Our bodies are dumping what it considers excess T into (almost entirely) E2, instead of mostly DHT. For most of us, it was the opposite way around before using finasteride. Our bodies are reacting to our normal T as if we were on high doses of steroids.
If lab results weren’t enough, this demonstrates downregulated 5ar enzymes (ie. not returning to baseline which was also demonstrated in studies).
Temporary fix: increase metabolic rate + AI
I don;t like this for several reasons:
While optimizing metabolic rate is always wise, a high metabolic rate is not always possible to maintain 100% of the time and so an AI is necessary with downregulated 5ar enzymes.
There are other implications on downregulated 5ar: ED, low libido, venous leakage / peyronies, decreased virilization, gyno prone, imbalanced neurosteroids (low dopamine, low allo), and much more. Basically all the sides of a 5ar inhibitor
The real solution is to upregulate our 5ar enzyme. We need to hire a researcher full time to work on this.