EDIT: Now 30 days since pfs. The more and more I look around, the more permanent the side effects seem to be, it seems you can only do so much, but changing the brain or gene expression is beyond current scientific knowledge, and if that’s the issue at hand, I don’t believe there are solutions besides very experimental and riskful treatments. Treating the symptoms is probably the way to go. Pharmacological paths could be taken, but there is no certainty as to the extent symptoms will improve. It’s a risk I would take, but I’m not advising others to do the same.
I did make a sheet with people that did TRT and DHT treatment. It’s not complete, and the successful cases are about a handful, as are the neutral and negative experiences. In short, it seems to work for some. Especially on the libido and sexual side. Mental issues didn’t seem to improve much. I’ll upload it as soon as I have 90% of cases on the this forum logged, I’m probably at 75% now.
I’m just two weeks in since stopping Finasteride, and I already know from the >3.5K posts and tons of research i’ve read (I’ve easily spend +100 hours in just two weeks researching, while I have other responsibilities as well) that these issues will potentially stay with us for the rest of our lives, and get worse along the way if we don’t take action soon enough.
But, what I don’t really understand too much currently, is that we’re with a ton of people, all having our own experiences, and that we still don’t know what is actually happening to the body due to fin.
I know there are some studies out there, which definitely help. And that a lot of people got blood tests and tried different protocols.
I’ve seen people actually commit suicide because the sides are getting so bad and there’s no hope things will get better.
But why. We have SO MUCH information here on this forum. So much. It’s just difficult to organise and find everything because all comments are buried here and there, and the data isn’t properly organised to actually make the right decision regarding recovery. This causes people just to try out stuff because they can’t take it any longer.
Instead of talking to TRT doctors, and talking to Aging clinics, who barely know anything about PFS, nor have the time to search for solutions because they have other things to do. Why couldn’t we make some kind of research ourselves? It doesn’t have to be sponsored, nor does it need to be official. It just needs to be insightful, and able to be verified.
For starters, I’m currently logging everyone’s bloodwork to see if there are any significant outliers, that might have induced changes.
If the bloodwork is fine, we need to go through the actual 5A reductase, how does it work, and could this be tested in people by ourselves (safely though), people probably already noticed and posted changes: what if we just logged it, as to make some sort of statistical study of it?
If it’s not the 5AR, and it is working fine, maybe it could be the 5AR promotor (like the study mentioned), are there any ways to improve upon that, is it that even possible, or should we look further, we could do some sort of theory analysis, to see which compound have potential to change this. I’m currently doing this all by myself, and it seems pretty inefficient, if we’re all here just doing some research ourselves, but what if we put our minds together, and be proactive about it? We might even find some sort of solution?
If that wouldn’t be it, maybe its the androgen receptor sensitivity or androgen resistance. We could see if that could be improved upon, what if we research what could possibly upregulate, or change that? What kind of pharmacological interventions are there, and what risks profile to they bring with them. Maybe it wasn’t the androgen receptor for some, but it were epigenetic changes. Fine Maybe there is no one solution works for everyone, I know. But at least, when we have all this info down, we can better get to the source of the actual personal problem. If it would only help verify whether the problem is at the androgen receptor, or at the 5AR activity, that would be HUGE. We don’t need to trail some sort of substance to know this. Just looking at others who did, and maybe even died trying could have lived to help us out. I mean. We can’t just let this go uselessly for someone else to make the same mistake right?
The essence of researching this ourselves, is so that we actually have some sort of backbone knowledge of what is already tried, what didn’t work, and what did based on which variables. So that people don’t have to experiment on themselves, and know what they could look into to decide themselves if it would be smart to proceed.
There is a lot we can do, and some of us can still think straight, and want nothing better then to solve this situation. Why don’t we at least try, and see what we can find. Im sure we’ll make some fast progress, if there are other people willing to submit themselves to solving it.
We first need DATA. Categorized smartly, with ways to verify their accuracy (sources, or hyperlinks). I’m currently in the progress as I said of logging everyones pre-fin bloodwork, post-fin bloodwork, treatments (pharmacological), and post-treatment bloodwork, I’m also noting whether their trials were successful and to what extent.
What will this offer? This offers an easy way for all people to look at the excel document, and verify for themselves what might or might not work for them, and easily see what could be profitable, and what not, instead of flying into some steroid protocol without proper knowledge of what it might do, because they’ve read someone else try it and it worked. Same goes for example Vitamin D3. I’ve seen that @Demon had worsened his situation dramatically because of it, and others said they’ve never been bettter. Instead of trying things out to see if it works, we could see what worked for others based on certain variables, and if those check out, the probability is for example higher that those kind of treatment work for you.
(While I’m not logging supplements, if someone else is willing to do that.) we’ll get closer to a possible solution.
I truly believe that knowledge is power, and when we have that, easily accessible, and visibly presented, we could better make our decision regarding recovery ourselves.
I know I’m going to take this road, but if you guys are willing to help, we can solve this much much much quicker.
Unless there truly isn’t anyhting we can do, and there is no solution. But then at least we know not to keep our hopes up, and learn to live with it.
Some ideas:
- logging which users used which supplements, what their side effects were, age, etc, and whether and to what extent it was effective
- 5AR: what have people said about skin, and changes to it, we know 5AR has an effect on the skin, and if the skin changes for the better, we know those people had functioning 5AR and functioning androgen receptors in it (I would say)
- wHat pharamcological interventions are used to upregulate androgen receptors, or change androgen resistance, if any, please back up with studies, and explain why that would work and what potential risks are, please link who have tried these, and what there results where
- More extreme measures: Demethylation agents, HDAC inhibitors etcetera, who have tried, what were their theories behind it (summarized) and what were their results. \
You could fit this infor in an excel, but any other means of displaying the information is fine as well, it just needs to be easily analized as to come to your own conclusions.
Just some ideas, but feel free to think about ways of researching yourselves and providing to the community. There’s lots of data just on this site and of course also outside it.
I want to point out as well: I’m NOT advising people to take extreme measures. NOR am I advising people to take drugs. I’m also NOT advising people to take demethylation agents, those have a very very high risk of damaging your body.
What I am asking, is if we could get the info we have down, to a more pallatable way of presenting. And if you guys would try and help with that, voluntarily. So that we’ll have a more coherent understanding, of what is going on, are more confident talking to our medical professionals, and get to desirable results faster. Besides, it could also be a great way to get motivated for life, doing something that will bring us closer to normality.
I’m also not a medical professional. I’m also not that intelligent, I’m just like you. I’m extremely damaged by finasteride, and searching for information. The sooner we know what’s going on, the sooner we’ll have a way of solving this. With all the different theories going on, we should find out which one is the most probable.
Tell me your thoughts, what’s your opinion? And what are you willing to do?
Thanks.