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Where are you from (country)?
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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?)
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What is your current age, height, weight?
25, 6.4, 180 pounds -
Do you exercise regularly? If so, what type of exercise?
regular weight training and also doing high intensity sprints -
What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
healthy -
Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
hair loss -
For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
approximately 6 years, on and off -
How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
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How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
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How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
cold turkey -
What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
propecia -
What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
last attempts before crash were in small doses around 0.1 mg, but otherwise was taking it at 1 mg for years -
How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
upon discontinuation in summer 2011 experienced symptoms like numb, dead penis, but it cleared up when i woke up the next day -
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
[ ] Complete Impotence
[x] Loss of Morning Erections
[x] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[x] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[x] Watery Ejaculate
[x] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[x] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[x] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts
Physical
[x] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[x] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[x] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[x] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[x] 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
[x] Increased hair loss
[x] Frequent urination
[x] Lowered body temperature
[ ] Other (please explain)
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What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
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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)?
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Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?
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Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
Was using propecia at 1mg for years, on and off. In my entire time taking in, I think I must have gone on and off the drug more than 15 times.
In summer 2011 though, because of money issues, I couldn’t afford buying propecia anymore. When I stopped taking it, I got numb dead unresponsive penis, which caused me great panic. It was completely useless. I went to bed, and upon waking up all was back to normal with stone hard morning erection. So this »mini« crash only lasted a short time. What I was left with though was increased anxiety (though i was having anxiety even before this). This was only slowly getting better after stopping.
So I gave up propecia for a long time then. In summer of 2012 went on saw palmetto, which made me very lazy and without drive, the libido drop wasn’t noticeable, but my penis changed shape, and some wrinkles appeared on it too. This were further warning signs which didn’t bother me much at the time as my potency was still good. What made me quit palmetto though was the massive shed I was getting from it. Didn’t experience a crash or anything from it, but my penis was only slowly getting getting back its previous shape, but again, at the time I didn’t care too much about this all since sexually I was still ok. But anxiety was very bad at that time though (from fin and saw palmetto, no doubt).
The shed from saw palmetto was so bad, that around January 2013, I went back on propecia. At that time though, I was aware of the side effects of finasteride but was so freaked out from the massive shed from saw palmetto, that I had convinced myself into thinking that a smaller dose wouldn’t hurt me as much (since some people have posted this on forums). But upon taking a single dose of around 0.2 mg, my libido instantly dropped. So I reduced it to 0.1 mg and was taking that for a few weeks (around 20 days). But seeing as how it was only getting worse, I stopped. Potency remained low, but didn’t get any crash. I even think I may have slowly been getting better. But a month later I stupidly tested things out (not knowing what might happen), and masturbated like 3 times in a day.
That triggered the crash-couldn’t even sleep that night and my penis was numb dead and shriveled. I was also having extreme panic, dry skin (the tips of my fingers were so dry they were almost bleeding sometimes, especially in cold weather), hyperventilating etc etc. In the last year, anxiety has gotten under control with exercise and also using the progesterone cream, but my sexual power is still far from what it once was.
I strongly recommend to people that they look into high intensity exercise, especially the principles of Arthur Jones. I only go to gym once a week, believe it or not, and only do a couple of sets. Easy as it sounds, this type of exercise is much harder than »normal« weight training. Each set must be done to absolute exhaustion (at the end of the set, you can’t even move the weight anymore). And in fact, it takes a week or more to regenerate from such a workout. Believe me, I’ve done the usual workouts, weight training several times a week, and this is far superior to that (my opinion of course). But because of money problems (and mental ones like severe depression), I sometimes couldn’t eat properly and missed many months of workouts too. ATM I’m seeing very nice mass increases after only lifting weights for a month (after a 6 months long break). And I’m trying to stick with it this time.
I’ve seen other PFS victims post about doing this kind of workout too, it’s also called »The Big Five Workout«. I wouldn’t be saying how beneficial this is if i wasn’t completely sure. The usual routines of working out many times a week are based on wrong foundations… It’s ok to sprint more than once a week, but I don’t think it’s ok to weight lift more. I sprint every 3 days to keep my fat as low as possible atm. And I’m starting intermittent fasting as I’ve heard so much good about it.
So, there’s exercise and nutrition, those two things must both be done correctly to increase hormonal levels significantly. Eating right must not be neglected… Both Elb and Light at the end had low carb (low sugar/bad carbs) paleo type diet. And soon after my crash, eating too much sugar also gave me crash like symptoms. Maybe some people are not getting results from progesterone because they either missed something with their exercise routine or they/our diet isn’t good for keeping estradiol low… Hope54 mentioned how good things went for him until he started eating more carbs. Chi also eliminated bad carbs from his diet, from what I recall.
Seems PFS revolves around Estrogen (one only has to look at the recoveries section), from progesterone to weight losing recoveries (through diets, exercise etc) to antiestrogens. And maybe the difference in those not recovering from Progesterone treatments is the extra fat they still got. I know for myself, I still have a little belly. Maybe its just enough fat for estradiol to hold our very fragile HPTAs down, since its proven how incredibly suppressive E is.
The other very important thing (imo) is sexual activity. I can’t brush off that my crash was triggered by masturbation. Before that, I was getting spontaneous erections and my genitals looked ok. This was all a month after stopping propecia. That same day when I masturbated three times is when the crash happened. And honestly, after finding yourbrainonporn, it was also a major revelation. The thing that surprised me the most is how many people actually recovered on that site… There’s testimony after testimony on there. Not saying its a cure for PFS at all, but maybe it could possibly help out in conjunction with exercise and taking progesterone cream, eating right (paleo) etc etc. Because I know that masturbation hasn’t helped me one bit till now, every time I did it post fin I just felt drained afterwords. So maybe our bodies are saying to stop it for the time being?. Cdnuts also stated he rather redirected his energy into workouts than masturbation, from what I remember.
And I think it’s also interesting what mirai_trunks posted, about how his testosterone drastically increased after a 2 months abstinence period from sexual activities. Also, Joe78 posted his experiences with abstinence too and said it might be what helped him greatly.
I’m trying new things, and will definitely post if new progress happens. Please hold on fellow victims, we’re in this together.