What's up guys. Figure I do a formalized post in my log after discussing this on the discord for a while.
PFS Timeline: ~10 years
Finasteride Administration Timeline: ~2 years
Symptoms: Everything, literally everything. Any symptom you name I most likely had it actively or at one point during this 10 year process
Background: While in late high school and early college years I was using OTC prohormones before they were banned. One prohormone in particular called Superdrol is what initially triggered my hair loss (zero hairloss prior). I did not have hairloss while on cycle but months afterwards I had an insane libido, oily skin and an insane scalp itch and shedding in the MPB zones, mainly diffuse thinning on the top with the hairline not receding. For what it is worth I also never did PCT after this cycle either.
After about 6 months or so went by the shedding was getting bad and my scalp on the top was starting to get diffuse where thinning was starting to get a bit noticeable so I started finasteride at 1mg every day at age 19. I took this for a few months and literally not only stopped my hair loss shedding but regrew 99% of the hair I lost after Superdrol. The hair results were great but I slowly started to notice libido issues and I was in college at the time so this was an easy indicator to judge. Given my hair looked great again in the mirror, I stopped fin and libido bounced back strong within two weeks and of course my hair started to shed again.
Since my hair started, this of course again put me in a bad spot as diffuse thinning is a bitch since I can't style my hair and just does not look good. So yet again I hop back on finasteride again at 1mg daily. Same result as last time, shedding stops and hair starts to thickens back up again within weeks. I remain on finasteride for another few months and start to notice libido issues again. Check many of the hair loss forums at the time and they just say its placebo or in my head and sides aren't real. So I just kind of ignore the lowered libido and continue taking it. Now about over a year in from taking it, I still have the lowered libido sides and now I'm starting to get these odd mental type sides but can't verify if its just in my head or real. Increase in anxiety (which I never ever had in my life), just randomly starting to zone out when talking to people, insane brain fog, depression, I drink 10 beers and can't really get fully drunk, sleep quality went really down hill etc.
So again, I go back to the hair loss forums and people say the same shit that finasteride doesn't cause that but only in 1% of users and that anxiety is normal etc. So I proceed to stay on finasteride for about 10 more months or so. At this point, the mental sides are so unbearable, that I 100% know for sure its from the finasteride. The anxiety was so bad that just casually sitting at a computer desk I would almost have a borderline panic attack for like literally no reason.
I came off fin right around the two year mark and about two weeks after I felt a bit better. I still kind of felt like shit but felt much better compared to when I was on fin. I was also using preworkouts and stims as a crutch from the fatigue that finasteride gave me.
Now fast forward to 4 weeks off finasteride, I took my normal preworkout and went to the gym. I felt a bit odd mentally during the workout and towards the end of my workout it felt like a switch turned off. I got super cold, anxiety, libido tanked, insane brain fog. I crashed insanely hard and the crutch (stims) I was using to reduce the mental effects and fatigue post fin (i.e. stims increase neurosteroids) finally wore off. Got back home and every single day after that for the next 10 years I was miserable. Symptom wise, I had everything under the sun despite all my blood tests showing normal. I also, tested positive for lyme and EBV on top of that which I never had in my life or got bit by a tick.
So when explaining my symptoms to the doctor in the early time with PFS they just say it is from stopping stimulants or they say its from lyme/EBV etc basically just the run around.
Resolution: I also experimented with pretty much an insane amount of supplements, compounds, drugs, herbs etc. easily spent over six figures combined in the past ten years with all this stuff. Instead of going into details about every single supplement I used I will just highlight the main items.
What helped during recovery:
- caffeine/nicotine: for mental sides (tea and coffee made me feel worse, just talking about these as isolates). Both of these compounds increase 5AR in the brain along with the corresponding neurosteroids. This can be a double edge sword if overdone for sure though.
- glycine: for sleep sides
- Tanning either natural or tanning bed: the latter being more effective as tanning naked allows the UVB to hit the balls (this helped all PFS related symptoms)
- niacinamide: for digestion/gut sides (this helped out at the time although I'm not sure I still would suggest this but will list anyways)
- CD Nuts herb cycle: however I did not blindly follow his herbs, when I would do the rotation I would note how I would feel after taking each herb. If the herb made me feel worse mentally or physically I would cross it off my list and remove it from the rotation. Rinse and repeat for all the other remaining herbs. So I would be only cycling herbs that made me feel decent.
- Hormones: high dose oral androsterone (R Andro). I was taking close to a gram a day and I also logged this on SS forum a few years back. I felt awesome post workout and just much better all around. The lower doses I really didn't notice much from it and actually kind of felt worse that way. Androsterone is not very androgenic at all on its own (much much weaker than DHT). Additionally, only a small amount converts to DHT in your body and your body almost have rate limiting cap in terms of enzyme availability so it is really hard to say how much converts. You really have to crank up the dose to get a much more potent androgenic effect from androsterone directly and orally is the only you can do that.
- Electrolytes Protocol (natural version): this was the final straw to making solid gains and getting back to normal. I was experimenting with synthetic vitamins and mineral isolates for years and could never really get it to work. For example, zinc helped me with sleep but would literally nuke my libido and erection quality to another dimension. When I would take zinc and copper together I would have an increase in libido but then my anxiety shot up. So after years over experimenting with all kinds of ratios and supplements, I just said fuck it and decided to look in the natural method of using electrolytes protocol and I feed the body whole food (or whole food extracts) and let the body distribute it where it needs to be instead of forcing certain minerals when the body doesn't want it.
- Electrolyte Protocol for Improved Health
So what I did was the following:
Diet:
- 10 eggs every morning (8 whites + 2 whole eggs cracked fresh). Towards the start, PFS gave me bad histamine intolerance so I would lightly cook the eggs as raw was giving my some minor allergy issues.
- 1 avocado (for potassium)
Protein Shake after working out:
- Water
- 1 scoop whey protein isolate (isopure). If whey gives you allergy symptoms, use a grassfed beef protein isolate. I used that in the early stages and had no allergy issues.
- 1 frozen banana
- 1/2 cup wild blueberries
- 1 scoop collagen protein
- 1 tablespoon capra mineral whey (electrolytes and minerals)
Dinner
Salad:
- mixed greens (potassium and minerals)
- organic balsamic vinegar and high quality olive oil (these two work synergistically to help digestion and break down aminos and extract nutrients)
- raw cheese
- avocado (potassium)
- tuna, steak or shrimp - just cook and mix into salad
- sea salt and black pepper
- Rice or potatoes if you want to add carbs
Supplements:
- Oyster extract (for zinc and copper in whole food form)
- Desiccated beef liver (I used this in the beginning and it helped for b vitamins but eventually was getting the same symptoms of excess copper so I dropped it)
- Capra mineral whey (for potassium and all the other major minerals)
I dropped all synthetic supplements and switched to this protocol for many months and just kept feeling better and better. When I say drop all synthetics, I mean literally everything. This includes toothpastes, shampoos etc whatever you are using if it is had some sort of synthetic mineral it can be fucking you in a PFS state as your body is extremely sensitive. I remember forgetting my toothpaste for a few nights and I felt so much better as I realized for whatever reason the fluoride in the toothpaste giving me brain fog. The fluoride in toothpaste is not natural as it the ones they use in toothpaste are binded to a salt compound. So body has a very hard to dealing with it. Detox pathways are fucked in a PFS state, your body can't handle and detox things like synthetic fragrances, chemicals, cosmetics etc.
The electrolyte protocol is simply just restoring your body's natural antioxidant system and when that comes back online your body can then function and run optimally (including detox) again.
So just saying that you literally need to check every single thing you are taking orally or transdermally to see if it impacting your recovery or symptoms. Easiest way to do it is keep your regimen identical and stop using that product for a few days and see if you notice any change. If you dont then probably that product is not hurting you much.
The most common supplement that fucked me up and also most people in PFS is B Complex (synthetic). I tried B complex probably hundreds of times over the past 10 years and every time it fucks me over bad as in like a depressive manic type state. I fast and exercise and usually back to base line in two days. B complex pushes the methylation cycle and for whatever reason with PFS the body doesn't like that.
I tried a bunch of other stuff as well which is documented in my log posts here if you need some additional insight.
Status as of today:
I'm 100% recovered and have been this way for probably close to maybe a year now or so. I can eat or drink whatever I want and still remain in a normal stable state. I don't "crash" anymore from things I couldn't take it in the past. For example, I drink a high quality green tea from Japan every morning and can finally enjoy the benefits of that compared to in a PFS state where I would just turn into a zombie from one sip of green tea.
I have piles of DMs from women just sitting in my inboxes over the past 10 years which I never pursued since I was pretty much in a zombie type state. So it has been great acting on all those now and kind of funny at the same time when you reply to a message from 2 years ago LOL.
Lastly, I feel and look better now compared to 10 years ago when my body was in an imbalanced state. My hair is even in good shape, still have almost a NW0 hairline and top is still pretty thick with no shedding. So I think electrolyte protocol is even supporting that as well since we have multiple threads here showing how glutathione and the body's natural antioxidant system protects hair.
My focus now is just on natural anti aging and body optimization (not this fake TRT + HGH anti aging bullshit) from all the research I did over the years plus all the knowledge on this forum I have a pretty solid database on that topic.
Some side notes:
After recovering I came across some other things in my research which could also help reverse/cure PFS. One of those compounds is methyl DHT. It is DHT but added with a methyl group which makes it much more potent on the AR than even standard DHT without all these weird alterations that most of the other DHT derived steroids undergo.
Methyl DHT may activate pretty much all of the same gene expressions than normal DHT does on the AR. This could be an area of exploration as one of the members
@Narayan had a great improvement from a methyl DHT prohormone called "The One" (weaker than methyl DHT).
One additional theory is microdosing Sustain Alpha. By microdosing you will may be able to still pulse LH but at the same time modulate estrogen and the estrogen receptor to function again. Normal dose may nuke estrogen too much and you will very terrible. To give this theory some credit there was a recovery with a PFS user by using sustain alpha on the hair loss talk forum.
Another option could be wild yams. It increases endogenous 5AR strongly. They also proved the 5AR pathway by blocking it with dutasteride and the benefits went away. So could be worth exploring.
