I started to manage my mind, like a self meditation, that this suddenly aged weak man that I am is the new normal and I shouldnt care about this.
December-February 2021 – Trying to get out of this disease
From around december I decided to do something about this disease.
My company is growing, despite the deeply depressed and challanging post finasteride months and the tough covid situation, I could manage my company to enable a stable growth. I feel like I can get the strenght to move on with my life and came to a point to do something about this disease. I have contacted an endocrine related autoimmune specialist which will work with me for 6 months to try to improve my sides. I dont know if he will be able to provide me any reasonable treatment, but at least I got an excellent automimmune specialist on board to deal with this syndrome. As he suggested, we will do androgen receptor gene test amongst many other.
Unfortunately due to covid i cant go to the gym since october. But when they reopen I will do everything to get regular excersize I could have done before finasteride happened and see how far I can get back physically.
I feel like I came a long way within this year. I have lost my sexual and physical capabilities I had, my character has changed in the deepest inside. I took finasteride to prevent androgenic alopecia, yet it triggered a massive AGA shedding. I think I belong to the more severe cases, since I got full blown PFS by only 4 pills, many here dont suffer testicular and penile shrinkage, or only one of those, while I suffered both. Along their loss of size, my penis and scrotum feels light and lifeless. But despite this, I made a massive progress, especially mentally since my crash today 1 year ago. I can move on in my life with what I have left, trying to accept that I may never have sex again, accepted that going up the stairs, lifting a bottle of soda or just simply walking will be never as physically easy as it once was. I try to accept all of these cause I kept my mind, i cleared from brain fog and I learned that I can control anxiety and severe depression by acceptance. I feel like mentally I’ve switched from suffering to trying to improve somehow in the long-term. I hope that my future holds something for me and thats why I survived this 1st year with PFS.
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For the science, this is what finasteride (4 pills) have made of me:
- zero libido
- shrunken penis
- shrunken testicles
- frequently retracted testies (especially before stools)
- low ejacuation volume
- watery ejacuation
- low orgasm pleasure
- erectile disfunction
- universal muscle wastage
- darkened circles around eyes
- chronic fatigue (MY WORST SIDE)
- brain fog / slurred speech
- occasional anxiety and severe depression
- anhedonia
- rapidly worsened androgenic alopecia
- stronger beard and body hair growth
- thinned eyebrows
- dry skin on penile skin and hand palms / prune-like fingers
I didnt suffer (yet) or have recovered from
- insomnia
- joint pain
- jaw recession
- testicular pain
- complete penile numbness
- chronic anxiety and/or depression
- no universal skin dryness
- no degree of brain fog to keep me from profession
- no slow wound healing
- no tinnitus
- no blurred vision
- no dry eyes
- no muscle twitches
So you better see what character of this syndrome I have and where you see yourself compared to me
I cannot get out of bed. Muscle Athrohy. No Drive! Cannot sleep. Trickle in the legs.