Propecia & Brain Fog

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Weezy

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Hello to all!

New poster here, was wondering if anyone has had brain fog right of the bat and if this is temporary.

Here's my brief story. Noticed thinning, went to a Derm. He said yep, your starting to thin, typical male pattern baldness pattern. Here's a Propecia prescription and a week free trial. I'll see ya in 3 months.

So I took a 1 MG pill that day and about 4 hours later I noticed Brain Fog (Friday). I'm a computer programmer by trade and I run a small Web Dev company so my brain needs to be sharp. I didn't know Brain Fog was a side effect until it happened and I decided to query Google.

I spent 3 hours with a difficulty thinking, just staring at my monitor and really having to give it my all to do something I normally do while reading emails, checking sports scores, etc. I took my second dose the next day (Saturday) and noticed the same thing when I went into work on Sunday. I skipped my Sunday dose and yesterday was pretty much back to normal. I also skipped it last night too.

I'm thinking of trying to take .25 mg instead of 1 mg and see if I have the same result.

Any feedback, similar stories would be great.

Ohh, and pulled a girl out of a Kentucky Derby part on Saturday night and had no problems on that front.
 
E

Ende

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I've never heard about anything similar, but everyone might react differently to the drug. There are people complaining about brain fog, but they've used the drug for some time, then quit and having trouble with persisting side effects. Low testosterone level causes (among other things) lack of energy both mentally and physically, which again might result in depression.
 
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Weezy

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I'm hoping it's only temporary. It seems like some people get it for a couple of weeks and then their body adjusts. I'll give it a month but if it doesn't get any better after that, I'll have to figure something out cause I use my brain all day every day for work.

I feel like a complete retard. Like I just smoked a big fat joint.

I cut my dosage down to .5 mg/daily and it just took a day longer for the fog to catch up. Everything else is good to go though as far as side effects.
 
M

Mew

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Reason for brain fog is that in addition to inhibiting DHT, finasteride also inhibits other 5AR pathways. These pathways involve neurosteroid production (Progesterone --> Allopregnanolone, Deoxycorticosterone --> THDOC), which normally would act on GABA-A receptors/GABAergic system in the brain.

Diagram on Page 3
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi- ... 4/PDFSTART


Loss of allopregnanolone especially can cause severe depression and cognitive dysfunction. Low levels have been correlated with Alzheimer's disease.

THDOC is an anti-stress/anti-anxiety neurosteroid and reducing its levels can cause severe anxiety, panic attacks.

Interference with the GABAergic system has been implicated in schizophrenia, sleep disorders including insomnia and loss of REM sleep, and sexual dysfunction.

Your problems are due to Finasteride use and due to near flat dose reponse rate of drug, .25mg will make no difference as it inhibits almost same amount of DHT as 1mg, 5mg, 10mg:

http://www.physics.upenn.edu/facultyinf ... peciafda2/

Thus, you can expect the same side effects to continue even at reduced dosages. The only solution is not inhibiting 5AR.
 
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Weezy

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Thanks for the detailed reply. I really appreciate it.

So I guess the only real question is will it go away / will my body adapt to it or will it continue for the life of my Propecia usage.

I'll give it 3 more weeks and report back on my experience.
 
guybrush

guybrush

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I'm a programmer too and experienced brain fog while on finasteride. I would say it did not affect much of my perfomance at work but it made me struggle a lot in conversations trying to organize my speech and recall things, names and events. I eventually discontinued finasteride 4 months ago and most of this symptoms have gone away.

BTW I'm a psychologist and I understand allopregnanolone makes it more likely to develop depression or anxiety while on finasteride. But allopregnanolone itself does not account for the "brain fog" issue.

I read somewhere that allopregnanolone modulates dopamine in the mesocortical pathway, a dopaminergic pathway involved in frontal lobe processing.. disruption of this pathway may affect several cognitive capabilities such as short term memory, strategy planning, speech and others.
 
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Weezy

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Interesting. How long were you on Propecia before getting off of it?

Also, did you notice the Fog immediately and it never subsided, or was it a more gradual progression?

Thanks for the response,

Weezy
 
guybrush

guybrush

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It didn't take much time but I can't give you an accurate answer because finasteride was also giving me anxiety and I was focused on this symptom, believing that the "brain fog" was due to it.

After 4.5 months I still feel more prone to experience anxiety but I would say the "brain fog" is much better or completely gone away.
 
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Jetsfan7

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I'm recently experiencing brain fog as well as short term memory loss with a pinch of libido loss. This all happened about a month into using Propecia 1 MG daily. I feel off, like visually and mentally. I noticed something was wrong when I had to ask a coworker what we were working on all day after a busy day of work. I'd rather be fully f*****g bald at 23 then lose my libido and my mental health. However the propecia and minoxidil 5% worked decently well. I'm getting off the propecia hopefully these side effects go away
 
dunno

dunno

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Yeah i had severe brainfog for about a week when i started 0.5mg finasteride.
 
rclark

rclark

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Weezy said:
Hello to all!

New poster here, was wondering if anyone has had brain fog right of the bat and if this is temporary.

Here's my brief story. Noticed thinning, went to a Derm. He said yep, your starting to thin, typical male pattern baldness pattern. Here's a Propecia prescription and a week free trial. I'll see ya in 3 months.

So I took a 1 MG pill that day and about 4 hours later I noticed Brain Fog (Friday). I'm a computer programmer by trade and I run a small Web Dev company so my brain needs to be sharp. I didn't know Brain Fog was a side effect until it happened and I decided to query Google.

I spent 3 hours with a difficulty thinking, just staring at my monitor and really having to give it my all to do something I normally do while reading emails, checking sports scores, etc. I took my second dose the next day (Saturday) and noticed the same thing when I went into work on Sunday. I skipped my Sunday dose and yesterday was pretty much back to normal. I also skipped it last night too.

I'm thinking of trying to take .25 mg instead of 1 mg and see if I have the same result.

Any feedback, similar stories would be great.

Ohh, and pulled a girl out of a Kentucky Derby part on Saturday night and had no problems on that front.
Click to expand...

At a dosage that low, it's probably not doing anything for your hair. Why bother?
 
A

Alk

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rclark said:
At a dosage that low, it's probably not doing anything for your hair. Why bother?
Click to expand...
Because the response curve is .05 mg so .25 can be more than enought, although your about 6 years to late lol
 
B

Bobster231

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The brain fog is caused by nerve cells in the myelin sheath of the brain being damaged by finasteride.
 
F

Foxi

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Finasterid damaged your Gut/Adomen -Leaky Gut and heavy BrainFog all Days!
Autoimmune disease
i have become all Food Intoleranzen-Histaminintoleranz ,Pain all Days, i have lost my Job
my Friends, my Familie i am all Days ill.........

MSD are Murders
 
A

ahmed wolf

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Foxi said:
Finasterid damaged your Gut/Adomen -Leaky Gut and heavy BrainFog all Days!
Autoimmune disease
i have become all Food Intoleranzen-Histaminintoleranz ,Pain all Days, i have lost my Job
my Friends, my Familie i am all Days ill.........

MSD are Murders
Click to expand...
how long did u ursed it for?
 
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