Bro, I am glad you’re finding success. I wonder, do you have any muscular atrophy/dystrophy symptoms? What symptoms do/did you have exactly?
1 Like
Thank you! I hope you do soon too. I never experienced muscular atrophy/dystrophy to my knowledge, but did experience a loss of muscle tone (harder to coordinate and tense/flex muscles on command).
I had mainly cognitive and sexual sides. Mentally, I experienced severe memory impairment, flattening of affect and amotivation/low energy. Sexually, my D could never get past like 60-70% erect, orgasms were shit, I had barely any sexual desire/libido, and finally I could only experience an erection with physical stimulation (no visual arousal or getting turned on/horny looking at attractive women).
Hey to come back on this theory, wouldn’t the use of stimulants be a faster way to induce higher dopamine levels?
I would think so, and people like Leoandlongevity do advocate for the use of Wellbutrin/Bupropion to recover from PFS. However, there may be something specific to L-dopa and Bromantane + L-tyrosine for that matter, because they chronically increase dopamine production above baseline (via providing more direct substrate or increasing the production of the enzymes that convert precursors to dopamine respectively). This mechanism differs from that of stimulants like Adderall or Wellbutrin because they instead increase the amount of dopamine available at the synapse by forcing more to be released and/or less to be transported away.
Perhaps a stimulant and L-dopa or Bromantane + L-tyrosine could be combined to achieve a greater synergistic recovery than either alone. However, I would immediately be concerned by the risk of dopaminergic excitotoxicity and other adverse events due to chronic hyperdopaminergic brain states.
1 Like
How are you doing by the way? Still feeling good?
1 Like
Thanks for asking. I’ve been off everything for a week now except NR, caffeine, nicotine lozenges, Huperzine-A, Vitamin D3, and magnesium bisglycinate before bed. I will get off NR, nicotine lozenges and Huperzine-A (stopped working after 3 consecutive days) soon as well.
Mentally, I feel 80-90% recovered. I’m not experiencing anhedonia and am having much less memory trouble. The amotivation related to altered dopamine signaling is still somewhat present, but has improved considerably. Finally, my flattened affect/emotional blunting/anxiety and depression symptoms have also improved but aren’t back to 100% yet.
Physically and sexually, I feel closer to 70-80% recovered, especially after quitting L-dopa and the testosterone boosting herbs (Tongkat, Tribulus, Cistanche). In other words, things have been hit or miss/unstable. Sometimes, I can get 80-90% erect, other times (especially during increased vasoconstriction from stimulants and/or fasting, eating unhealthy, poor sleep), I can barely get 50-60%. Libido-wise, I usually still feel less horny and visually aroused than before Finasteride or while on the supplements mentioned before, although there were a few days where my libido/erectile function almost returned to baseline.
Moving forward, at the end of December, I’m hoping to do a few more cycles of the herbal supplements, L-dopa and/or Bromantane + L-tyrosine. I may even reintroduce sodium butyrate again depending on how much more I think it would help (it’s pretty expensive). The NR interestingly hasn’t been doing much for me lately especially on its own. Finally, in addition to those supplements, beginning January 2022, I’m planning to get several hours of intense cardio per week (biking or swimming) and/or weight training where possible coupled with 8-9 hours of consistent high quality sleep each night. I will also eliminate the processed food I’ve been eating too often during 2021 and fast less regularly. I’m already eating both breakfast and dinner now instead of just dinner which has helped my libido/sexual function as long as I don’t eat too close to bed (last meal 4+ hours before bed seems best), consume irritating/unhealthy/proinflammatory food, or eat too much food at once in general.
I will also receive extensive blood test results in the next few days and will post them here once available:
2 Likes
As promised (I think my lower estrogen level might be partially to blame for the lack of a full libido/erectile recovery. This could be caused by chronic use of tongkat ali which acts as an antiestrogen):
FIRST FINASTERIDE USE:
STARTED ON: 03/15/20
QUIT ON: 08/15/2020
TREATMENT DURATION: 5 months
START RECOVERY: ~11/15/20 (+3 months post Finasteride quitting)
FULL RECOVERY: 02/03/21 (+5.5 months post Finasteride)
HORMONAL CHANGES:
9/9/20 (~1 MO POST-QUITTING FIN SALIVARY)
E: 1.1/2.2 pg/mL (50% max)
T: 203/148 pg/mL (137% max)
D: N/A
1/6/21 (4.75 MO POST-QUITTING FIN BLOOD FULLY RECOVERED)
E: 25/29 pg/mL (86% max)
T: 823/1100 ng/dL; FT: 77.6/155 pg/mL (75% max; 50% max)
D: 35/65 ng/dL (54% max)
T/E: 33; FT/E: 3.1
SECOND FINASTERIDE USE:
STARTED ON: 2/6/21
QUIT ON: 5/19/21 about 3 months after starting 2nd time
FULL RECOVERY: ~11/07/21 (~6 months post Finasteride)
HORMONAL CHANGES:
3/15/21 (1.34 MO AFTER STARTING FIN BLOOD)
E: 33/29 pg/mL (114% max)
T: 942/1100 ng/dL; FT: 102/155 pg/mL (86% max; 66% max)
D: 21/65 ng/dL (32% max)
SHBG: 51/50 (102% max)
T/E: 29; FT/E 3.1
12/13/21 (~7 MO POST-QUITTING FIN BLOOD FULLY RECOVERED)
E: 16/29 pg/mL (55% max)
T: 571/1100 ng/dL; FT: 80.2/155 pg/mL (52% max; 52% max)
D: 31/65 ng/dL (48% max)
SHBG: 39/50 (78% max)
T/E: 36 ; FT/E: 5
@lowestprime - do you have a member story? It might be better to post your blood work there, so it’s easier for people to follow your progress. (Instead of posting to a thread that’s ostensibly about NR).
1 Like
I do, it’s quite old but I can post them there too.
I fixed the residual sexual and cognitive sides after realizing my Estradiol/E2 was too low (~16 pg/mL) below my baseline (~25-30 pg/mL) presumably due to chronic Tongkat use etc.
Details here:
Anyone who is interested in trying NMN, I would highly recommend listening to Dr david Sinclair and maybe reading his book called “Lifepsan”. I recently wrote a post about treatments for longevity potentially being able to cure syndromes like PFS and PAS of they are due to epigenetic changes.
Dr David Sinslcair takes 1g of NMN each day. However, if you want to try NMN, you shuold also try 1g of resveretrol with it. NMN is a precursor to NAD which acts like fuel for the sirtuin genes/enzymes. Its this set of genes that provides all the benefits of NMN as they can repair DNA and also reverse DNA methylation etc.
NAD is the fuel for the sirtuins but resveretrol acts like a foot on the accelerator of the sirtuin genes. So they make a great combination. Also, if you take NMN, you need to keep it refrigerated as it can degrade quite easily.
It is highly recommended to take resveretrol and NMN with some greek yoghurt and fats such as olive oil as this signficantly increases the bio-availability/absorption of both of these compounds. I believe the difference in some cases was up to a 5x increase in blood concentrations.
Hey so you don’t think the NR was the main reason you started recovering? It sounds like from this thread that you took that and everything started improving and then the added l-dopa nad trib started helping on top of that but here you’ve listed the l-dopa and trib as helping more than the NR. Any thoughts you can share? Thanks a ton for documenting all of this man
Edit: Also, did you stay on the high dose (4 pills in the morning and 4 in the evening up until now? So for 4 months? @lowestprime
2 Likes
It’s hard to say, but I believe the majority of my improvements actually came from (in order):
-
my 1 month cycle of L-dopa (which I started after attempting to fix things with NR)
-
followed by a reintroduction of Tribulus and Cistanche
-
and then finally increasing my E2 back up to the normal range with soy isoflavones and pregnenolone (as well as the removal of Tongkat from my stack, I think this alone would have been sufficient to raise my E2 given enough time, I’m just impatient).
I’ve been off NR for a few weeks as it wasn’t doing much for me and as I’m sure you know, is quite expensive. I only took the high dose for a few weeks and then realized I could maintain its benefits by taking the normal recommended dose, especially since I’m already 23 and practice intermittent fasting pretty regularly (i.e. my NAD levels are already pretty optimal despite any residual PFS sides).
How much was the high dose you were taking? Also was it all in pills? I couldn’t find a powder form anywhere.
I took one pill of 300mg as directed for 2 or 3 days and noticed nothing from it. I’m planning to go back and try it again but from the few stories I read the benefits were pretty instantaneous so I’m a big discouraged
I mentioned how much above (1200mg twice daily)
1 Like
Before this discussion continues further, please read our latest post about changes to the terms of service: Changes to propeciahelp towards a more effective patient advocacy: Please read this important post about changes to our terms of service
We understand there will be an adjustment period, but updates of this nature must now be made using the self-reporting form.
FYI, maybe dm me etc instead since it appears they might be closing this post
Can I suggest that you use the self-reporting form instead? It shouldn’t be challenging and you can just direct @JustTrynaMakeIt to follow your experience in your member story and ask questions there. It will also allow other users to continue following along with your experience.
Have people got worse on these supplements? Should I test those?