After 3 Years on Fin, Post Finasteride or Just Anxiety?

Pharma / TRT Testosterone Replacement
1

Hello there, I’ve have used finasteride from 24 to 27, I stopped 1 year ago (28 currently).

During those 3 years I definitely had sides (both sexual and mental) but didn’t realize or didn’t attribute to fin, they crept up on me slowly. I didn’t know ANYTHING about pfs before starting, just the common libido/erection/semen sides that were supposedly temporary. By the end of it I was an anxious/depressed mess, my erections were shit and my ejaculations were almost dry.
I started researching if this could be because of finasteride and I found all about all the horror stories. So I tappered off fin for 2 months and stopped.

The following months were nightmare fuel, I was crying all the time and though I never thought seriously about suicide, I was pretty damn close (of thinking about it, not doing it). But to be honest I don’t know if that was because of all my hormones going wacko after stopping or just because of the FEAR of reading all that and learning about the poison I was taking.

Anyway, fastforward a year and here I am. Some stuff definitely got better, like my erections and semen/ejaculations. I also got morning wood again (I lost it sometime during fin). However, besides some other sides which are not that important, I’m mostly struggling with libido/motivation and sleep (and lack of emotions/social withdrawal). I kid you not since stopping fin I woke up 2-4 times a night (or even more) for a whole year, I also get random twitches in the body (altough after stopping it was insane, now it has subsided a bit but I still get them almost daily).

I’m gonna be honest with you, even tough I don’t feel normal, I wouldn’t know if I should blame Finasteride, or some sort of “post traumatic experience” I developed because of it. I mean I’m not gonna lie, I think about it every single day, I also check all the forums about it almost daily. No way someone is gonna get better if they constantly think they are sick. I don’t know if I really have pfs or if I conviced myself I have it. Also the sides are definitely real but 4 years have passed since my first pill so I’m also struggling to remember exactly how I felt 4 years ago, you know, it’s hard to compare.

Anyway, enough of my personal story. I want to feel better already, but I don’t know what will it take to get there. Just the thought of “having used finasteride” is wrecking my mind and I don’t know how to tackle that, but I’m sure if I get better in other aspects (like sleep and libido) I will be able to leave all this behind eventually.
I’ve done nothing the whole year except taken vitamin D (I was deficient). I’m gonna be honest, my current lifestyle is shit, unemployed, having majored in something I didn’t like, going to sleep super late, staying with the computer a lot, no exercise, and barely leaving the house (the last bit mostly because of the pandemic). I’m only telling you this because I try to keep and objective view and all this could point to a psychological cause. The thing is, my life was ALWAYS like this (or at least pretty similar) and I always had good libido and erections, the problems started only after taking fin.

Do you think a lifestyle change would be enough? I also read on other forums that HCG (and maybe clomid) seem to be the key (the key being LH/HCG to produce the whole cascade of hormones downstream). A lot of pfs sufferers got better with this and some say it cured them. However after using fin I’m scared of even using aspirin, imagine my fear of hormonal stuff and specially injectables. I don’t really like the idea of shutting myself down. Supposedly HCG low dose for 6 months would do the trick but I’m super fearful of never recovering my natural gonadotropins production after using it, and I’m not THAT desperate, my sides are relatively mild compared to other sufferers, and that’s the main problem. Im currently in a state of limbo where I don’t know if I should just stay like this and live a “below average” life wishing for it to get better with time or risk it and maybe make myself worse (or better).

K this is getting pretty long sorry about that, the last thing I’m gonna do is show you my bloods, sadly I don’t got pre fin blood to compare them (the last one I took is almost a year old, around the time of stopping fin, I need to take new ones):

MAY 2019 (I was still on fin):
serum T: 4.7 ng/mL 1.6 - 7.3
bioavailable T: 2.2 ng/mL 0.8 - 6.0
SHBG: 33.7 nmoL/L 10.0 - 57.0
free T: 97.5 pg/mL 26.0 - 170.0

SEPTEMBER 2019 (1 month after stopping fin)
prolactin: 8.3 ng/mL 3.5 - 19.4
serum E2 < 18 pg/mL 11- 44 pg/mL (not sensitive)
serum T: 4.8 ng/mL 1.6 - 7.3
bioavailable T: 2.3 ng/mL 0.8 - 6.0
SHBG: 32.6 nmoL/L 10.0 - 57.0

OCTOBER 2019 (my last bloods, 2 months after stopping fin)
serum E2 36.0 pg/mL 11- 44 pg/mL (not sensitive)
serum T: 5.9 ng/mL 1.6 - 7.3 (better)
bioavailable T: 3.2 ng/mL 0.8 - 6.0
SHBG: 29.4 nmoL/L 10.0 - 57.0
FSH 4.6 mUI/mL 1,0 - 12,0 mUI/mL
LH 2.2 mUI/mL 0.6-12.1 mU/mL (pretty low but could be worse I guess)

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got, no DHT sadly because in this shithole of a country they don’t test for it (btw, just out of curiosity, is international testing a thing? Can I send my blood to other countries and test for DHT? or is it wishful thinking?)

Thanks for reading and sorry for long read.

2

Anyone? Yesterday I woke up 2 or 3 times during the night and when I looked at the clock I had only slept for a total of 5 hours!
I can’t keep going on like this, it was a full year of broken sleep every single day. There are nights worse than others, and I’ve gotten used to it, but this can’t be healthy and I think I’d feel SO much better if I could sleep 8 hours uninterrupted.

Plus the constant joint clicking by the slightest moves and the muscle twitching are driving me crazy.

I need to do something but I don’t know what to do and I feel like 99% of doctors would think I’m crazy or they’ll give me a treatment that doesn’t target the root of the issue (like benzos for sleep).

3

Man, I’m a pfs guy and when you talk about broken sleep it reminds me of the torture I went through, too. A good year or more of it, then maybe gradual improvement. I still woke up tired for years, but, at least I was able to get more than 3hrs in a row.

I’ve been off propecia since '09 and I think time helped… but, when I tried wellbutrin a few times in the later years, I thought that improved my sleep. I just couldn’t crap. Years earlier, I thought zma improved it a little.

One of the benefits for me with testosterone (on since March - still tinkering) is a definite sleep improvement.

I know you’re cautious with what goes in your body, for good reason… just throwin out what helped me because I know what you’re going through is horrible. Goodluck finding something that helps.

4

Hey thanks for your response and I’m sorry for what you are going through. 11 years seem like a lot.
The worst of it for me was the first months, then sleep got better, with only waking up 2 or 3 times at most in 8 hours. But lately it became worse again, and I suspect it’s melatonin supplements. Cause the first months after I stopped propecia I also tried melatonin and the same exact thing happened to me: when I went to sleep and closed my eyes, as I was drfiting off, my brain suddenly “wakes up” and I go in to full awake mode, that, or my hands would suddenly jerk and wake me up. This only (or mostly) happens when I use melatonin. Otherwise I can go to sleep fine, the problem is waking up 2 hours later.

I don’t want to go on TRT, in fact I don’t think I need it or that it’s the problem to begin with. I really need to do another blood panel, but 590 last year didn’t seem so bad to justify TRT for life. But I really wanna try what JoeKool did, don’t know if you heard about him, but he claims to be cured after using HCG 250iu eod for 6 months.

Supposedly HCG helps you with the natural production of ALL hormones downstream (not only T), and it seems to help with 5ar as well, so you get more dht and more allopregnanolone.

The problem is I try to keep an objective view of things, and I don’t know if I could really say I have pfs. Most of my current problems (sleep, libido) can be explained by a psychological reason, like depression. My erections where shit the last months on fin, but after stopping they gradually got much better, I even have morning erections now. Maybe fin caused the depression itself but I don’t know if just stopping it is enough for it to go away. Or maybe I just got a HUGE nocebo out of reading propeciahelp, my biggest mistake was go there BEFORE stopping finasteride.

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