Finasteride has destroyed my life

[Joe-1991]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

Too much thyroid carries risk, but as some have the very powerful minds on crislers forum have been discussing, a ittle tinker with some armour thyroid cna give you good clues to what's going on with your body.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

Do you have any details about that approach? Not that I intend to f*** with anything related to thyriod hormones, but it's interresting.

 

[Joe-1991]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

9 months off now and the sexual side effects are killing me..

This is tearing my relationship apart, and having a great girl around me really does keep me sane through this sh*t. Enden, I read Colin or Monties experience with the proviron and cabergoline and it didn't sound good, and honestly I think the estrogen/ testosterone theory is way off for most people - at least with permanent side effects after quitting the drug. It isn't that simple imo.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

Colin only has some experience with Dostinex. I'm not sure if he has begun treatment with Aromasin yet. He has a problem with estrogen. Monty has experience with Proviron, and he responded drastically to treatment. We're dealing with screwed ratios, and it's reversible. Monty had a set back, but he's now improving again. This time with large amounts of zinc, and some other supplements as well.

The testosterone/estrogen ratio is vital for your sexual function. Bad ratio = no morning erections, and it includes reduced libido and ED. The dopamine/prolactin ratio affects libido, sexual pleasure and refraction period.

I think it's secondary hypogonadism, and that it's reversible by available treatment. Those guys at propeciahelp think it's androgen insensitivity syndrome, and are waiting for scientists to study the condition, prove or disapprove that statement, and develop a new treatment, if that's the case. In other words, that you're fucked for life, and there is nothing you can do about it, besides from looking forward to the day you die. Take your pick.

 

[Mens Rea]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

Enden I sincerely hope noone is fucked for life, even the most sinister of cases.

And there are some really serious ones too. Guys with extreme mental bluntness to a point that they dont care about losing their sexual function they just want to think straight again.

I reckon people could atleast gain a decent level of improvement from attempting to fix their hormones with guidance.

That said, we have to appreciate some do try, even alongside the best doctors available and simply don't respond like the "normal" person would.

Ive read hundreds of people's experiences of PFS now (from the yahoo groups, propecia help and miscellaneous forums) and I have to say - the most consistent "recovery" story is time coupled with good living etc. Most hormone therapies seem to yield short-term benefit only. and this shouldn't really surprise us given the liklihood is that 90% of these approaches aren't addressing the root. Instead they're stimulating the pituitary to send signals that will help one variable but yet is creating an artifical playing field that will not naturally sustain. It often makes things worse.

Even in instances where it does help, it may not fix the root. I know of a guy who has to keep taking arimidex to keep his e2 levels down. If he goes off it they soar again. He's commited to arimidex for life. Clearly something else is pushing up his estrogen and that needs to be normalised. I worry for this guy's long term health to be honest.

There are various guys from the forums who have taken various protocols, with bloodwork etc, under the guidance of their doctors, (many including proviron, AI's ,SERM's etc) that have had initial "responses" only for their bodies to later stop responding. So many guys have "recovered" for a month or two , only to revert back to where they were before. Attaining long-term recovery seems massively difficult. Honestly, when Monty was responding to the proviron (anyone who takes a DHT spike like this will have intial reactions anyway) i was just waiting (but hoping otherwise, obviously) for things collapse. It just doesn't seem to be that easy. Now, he's building on a slow recovery again, which seems more realistic and something i advise everyone to do.

I think you underestimate finasteride somewhat Enden. I'm really glad you've decided to go off it though. Post-finasteride sufferer's, as a whole (by that i mean some are different to others hence varying recovery rates etc), are apart of a very complex puzzle which seems to go further than simple T/E ratios....

- The compromised FSH levels for one - so many men on propeciahelp seem to exhibit levels around the 2.0 mark (including myself)....this isn't a coincidence.

- Clomid is supposed to stimulate FSH and LH and does so effectively for bodybuilders etc. For PFS victims it tends to only stimulate LH.

- Low 3-adiol-G levels. Many guys with PFS has seriously retarded 3-adiol-G levels despite having NORMAL DHT levels (sometimes even HIGH DHT levels).

- A strong pattern to vitamin D deficiency. Even with many patients taking clinical doses of D3 they exhibit pathetic vitamin D levels.


there are many other things too. I don't know where I fall into to be honest, but im certainly interested in getting more blood tests.

It is very interesting for example that ive experienced penile shinkage and pain, low FSH and watery semen despite having plenty of DHT to lose my hair at a steady rate (agressive male pattern baldness), grow a bread quickly etc. That shouldn't happen. My levels aren't that off. The semen issue is particularly stange because i only got it gradually having stopped finasteride. I have an estrogen problem but there may be an ulterior root cause that is pushing it up. It might be something like cortisol for instance. My aim is to normalise all these things.

Finasteride is a bad drug, as we know. Its just that it's a bad drug on more levels than you may even give it "credit" for.

As for the androgen-insensitivity advocates. Well, Mew for instance, is slowly getting better over the past 5/6 years. He can have normal sex and his brain fog etc has went away. Awor, im not sure on his current condition but rest assured he's tried every logicial protocol under the sun so if he wishes to try other avenues such as progaine that is his perogative.

Neither theory is mutually exclusive and may well apply to different people to different degrees. that's why im trying to keep an open mind.

I definately believe atleast some PFS sufferers are damaged beyond simply hormonal imbalances. I think there are enough case studies out there (if you care to look) to appreciate that some people have had very strange experiences.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

Very good post But, I disagree with you. I believe that it's hormonal imbalance, and that's it. The only exception would be ED, as atrophied penile muscles plays a part. Btw, LH and FSH are both stimulated by GnRH.

 

[Mens Rea]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

Very good post But, I disagree with you. I believe that it's hormonal imbalance, and that's it. The only exception would be ED, as atrophied penile muscles plays a part. Btw, LH and FSH are both stimulated by GnRH.

Sadly i reckon we are a long way off knowing for sure.

 

[Mens Rea]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

This might be usefull to someone more knowledgeable than I!

I took avodart cos I could tolerate the sides better than finasteride sides, they were slower and less physical. finasteride inhialated me within 48 hours of taken 1mg daily.

Years down the line when I could no longer tolerate dutasteride I tried topical finasteride. What I observed when applying xandrox15+ to my scalp were less overall side effects but after each application I felt bollock ache inside of 10 minutes of using it, it may have even been close to instantaneous.

Make of that what you will!

Believe it or not, finasteride seems to be the one with the worst sides. dutasteride, for whatever bloody reason, seems to not be as potent at persisting sides for peopel who quit the drug. Obviously less people use dutasteride though, but this pattern is definately emerging on propeciahelp!!

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

You've to choose what you want to believe, Colin.

 

[Mens Rea]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

For sure. Ultimately I believe it is massively beneficial to fine-tune your out of whack hormone levels anyway. If that covers everything or not, I'm not really in a position to say with certainty one way or the other. Surpression on an enzyme has been shown to be able to bring about permanent downregulation generally, as we also know that a body can react funny to things like this anyway. There are so many cases out there that could potentially imply other things so I'm not out there to shoot anyone down. Why? Because that would make me as bad as the guys who say propecia side effects are imaginary.

The retarded low DHT metabolism is one thing that definately makes me thing there is other things going on but at any rate, a healthy hormonal fine-tuning, increasing free tesosterone etc should help things even here.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

Imagine if we could stop and start at any time... you could cycle this poison until somthing better came a long...

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

There are so many cases out there that could potentially imply other things so I'm not out there to shoot anyone down. Why? Because that would make me as bad as the guys who say propecia side effects are imaginary.

Giving people hope, is something else than insulting people with ignorance.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

The testosterone production declines gradually as we age, shifting the testosterone/estrogen ratio in favor of estrogen. That's what andropause is. Maybe you should use this sh*t as an excuse and get on TRT 17 again.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

TRT is usually testosterone gel for you skin or oil for intramuscular injection. Professionals use the gluteal muscles. I'm using the quads.

It's difficult to balance the hormones on TRT sometimes, especially estrogen in relation to testosterone. It takes a lot of blood work and patience. That's why simply injecting testosterone doesn't solve "PFS", just like that.

 

[Mens Rea]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

What is testosterone therapy exactly. Where you actually inject testosterone as opposed to tablets. If libido was that simple to obtain then surely that's it finasteride sides goodbye for everyone right, it probably wouldn't work and would just screw me up even more

Anyway I can't get any help cos I am just above the bottom of range. I'd have been better off if my test was just a little lower!

TRT is pumping testosterone into your body as Enden says. The problem is, as you can guess, its unnatural. So unnatural, that what happens is, your own testosterone production slows down as a response to a point of zero....your balls will turn into the size of peas at this point and you become infertile. People use hCG to maintain some level of natural production and fertility but obviously this whole approach is a last resort and TRT is generally a life-commitment!

You idea gave me a nice smile on my face, thanks for that Seriously though, you're almost on the money. What you actually need to do is bust your brain getting a optimum level of estrogen and maintain that for a few months (arimidex?). You need to get your body get used to an optimum level of T/E for it to enjoy for a sustained period.

I believe this is the holy grail.

If you can sustain an optimum level of T/E for a few months it should give you body enough time to adjust all other connected homones and, hopefully, it will sustain. As you said, working out etc will help but doing so during wudn't do any harm either.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

TRT is pumping testosterone into your body as Enden says. The problem is, as you can guess, its unnatural. So unnatural, that what happens is, your own testosterone production slows down as a response to a point of zero....your balls will turn into the size of peas at this point and you become infertile. People use hCG to maintain some level of natural production and fertility but obviously this whole approach is a last resort and TRT is generally a life-commitment!

Damn, you make it sound bad It's not necessarily a life long commitment if you're secondary, although I've made that choice. They use hCG to avoid the balls from shrinking. hMG is used if you wish to conceive.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

You idea gave me a nice smile on my face, thanks for that Seriously though, you're almost on the money. What you actually need to do is bust your brain getting a optimum level of estrogen and maintain that for a few months (arimidex?). You need to get your body get used to an optimum level of T/E for it to enjoy for a sustained period.

I believe this is the holy grail.

If you can sustain an optimum level of T/E for a few months it should give you body enough time to adjust all other connected homones and, hopefully, it will sustain. As you said, working out etc will help but doing so during wudn't do any harm either.

The plan is to shift some ratios by creating an androgenic enviroment, and give the endogenous DHT level a chance to raise.

 

[Mens Rea]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

You idea gave me a nice smile on my face, thanks for that Seriously though, you're almost on the money. What you actually need to do is bust your brain getting a optimum level of estrogen and maintain that for a few months (arimidex?). You need to get your body get used to an optimum level of T/E for it to enjoy for a sustained period.

I believe this is the holy grail.

If you can sustain an optimum level of T/E for a few months it should give you body enough time to adjust all other connected homones and, hopefully, it will sustain. As you said, working out etc will help but doing so during wudn't do any harm either.

The plan is to shift some ratios by creating an androgenic enviroment, and give the endogenous DHT level a chance to raise.

Yeah. That should happen rather quickly though, it's about sustaining it and i think having it for a prolonged period should help this happen.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

Experiments inidicates that up to 3 months with Arimidex is needed to shift the ratios properly. I believe that you're right, but this is a better idea.

 

[Ende]

Re: Is there anyone here who took months/ years to recover?

An orgasm affects the dopamine/prolactin ratio, at least for a while. I'm not sure about testosterone, but it definately doesn't cause suppression.