Hey All,
So this is my entry into the PFS recovery game. I stumbled across this website a week ago and have been devouring it ever since. The encouragement and wisdom that exists here is pretty staggering. So, in detail, here is my story.
I'm 38 years old. I started using finasteride back in 2005 to combat hair loss. Things were fine for the first 5 years. Zero issues and just assumed I was one of the lucky ones. In 2012, I crashed, hard. I had no idea what caused it, or that it in anyway had any relation to finasteride. I had every mental symptom that existed. Head squeezing brain fog, insane panic/anxiety attacks, an intense sudden fear of disease and death where none existed before. In my line of work, a lot of it is done in the public eye, with interviews, etc. I would find myself in interviews searching for words that I knew....i could see them in my minds eye and knew what I wanted to say, but just couldn't put it together. Despite all of this, never any sexual side effects.
About three years ago I made the decision to switch from oral finasteride to topical finasteride, and slowly weened off of the oral. For the first time in years, the brain fog left and I felt normal, and the topical seemed to never go systemic. Fast forward to this past fall. I felt as if the topical was starting to lose effectiveness, so along with the topical fin, I made the terrible decision to start taking the oral again as well as use topical while derma rolling. Literally 2 weeks into this cycle, I got hammered. All of a sudden I had issues maintaining an erection, as well as dropping to almost zero libido.
So here I am, about 5 mos. post crash. My wife has been amazingly supportive, but for both our sakes, I am dying to get back to normal. My hope is that since I am relatively recently post crash, that the fight back won't be long and drawn out. That said, if it is, so be it; let's fight. Brain fog exists, but is bearable. The biggest issue is the sexual sides. My libido is almost non existent. I can have sex maybe every 4 or 5 days, but never ever approach that point of being ravenous for it anymore. I am hoping with all the information here, and with the help of the community, that I will be able to overcome these side effects. I would love advice from any and all of you as to how to form a plan of attack. There are so many protocols on the site here, that it is hard to determine which to follow, or which is pertinent to my situation. I had a hair analysis done two days ago, so as soon as those results are back to me, I can share them. I was thinking about maybe doing a 7 day water fast? My only worry with that is that I am in really good shape (5% body fat). I say that only to say that I don't have a lot of fuel to burn up except to start burning up muscle. Should that worry me? Also, are there ways to combat the PFS and the hair loss at the same time?
Excited to get cranking on this and I can't tell you all how much I appreciate the help in advance. HERE WE GO..........!
So this is my entry into the PFS recovery game. I stumbled across this website a week ago and have been devouring it ever since. The encouragement and wisdom that exists here is pretty staggering. So, in detail, here is my story.
I'm 38 years old. I started using finasteride back in 2005 to combat hair loss. Things were fine for the first 5 years. Zero issues and just assumed I was one of the lucky ones. In 2012, I crashed, hard. I had no idea what caused it, or that it in anyway had any relation to finasteride. I had every mental symptom that existed. Head squeezing brain fog, insane panic/anxiety attacks, an intense sudden fear of disease and death where none existed before. In my line of work, a lot of it is done in the public eye, with interviews, etc. I would find myself in interviews searching for words that I knew....i could see them in my minds eye and knew what I wanted to say, but just couldn't put it together. Despite all of this, never any sexual side effects.
About three years ago I made the decision to switch from oral finasteride to topical finasteride, and slowly weened off of the oral. For the first time in years, the brain fog left and I felt normal, and the topical seemed to never go systemic. Fast forward to this past fall. I felt as if the topical was starting to lose effectiveness, so along with the topical fin, I made the terrible decision to start taking the oral again as well as use topical while derma rolling. Literally 2 weeks into this cycle, I got hammered. All of a sudden I had issues maintaining an erection, as well as dropping to almost zero libido.
So here I am, about 5 mos. post crash. My wife has been amazingly supportive, but for both our sakes, I am dying to get back to normal. My hope is that since I am relatively recently post crash, that the fight back won't be long and drawn out. That said, if it is, so be it; let's fight. Brain fog exists, but is bearable. The biggest issue is the sexual sides. My libido is almost non existent. I can have sex maybe every 4 or 5 days, but never ever approach that point of being ravenous for it anymore. I am hoping with all the information here, and with the help of the community, that I will be able to overcome these side effects. I would love advice from any and all of you as to how to form a plan of attack. There are so many protocols on the site here, that it is hard to determine which to follow, or which is pertinent to my situation. I had a hair analysis done two days ago, so as soon as those results are back to me, I can share them. I was thinking about maybe doing a 7 day water fast? My only worry with that is that I am in really good shape (5% body fat). I say that only to say that I don't have a lot of fuel to burn up except to start burning up muscle. Should that worry me? Also, are there ways to combat the PFS and the hair loss at the same time?
Excited to get cranking on this and I can't tell you all how much I appreciate the help in advance. HERE WE GO..........!
