Hello everyone,
Been a while since my last post, it’s been just over the one year mark for me since consuming my last dose of Finasteride. Shout out to finasteride class of 2018’ (ha… just kidding). I wanted to provide a one year update to anyone who followed my story initially.
I consumed Finasteride 1mg daily for 10 days between August 1st and August 10th of 2018. Side effects did not manifest until ceasing use of the drug. About 2-3 days after quitting, I was experiencing extreme insomnia, brain fog and fatigue, abnormal erectile function, extreme bags under my eyes, and other minor side effects. My first reaction was to try and remedy my side effects by digesting a long list of supplements - mostly experimented with amino acids.
Some worked, but only provided short term relief. I don’t recall any supplements that had a negative reaction, however I was very careful in making sure I didn’t consume anything that would worsen my situation. The problem was finding something that actually had lasting effects.
I can go on and on about which supplements I tried and which were most effective, but I would be wasting everyone’s time for the following reason. One year into this, and I’ve had several realizations. Although young in my recovery compared to others on this forum, I quickly understood that time (while accompanied by a healthy sleeping schedule, decent diet, and exercising at least 4 times a week) was the single biggest factor contributing to any sort of relief of side effects. Another major factor that I felt made a lasting impact was not feeling sorry for myself, and not letting this consume of my day to day life. The reason for my distancing from the forum was for this very reason - and it’s counter intuitive in a sense because I met some really great guys who provided strong support and great advice on this forum. But at a certain point it felt like the more I read into this, the more depressed and anxious I was getting, and it almost became a chore to see what else I could be doing to fix myself. I found myself to be truly free the moment I stopped trying to control the situation by ingesting home remedies and focusing on it day to day.
As for my side effects:
Insomnia: Like I said above, insomnia was the worst of my side effects by far. My insomnia did not feel anxiety related even though at times I would lay in bed with my heart pounding out of my chest. It felt as if something was really wrong, like my biological clock had been altered. I found myself extremely fatigued during the day and what ensued was a combination of being completely mindless and falling asleep at my desk at work. Eventually, the insomnia just went away on it’s own. I took melatonin to help me sleep, but I don’t think the melatonin is what got my sleep back in order. Time was the biggest factor here.
Sexual function: There was one day I remember hitting up @Greek sort of freaking out because I couldn’t get an erection. I’m happy and thankful to say that this was the worst and only major episode where I truly couldn’t get an erection at all. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever dealt with, especially considering I have extremely high libido. For a long while (about 8 months), it felt like my erections weren’t as strong as they used to be. This too has since subsided. I can honestly say this took the longest to get back to normal. I only recently (at about Month 8) felt that my erections were back to full strength 95%-100% of what they were prior to consuming Finasteride. Semen also took a long time (about 9-10 months) to get back from watery to a thick white consistency (sorry for the graphic). I also feel as if Time was the biggest factor here as well. I will say that one supplement that I have kept consistent throughout this entire process (even after discontinuing all other supplements) is L-Carnitine Tartrate. If I had to make a choice, I would say this was the most effective out of anything - but I am not recommendation for or against it. Do your own research, and understand that my point here is that time will be the biggest healing factor.
Dark circles: This was a big problem for me. Some of you will recall I started a thread a while back about this, and I attributed the dark circles to a combination of Finasteride and high sodium diet. I made it a life habit to start consuming a lot more water. I also started using Cerave eye cream which has worked as a miracle for me. My dark circles went away at the same time the above symptom went away (about 8-10 months).
Diet: As for diet, I can’t say that I made any significant changes here. I’ve always been a decently healthy eater and worked out at least 4x a week. The biggest change I made to my diet was discontinuing a soy based protein drink in the very beginning of my recovery and substituting it with a plant based protein. Currently and for the last 6-8 months, I’ve been supplementing only on L-Carnitine, a plant protein made by Optimum Nutrition, and a plant based multivitamin (that doesn’t contain any anti-androgens). That’s about it…
Lifestyle: Nothing changed in the exercise area of my life, essentially carried that on as usual and I think that may have helped a lot in making me feel better, or at the very least giving me some sense of normalcy throughout this process. I don’t drink alcohol and I don’t smoke cigarettes so everything else has essentially remained constant. I do want to touch on this concept of “normalcy”. Another significant reason I needed to stop reading other people’s stories is because it made me feel like we aren’t normal human beings anymore. I never could come to terms with that concept and in many ways I still don’t agree with some people’s views. I’m not asking for anyone’s opinion and you don’t need to agree on this, but in the end I believe refusing to buy into the idea that we’re handicaps has had a very positive impact for me. Based on my own experience, when we are full of negative thoughts our brain instinctively filters out incoming signals from the world and we tend to have a cloud pulled over our judgement. If you train your thinking to be negative day to day, it not only comes into conflict with how we feel on a daily basis, but it also starts to become your reality. If you keep telling yourself you’re not normal, guess what will happen in 4, 6, 8 months? You will eventually start to believe that. That being said, I also understand that my situation may not be as bad as others, and I truly sympathize with this stark truth. However I do feel positive thinking and trying to maintain a sense of normalcy even when I felt disassociated and detached was instrumental in pushing forward.
I also don’t want to give off the impression that this is a kick on the forum. It’s not, to the contrary this forum was one of the only places I felt true support when I first discontinued Finasteride - and for that I feel very thankful to the admins, mods, and everyone else who took the time to give their advice and support. For me personally, I just couldn’t keep reading the member stories and seeing the overwhelming number of individuals reporting extreme side effects. It was a personal decision…
I hope everyone is doing better, and just remember to be patient. Time is critical
