After my crash I found I wasn’t sleeping when I was laying in bed at night. I would describe it more as 'laying unconscious" rather than actual sleep and this persisted for MONTHS after I stopped taking finasteride.
It really started to take its toll on me, I was super irritable and couldn’t’ concentrate. I never enjoyed things and no matter how long I “slept” I would still feel tired. I remember “sleeping” for 11 hours one night waking up and feeling absolutely exhausted. I read some users stories on here that GHB resolved the side effects of propecia so I decided to go to my Dr and see what he could do.
He prescribed Ambien for me (it was called Edluar but is exactly like Ambien except for you place it under your tongue instead of swallowing) and said that it worked with the GABA in your brain in one way or another (I forget of course). I went home that night and used it. It kicked in very quickly, I was tired within 15 minutes of taking it and had extremely restful sleep that night. I woke up and felt MUCH better than I had in the past four months. I took it again the following night then took a day off and took it again the night after and haven’t used any more since then because I haven’t had to. This was around three weeks ago and I’m still sleeping great and feeling refreshed in the morning.
Being able to sleep has resolved some of my brain cloud but not all of it and my memory is still terrible so I only have one part of this resolved. Just thought I’d share in case some of you are having trouble sleeping, these pills seem to have jump-started something in me. You could probably go to your dr and ask for the little trial pills and see if it works for you - it would be free and you have nothing to lose except more sleep.
Glad you’ve found some relief! I’m curious, do you have any issues with frequent urination at night? This is a side that’s come back to haunt me recently and it’s messing with my sleep big time.
Funny you should bring that up, I honestly have been on this drug so long I don’t know what is a side effect and what’s natural. I wake up probably three times or more a night to use the restroom. However, I also drink a lot of liquids and each time there is a considerable amount of urine that comes out. I would be more concerned if there wasn’t very much but I think I genuinely have to pee.
Or maybe it’s another side affect, what is yours like? Yes, we’re asking about each others pee…
Haha… yeah we really get into the gory details around here. It’s par for the course.
I’m up around 3-5 times a night these days. Although I do pass quite a bit of urine (as I too drink a lot of liquids) I feel like the urgency (and pressure in the bladder/prostate? region) doesn’t quite warrant the amount of urine I pass. There’s something funky going on for sure. I’m wondering if I actually have prostatitis or something along those lines. Regardless this stuff is really affecting the quality of my sleep.
I will start paying attention to this and report back. I know that I am notorious for multiple visits to the bathroom every night but I know the past couple of nights (possibly since my Ambien “fix”) I only got up once which is very unusual for me.
Cool… keep an eye on it and let us know. Have you guys been checked for prostatitis (bacterial and chronic)? My gp did a quick check (dre only) and ruled it out, I also did a 2 week run of cipro with no real effect. However I’ve read that prostatits can be tricky to diagnose and treat… just wondering if I should get a second opinion.
An update: My sleep has been much better and I haven’t reverted back to the horrible nights of zombie-sleep I was getting. The prescription Ambien (Edluar) + a couple of 2mg pills of melatonin seems to be what did it.
As for my trips to the bathroom, I have been paying close attention since I was asked to and I only wake up about once during the night to urinate now. The rest of the times I am urinating in my sleep. J/k, (had to) in all seriousness my trips to the bathroom have really gone down to zero (I sleep all the way through) or one where as three trips to the toilet during the night was not unusual at all for me during finasteride and for months after. I cannot say for sure that this occurred after taking the Ambien.
I’ve thought about this more and I have a theory about the frequent urination based only on my personal experience. I think that the constant waking up to go and urinate could be caused by not being in a deep sleep. If you were awake and went to the restroom at the same intervals as you do when you were asleep you’d think nothing of it, but it’s abnormal because you’re asleep and it wakes you up each time.
The theory would be that if you can find a way to get to deeper sleep stages your body will know that you are sleeping deep and will not wake you up to use the restroom with a sense of urgency and will hold off that signal until you wake up in the morning. A way for you to test this would be to take an Ambien or something that has worked for me is a full dose of Nyquil (very deep sleep, possibly not as deep as Ambien). If you don’t wake up as much to urinate then it could be an indicator that there is something wrong with your sleep.
I agree. I was definitely having multiple visits to the toilet every night, 3-4 was completely normal and one could definitely theorize that my prostate was weakened. After Ambien my trips to the toilet have decreased to 0-1 during the night which would lead me to believe that the problem (for me at least) was deep-sleep related and not a weakened prostate unless I were to believe Ambien strengthened my prostate which would be tough to believe.
No way to really know, but it definitely wouldn’t hurt to get an Ambien, take with about 4-6 mg of melatonin and see what happens (for those of you having multiple bathroom visits). If you’re up for the challenge please let me know what your results are.
Anyone having trouble with staying asleep owes it to themselves to try something like Ambien for two weeks to see if it can help reset the sleeping pattern.
My sleep seems to be going alright at the minute. I only need about 5 hours to function.
The prostate/prostatic part of the urethra is directly below the bladder (see the diagram below). In cases of involuntary urnation the prostatic part of the urethra and pre prostatic urethra would have to be the first things to fail. The prostate glands represent the modified wall of the proximal portion of the male urethra. There are further scientific terms that identify specific muscles within the region that control the flow of urine.
Finasteride blocks DHT and the drug was first and still is marketed to reduce the size/growth of the prostate (DHT being responsible for prostate growth) thereby making urination easier.
Here’s the problem if you’re following the logic:
Man, most likely older with an enlarged prostate or BPH, taking a 5AR2 inhibitor with the purpose of reducing DHT and thereby reducing prostate size to make urination easier.
Man, most likely younger without an enlarged prostate or BPH (us), taking the same 5AR2 inhibitor and thereby stopping normal prostate growth or reducing prostate size which causes the young man to develop urinary urgency/frequent urination/involuntary urination problems.
I’ll give your Ambien + Melatonin regimen a shot in the near future… definitely something worth looking into. I’m glad you’ve managed to resolve this issue and appreciate your insight. How are your sexual sides? (did you have any to begin with?)
Cool, let me know what your results are. My sexual sides were and still are low libido, sex just doesn’t sound worth the effort when I think about it, but if I go long enough (5-6 days) I start to want it. I’m able to get erections but if something isn’t going on I’ll lose it quickly, I’m not even sure if that’s normal or not because it’s been like this for so long.
I am currently having a huge recovery with my brain fog and possibly other symptoms. I’m waiting awhile before I say for sure because I’ve had up’s like this followed by crashes but it’s never lasted as long as this- it’s looking very good. If it continues I’ve tracked exactly what I did and will create a thread for it as I do not believe it’s attributed to the Ambien.
Thanks for posting your luck with ambien. I’ll give it a shot. Ive taken some in the past and my sleep was better for a 6 month period, but I was also exercising a lot, so I wasnt sure what exactly was helping my sleep. Maybe a combination?
