When to start treatment / Pros and Cons of starting treatment early

Therapeutic Efforts Pharmaceutical
#1

Gents,

I took Propecia for 25 days between October and November 2010. It’s been 6.5 months since I stopped the medication. I still have all the side effects (cognitive, sexual, tired all the time, depressed, etc.)

My doctor is telling me that I should start treatment ASAP. He is recommending Clomid + Arimidex (Anastrozole).

I’m still hoping for natural recovery as another doctor told me that 10% of his PFS patients recover naturally within a year.

Any thoughts on how long one should wait before starting treatment? Does anybody know the Pros and Cons of starting treatment now vs. delaying it?

Your thoughts are much appreciated!

#2

How have your symptoms been over time? Improvement?

#3

I’d wait the year myself. You got the rest of your life to mess with those meds (if you’re not better after a year).

#4

Hard to say. I would say my symptoms are definitely still “evolving.” So do my blood test results.

I guess my cognitive function improved a bit compared to the law point when I was considering suicide daily. Now I have a little more confidence in my ability to speak, recognizing my new limitations / disability. I guess I’m learning to accept that I’m not a great talker anymore, but instead have a hard time to speak. I’m not having hour long phone conversations anymore like I used to as speaking is now difficult, while it was a lot of fun before.

Re my sexual function,

  • I have significantly more ejaculate volume than in the first couple months
  • Quality of orgasms better than at the law point, but hasn’t improved much over the past 2-3 months
  • ED is worse than it was in the first month after coming off of Propecia. Now I can lose my erection while jerking off!
  • Easier to come than in the first month though, again, this has to improved much over the past 2-3 months either

Sleep: I can sleep now 6-7-8 hours and hard to get out of bed. In the first 2-3 months, I woke up after 3-4 hours every night.

Has anybody discussed Pros and Cons of starting treatment early with doctors? My doc thinks I should start treatment ASAP.

Re my blood tests, while my T level is low-normal, my LH, DHT and 3-Alpha Androstanediol-G levels remain below the reference range. This suggests I’m still not metabolizing T properly.

My DHEA Sulfate is consistently above the reference range and is super high.

Any thoughts boys?

Thanks!

#5

I’m not sure honestly, I think the jury is still out here. Some people seem to get some effective treatment, some don’t. I think that there’s a great risk in treatments not working or their effects diminishing over time but no one knows the cause.

It’s a crap shoot. You have to do the research and make the decision yourself. There are a few guys on here who have treated with some success, review JN’s thread for example. However he’s taking a whole cocktail of hormones that few could afford and as they have all been mixed no one is quite sure what the effective combination has been.

I don’t think there’s any data on the timing of the treatment though. Here you will just find people who didn’t treat immediately and anecdotally wished they had, or people who treated early and anecdotally wished they hadn’t. The other members are welcome to step in and correct me.

#6

Guys,

Thank you for your thoughts.

Who is JN? I’m not finding him. Could you please send me the link to his thread?

Thank you!

#7

I would think that a major factor to the answer of your question would be the trend that your side effects are on. If you asked your doctor about the 10% that recovered over a year, I bet that he would say that they either had a consistent upward trend or at least wide swings with both the highs and lows getting higher. If you ask yourself if you, after several months, are in one of these camps, then I would think it would make sense to wait. If not, then maybe not. The position that I have taken after being off of Propecia for 9 months, is that I do not want to undertake any significant treatment until I know where my new “baseline” is in terms of total PFS side effects. Until that time, you do not know what the true risk vs reward is with any treatment. It also makes it difficult to assess what improvements, for example, are due to the treatment versus time. Just my two cents.

#8

I’m having a call with my doc on Thu. I’ll ask him about the 10%. Happy to report back what he says.

Meantime, anybody who has had treatment, please chip in. It’d be interesting to hear the view of people who’ve been on Clomid / HCG / Arimidex, etc…

Thanks guys!

#9

Guys,

I’m at the 19 month mark now. Still no improvement. I have all the cognitive, sexual and physical side effects. Just a question of time before I get fired from my job. Any fresh views on when to start treatment? Any opinions here?

Thanks!

#10

I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve been ill for 18 months now, but I’ve had gradual improvement during that time. My doctor told me to hold off on any hormonal treatment until my improvement hits a plateau.

I’m pretty impatient though. 18 months is a long time.

#11

don’t do any treatments & follow the natural approach or u may really regret it.

#12

Easier said than done. Is there anybody who has ever recovered naturally? What is the natural way anyway? I’d try anything. I went gluten-light (not entirely gluten-free) three-four months ago, and it’s been helping with fatigue a bit. I’m still a shadow of my prior self sexually, intellectually, in my confidence level, in my energy level, you name it… I lost a lot of muscle mass and grew a pot belly. My penis and testes shrank a lot too. I’ll be fired from my job very, very soon…

#13

Hey,

I tried tackling PFS a different way. My hormones are still really low, but i managed to get some penis and testicle size back by supplementing Sodium Bicarbonate - which is an alkalizer/antifungal and Vital Greens, Why it worked? i have no idea…

#14

Anonymous,

If you read my posts you will see that i fully support the idea of starting treatment early, specifically tamoxifen on it’s own, i had an amazing experience with it and effectively cured me for 3 weeks. Even now my symptoms, after crashing again are much improved. If you crash and you get all the horrible sexual, physical and mental symptoms i can’t see how it could get any worse by using drug intervention to try and cure your symptoms. Now, being in a much improved state, i am much more anxious about reverting back to what my symptoms were previously. I wish i had seen your post earlier as you are a fairly long way off stopping propecia, but i would still say it is worth a try especially if your symptoms are still the same. I’m convinced that early intervention of drug treatment for some men, somehow get’s our receptors responding to androgens to their pre crash functionality. Obviously it depends what drugs you take and i can only recommend tamoxifen based on experience.

If you don’t mind, can you PM me the name of your doctor in the UK that is seeing so many patients with PFS? I haven’t met one medical professional who truly entertains the idea of PFS. And i also seriously doubted there were medical professionals who prescribe things like clomid and arimidex to men in the UK. He/she will probably be of no help from a medical treatment perspective but may be of use in trying to get the drug banned, from a legal, research or media perspective. They might also have some idea on how i managed to get such amazing results with tamoxifen. Would also be good to talk to a doctor that i could have a conversation about propecia with rather than everyone telling me how the drug could never cause something like PFS, that my hormones are fine so it must be depression and then telling me to go and see a psychiatrist.

#15

It appears as my posts in this thread has been deleted. I want to know why!

According to Merck, all side effects from Propecia are supposed to subside within 2 weeks after discontinuing the treatment.

#16

Enden this isn’t correct. Per your post Merck claims DHT returns to baseline in 2 weeks, however this does not mean the same thing as all side effects from Propecia are supposed to subside within 2 weeks after discontinuing treatment.

#17

If the DHT level returns to baseline within 2 weeks, the testosterone- and estradiol level will do the same. According to Merck, Propecia doesn’t alter any other hormone levels - so yes, it does mean that all side effects should subside within then!

#18

Your posts were moved to another area of the forum.

#19

Ah, alright :slight_smile:

#20

Could we stay on topic please? This thread should be dedicated to the pros and cons of starting treatment earlier / later. I suspect many guys in this community will be interested in this.

Thanks all!