New suffer (3 weeks off the drug)

Member Stories
#1

  1. Where are you from (country)?
    A: US

  2. 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?)
    A: Internet. Google search: finasteride.

  3. What is your current age, height, weight?
    A: I’m currently 26, 170cm,146lbs

  4. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
    A: I use to but I injured my leg on July so after it I stopped

  5. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
    A: Normal But I eat a lot desert before

  6. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
    A: Hair loss.

  7. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
    A: 17months.

  8. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
    A: I was 25 when I started taking finasteride. April,2016

  9. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
    A: I was 36 when I stopped taking it. September,2017

  10. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
    A: Cold turkey

  11. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
    A: generic finasteride

  12. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
    A: 1mg / day before sleep

  13. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
    A: I had some minor sexual side effects before but it went away. I think it got worse recently at the beginning of september and I sort of crashed when I was still on the drug.

  14. 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
[X] Erectile Dysfunction
[X] Complete Impotence
[X] Loss of Morning Erections
[X] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[X] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[X] Watery Ejaculate
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

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

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

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

[X] Other (please explain): My hair loss didn’t “fully” come back after discontinuating the drug.

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
    A: Eat healthy and take some supplement

  2. 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)?
    A: I do not know why I could never post …

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

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

Hi Everyone,

I’m new to this forum and I have been reading your stories (which I hope I read before I took this poison shit!)

I’m 26 yo 5’7 146 lb (used to be near 160lb before PFS happened), I live in California now.

I started to notice my hair loss about 4-5 years ago. I went to a lot of hospital in China before I moved to US, All the doctors refused to prescribe me propecia/finnasteride due to the reason of my young age. But I worried so much about my hair and being bald, so I went to another docotr after I came to US and she just prescribed me finasteride like a candy. I actually hesitated about 2 month before I started to take it. I started taking it on April/2016 and stopped it at Sep/2017.

I did not notice strong side effect during the time except few nights of watery sperm and weak ejaculation (it went away after). So I thought it was safe to continue on the poison. Until last month I traveled to UK, then tralved from UK to China. I had a good sex on 27th /Aug/2017. But later when I traveld back to China, I started to notice my erection is so soft and it is hard to get a erection without hand. So I was freaking out and stopped the medicine (9/9/2017). Worst thing hit me hard after. I become completely impotent and my penis is cold and stays in the status of coming out of ‘cold water showering’. I got wet dream still tho and had ejaculation during the dream. So I ordered a blood test from the hospital, it is limited test with only 6 things tested. See the result below. And on 17/9/2017, I had another wet dream and woke up with a hard erection. I also got some erections with only thinking about some naked pics. I thought I recovered somehow. But a day after, things start to turn down. I start to have insomnia (woke up 3-4 hrs after sleep) and exccesive sweating with only minor exersice. I did got another wet dream and noticed i had erections during the dream. I came back to US on 9/25/2017 and yesterday during napping I woke up with another hard erection for about a min. I do not know if it is recovering or not. But it did destroy my life and I’m panicing about my future and my relation with my gf all day. I could not focus on anything now.

TEST
PRL 13.89 ng/ml 4.04-15.2
T 11.92 nmol/l 8.64-29
E2 72.15 pmol/l 94.8-223
FSH 7.6 IU/L 1.5-12.4
LH 5.6 iu/L 1.7-8.6
PROG 1.3 nmol/l <4.3

The doctor ofc just say everything is in range and E2 is not a problem for man. Which i know it is totaly bullshit. He also mention the FSH might be due to I had too much wet dream thus my body is pushed to produce more sperms. I do not even know if it is right or not. I’m meeting with another doctor in US in few days, which I assume prbably wont help too much.

I appologize for my bad english since it is my second language. I will start to update my condition and protocols here. Any suggestions would be appreciated

Now I am taking
30mg Zinc
400mg Mg
B complex
D3
GABA
Melotonin
L arginine

My new lab result came out yesterday showing I was below range low for Total T and above range prolactin…

Help needed
#2

Welcome man. Sorry to hear about your situation.

How are you now feeling since your initial post. I won’t comment on your hormone levels just yet because I am still trying to figure out what they all mean myself.

Your still quite early into quitting. I am just curious how you are feeling and what your doctors are saying?

#3

Just want to update that I recovered mostly. Maybe 80% I would say. Living a normal life now

#4

Hi kknd269,

I am very curious about your recovery. I hope you can give me some more details because you are giving me a lot of hope.

The thing is: I have found a doctor in Germany who is working with 9 PFS patients and is really trying to understand their conditions. Now he had a patient with major depression who was so brain-fogged he had to quit his job. He said he mostly recovered after GABA and Melatonin administration.

Now I saw that this worked for you as well. The question I have: Do you still take your drug regimen or did you quit taking it?

And how long did it take for you to “feel better”?

I am still unsure if I should start taking drugs to fight the PFS or if I should try some of the non-drug protocols first. I would really appreciate your help.

Thanks,
Jonny

#5

My best feelings of pre pfs seem to come from intermittent fasting for a few days, plenty of sun and sleep, and glutathione and 5grams or more of glutamine powder on empty stomach. Avoid dairy and gluten, go for broccoli and spinach.

Experiment with GABA, tyrosine, carnitine, theanine, choline, 5htp and possibly some others as before bed supplements, the brain fog is cured pretty quick, prescriptions are unnecessary for that. Just tyrosine alone might give you drastic improvements within 1 or 2 days.

Skip breakfast and push your body, drink a lot of water and exercise, jog if possible.

#6

Is it Dr. Zitzmann?

I posted it already: most pfs guys do not realize that they have coexistent diseases like severe gut issues, liver problems (detox problems), prostate issues (calcification), Lyme and so on.

Lots of people have brain fog due to intoxification. Just search for gut issues, detox problems and mental disorders. Gut inflammation is reduced by intermittend fasting and/or supplementing gluthathione or the three amino acids for building gluth.
Intermittend fasting or fasting helps getting autophagy status - check for Dr. Eric Berg on ytube.

I personally could not read a phrase several months ago, not sleep more than 1hour in a row, not feeling anything (anhedonia in extreme) and so on.

Check for coexistent diseases like gut issues, prostate and liver problems cause almost all pfs guys gave them! Cure them and you will feel better sooner than you think.

Do the intermittend fasting (eating first twice a day, then once a day for several weeks) and check how you feel. Once a week, do. a fasting of 24 hours or more. But I guess, as soon as you got cured your gut issues, you will not need to do that amount of fasting.

Best

#7

Did you do this, noprop? Got better? Had persistent fatigue before this?

#8

Yeah, I have done some of them: iv gluthathione, nad, vits

Intermittend fasting, too. Helped with anhedonia.

Progesterone was great: bigger penis, more libido, fatigue okay

After prog much better fitness if you can say so…really

#9

Hi Jonny,

It is hard to say what exactly made me recovered. I did not take GABA and Melatonin for a long time, maybe like 2 weeks. I also tried paleo diet for about a month and I did light workout along with it. But to be honest, at that time I did not feel any difference. My recovery started around late December during a trip from US to UK. At that time I already stopped all the supplement. All my symptoms were unable to sleep and have any kinda of erection for about 2-3 months. Sorry I know it probably does not help at all. But I just want to let you guys know that you can recover from it. It will take sometime.

Best

#10

Yeah I agree with the gut issue. When I had those symptoms I also had some gut issue. I lost like 15 lbs in 10 days

#11

Hi all,

I have been on fin for a year and half without any significant side effects. Until 2 weeks ago I feel it is really hard to get my penis up. I was scared and thought it was fin side effect. I stopped the medicine right after which I really should taper it down… After that I have experienced complete impotence, can not get it up at all. About a week later I suddenly had a vivid wet dream and wake up with strong erection, I thought I recovered but I was wrong, I got some strong erection without using hand on those2 days. After that, I start to have insomnia problem where I wake up a lot during the night, I don’t have problem falling sleep. And about 3 days ago I notice my heart beat goes to 100 even when I was just walking after dinner, and I sweat a lot!! It is not very hot here though. I had another wet dream today and felt erection was strong because I had an orgasm feeling waking me up.

I have done a blood test with only limited result a week ago.

My E2 is 74 90-200
T is 12 8.7-29
LH is 5.5 1.8-8.7
FSH is 7.6 1.9-12.4
PROL is 13.9 1.9-15.4

My E2 is low, and PROL is high. T is in lower range too.

#12

Have you tried L-arginine. It worth a shot tho. But dont take it regularly as to avoid body tolerance.

Last month I cant sleep like crazy. Vivid dreams. Waking up from sleep for times. But the best advice that I can give you is to keep calm. It’s up and down bro. But I think my sleep is far much better that last month.