Made this log because @Boris suggested to do so.
Symptoms:
Brain Fog
Lowered Cognitive Abilities
Anhedonia
Food Intolerances
Poor Sleep
--------------
The Story
I started suffering from hair loss at the young ripe age of 15, right when I started puberty. I definitely had thyroid issues, and was malnourished. It was very slow hair loss and did not become noticeable until I was about 18. Of course at that age I was demoralized and did everything to save my hair. I found out about propecia when I was 18, but never took it because of all the scary things I heard and read about on the internet. When I was 22, everything changed.
October 2015. This was the month I got a new sales job and my life moved forward in a big way. I was 22 and happy, but have always been trying to save my hair. I had decent results from Zix and believe it or not, balayam, which is nail rubbing. It works to a degree. However I no longer wanted to be consumed by my hair loss and with my background in nutrition, I figured I could take finasteride and take measures to prevent side effects. October 2015, I popped my first pill of generic finasteride. 1.25mg/day. I had a supplement routine to offset any negative effects.
My routine consisted of:
1.25mg finasteride in the morning on empty stomach or with black coffee
150-200mg of zinc spread throughout the day
20-40mg of Progesterone (Cream applied to chest, thighs and balls)
250-500mc of Calcium-D-Glucarate throughout the day
Indole-3-Carbinol & DIM (Can't remember amount)
My logic behind taking this stack was to simply keep estrogen low and reduce my risk of ED, estrogen dominance and gyno. It worked. To be honest, it worked amazingly. There was something about this combo that left me feeling absolutely amazing. I had a super positive outlook. I always felt happy, euphoric and in no matter any situation I was always the leader, people just took me as one. Even before this combo, I was taking zinc 150-200mg/day but I was never as outgoing, or as confident and so so consistent emotionally as I was on this stack. I was literally always happy. Nothing could bring me down. I would never complain. I took each day as a blessing and that life was awesome. Everything was amazing, right up until May 2016.
---------
PFS
One night in May, something happened. I had a stressful event and began to overthink/worry about a situation, and it wouldn't leave my mind and caused some anxiety. After that, everything changed. My whole world turned upside down. Evidently, my job I loved was put under suspended-animation, so I had no job. My girlfriend moved to china for 4 months, my friend circle fell-out and I was hit with PFS at the same time. It was brutal. My PFS was purely mental. My dick and libido were always great, even to this day. The mental sides were brutal.
Extreme brain fog, anhedonia, feeling completely disconnected from my body and the world. I had no ability to use my imagination or visualize. I couldn't do small tasks or comprehend anything new. I couldn't learn or even do a basic job without it taking hours. Life was a living hell. I had never experienced depression before. I never understood it. I never understood how people could be depressed. But this, this was something else. I wouldn't have wished this on my worst enemy. If I knew life was going to stay like this forever, I'd have likely killed myself. I was operating purely of off my subconscious, things I already knew and also out of sheer determination to beat this and fix myself. In the beginning, I had no idea it was PFS. Now I do.
----------
Appendicitis
About 2-3 weeks into my PFS, I had an appendix attack. The first in my whole life. I had some basic digestive issues throughout my life, a bloody stool here or there, some constipation, nothing abnormal, but definitely not optimal. I also had Candida since I was 17. This appendicitis event was big. On this particular day, I had a job interview at a nutrition place, a dream come true, right as my old job fell-through. I remember going for my ultrasound and the assistant saying I need to go to the hospital immediately and cannot go to my interview, but I made myself go there and complete the interview, even though my appendix could burst any moment. That's how badly I wanted to get back on track.
When I was hospitalized, they put me on IV anitbiotics and wanted to do surgery. I refused. I knew the appendix was not useless. Nature doesn't give us useless organs, nor does our creator. So I decided to cure it myself. I fasted for 7 days. Did magnesium flushes, ate onions and garlic and ended it with my first coffee enema ever. 2 of them. After the 2nd enema, I expelled 2 ropeworms. They were dead, one of which was about 2ft long. I have it all on video. After this I became obsessed with gut health. Coffee enemas all day every day. They helped with some of my symptoms and things improved, and worsened in other areas. Honestly, I feel like killing these parasites were a mistake. I needed them. They were helping control the toxicity in my gut. I learned this later on, couple years later. Most parasites are symbiotic with our body and consume toxins, dead cells and heavy metals. Our bodies allow them to be there to help us.
-------------
From July 2016-December 2017
I was stuck in the same place for a long long time. I've now developed major food sensitives. I had zero allergies before PFS and now I cannot tolerate spices, herbs, most carbs and dairy too. I needed to eat to live, but if I ate I became tired, sluggish, brain fog worsened and my job became difficult. At this time I had: Brain fog, anhedonia, poor sleep, poor stress response, food intolerances. I tried enemas, keto, 14 day water fasts and even turpentine as I blamed all this on candida. Nothing worked. I tired water kefir and it gave me the worst brain fog and emotional numbness that last 2 weeks.
------------
January 2018 - A new beginning
January 2018. I some how came across The Primal Diet while browsing youtube. It mainly consists of Raw Meat of all kinds and fruit/vegetable juices. I took it to the next level and did completely raw carnivore. I was eating raw steak, organs like liver, kidney, brain. I was eating animal fat like beef suet and even found a raw milk source but unfortunately could not tolerate dairy is it gives me brain fog and makes me irritable. I could handle dairy just fine before all this. Anyways, by following this diet, I really began to see some improvements. It was subtle but my digestion was working a little better, I had more energy, a little more clarity and probably took me from 30% functionality to about 50-60%. I had a few days where I felt 100% cured, but they never lasted. The biggest and most notable good days were the days where I practiced sungazing. I would wake up at 6 am and sungaze for 30 minutes while barefoot in grass. Something about sungazing is healing guys. My eyesight also improved considerably for that single day after sungazing. I didn't need glasses to drive and my mood was incredible. I was so social and sharp. I would like someone to look into this. How can sungazing be so healing? Does it put is back in the parasympathetic?
Moving forward, I always had fucked up sleep and poor stress tolerance after PFS. I could never fall asleep and get deep sleep. If I ever got into an arguement with my girlfriend, it would trigger massive brain fog and I wouldn't be able to feel normal until I went to sleep. Sympathetic dominance anyone?
The Big shift happened after 1 night of reading forums for cures and hearing about GHB. You guys can do the research for yourselves, but it made sense to me. Take a big dose, knock yourself out and enter all stages of sleep, including stages 3 and 4 of deep sleep. I did it. Felt a little weird when I woke up, didn't really cure or change anything, felt like nothing. But then, a few days later, I got into a fight with my girlfriend in the car. It was intense. During a moment of silence, I lit up like a Christmas tree. I told my girlfriend that I didn't have brain fog! We just fought and I am completely calm and clear right now! At this moment I knew I was somewhere on to the right path.
---------
July 2019 - Additional Notes
Here I am writing this post. I've made slow and steady improvements but I'm far from cured, but I'm more functional. I can go to the beach, enjoy outtings and spend time with others, as long as I am 100% strict on my diet and I do not eat anything inflammatory. I've understood that for myself, most of my PFS has to do with being in a fight or flight state and needing to avoid those triggers, especially dietary triggers. However I do not want to live like this forever.
I've yet to do TEI. I do not know if I am a fast or slow oxidizer and I do not know if I am currently high or low DHT. During PFS I tried testosterone with DBol and it messed me up cognitively. @Boris and I seem to have the same type of PFS. I tried 5a-DHP and responded well initially and then after, nothing.
I plan on doing bloods for: Testosterone, DHT, E2, Preg, Prog, DHEA, Cortisol, Vitamin D, Ceruloplasm, Prolactin, LH, FSH, T3,T4
GHB seems to lose its potency but will continue using it. It is not a cure for me, but definitely improved my baseline tolerance for stress. Why? Maybe because it increases preg, prog and allo. Maybe it's that it let me finally access deep sleep or that it fully activates the parasympathetic through GABA receptors. Who knows.
There's another theory that's on my mind lately and it's making a lot of sense. Many of us, myself included, have had PFS symptoms way before I ever took finasteride. I've had stressful events that gave me the same exact cognitive symptoms I mentioned before. Except, I recovered. What I believe, is that PFS is largely due to a damaged limbic system in our brain. We are stuck in a trauma loop. Our brains rely on neurosteroids and anti stress chemicals to calm us down during tough times. We know finasteride reliably destroys our ability to cope with stress. After enough time of neurosteroids being depleted, we no longer cope with stress properly, we stay in fight or flight for too long, and our limbic system gets damaged by being in overdrive. We are stuck in limbic trauma. Our body wrongly processes information and stimulus as dangerous. This results in endocrine changes, inflammatory reactions, a whole cascade of effects. One of the biggest being affected is our gut/digestive health and our cognition. I urge everyone to look into DNRS -Dynamic Neuronal Reprogramming System. People have made insane recoveries from PFS-like symptoms just by healing their limbic system in their brain. This is not mental, this is about physically correcting areas of the brain damaged due to stress. Think PTSD for example.
As far as my zinc and progesterone supplementation, I'm not sure when I stopped, but I stopped progesterone and finasteride at the same time I believe, when PFS struck. However, I cannot recall correctly, but I may have become lazy with my progesterone supplementation towards when PFS hit me...Not sure if that is big or not. It could be.
Also, when I started the raw primal diet, I also started eating high-meat. I find this helps a lot of anxiety/depression and cured my friends suicidal depression within 30 minutes. He suffered for 7 years. Most depression is due to low bacteria levels in the gut. When I have high meat, I laugh a lot easier, although I initially get a little brain fog, I feel pretty good after.
All thoughts, comments, questions and contributions are welcomed. Lets fix this.
Symptoms:
Brain Fog
Lowered Cognitive Abilities
Anhedonia
Food Intolerances
Poor Sleep
--------------
The Story
I started suffering from hair loss at the young ripe age of 15, right when I started puberty. I definitely had thyroid issues, and was malnourished. It was very slow hair loss and did not become noticeable until I was about 18. Of course at that age I was demoralized and did everything to save my hair. I found out about propecia when I was 18, but never took it because of all the scary things I heard and read about on the internet. When I was 22, everything changed.
October 2015. This was the month I got a new sales job and my life moved forward in a big way. I was 22 and happy, but have always been trying to save my hair. I had decent results from Zix and believe it or not, balayam, which is nail rubbing. It works to a degree. However I no longer wanted to be consumed by my hair loss and with my background in nutrition, I figured I could take finasteride and take measures to prevent side effects. October 2015, I popped my first pill of generic finasteride. 1.25mg/day. I had a supplement routine to offset any negative effects.
My routine consisted of:
1.25mg finasteride in the morning on empty stomach or with black coffee
150-200mg of zinc spread throughout the day
20-40mg of Progesterone (Cream applied to chest, thighs and balls)
250-500mc of Calcium-D-Glucarate throughout the day
Indole-3-Carbinol & DIM (Can't remember amount)
My logic behind taking this stack was to simply keep estrogen low and reduce my risk of ED, estrogen dominance and gyno. It worked. To be honest, it worked amazingly. There was something about this combo that left me feeling absolutely amazing. I had a super positive outlook. I always felt happy, euphoric and in no matter any situation I was always the leader, people just took me as one. Even before this combo, I was taking zinc 150-200mg/day but I was never as outgoing, or as confident and so so consistent emotionally as I was on this stack. I was literally always happy. Nothing could bring me down. I would never complain. I took each day as a blessing and that life was awesome. Everything was amazing, right up until May 2016.
---------
PFS
One night in May, something happened. I had a stressful event and began to overthink/worry about a situation, and it wouldn't leave my mind and caused some anxiety. After that, everything changed. My whole world turned upside down. Evidently, my job I loved was put under suspended-animation, so I had no job. My girlfriend moved to china for 4 months, my friend circle fell-out and I was hit with PFS at the same time. It was brutal. My PFS was purely mental. My dick and libido were always great, even to this day. The mental sides were brutal.
Extreme brain fog, anhedonia, feeling completely disconnected from my body and the world. I had no ability to use my imagination or visualize. I couldn't do small tasks or comprehend anything new. I couldn't learn or even do a basic job without it taking hours. Life was a living hell. I had never experienced depression before. I never understood it. I never understood how people could be depressed. But this, this was something else. I wouldn't have wished this on my worst enemy. If I knew life was going to stay like this forever, I'd have likely killed myself. I was operating purely of off my subconscious, things I already knew and also out of sheer determination to beat this and fix myself. In the beginning, I had no idea it was PFS. Now I do.
----------
Appendicitis
About 2-3 weeks into my PFS, I had an appendix attack. The first in my whole life. I had some basic digestive issues throughout my life, a bloody stool here or there, some constipation, nothing abnormal, but definitely not optimal. I also had Candida since I was 17. This appendicitis event was big. On this particular day, I had a job interview at a nutrition place, a dream come true, right as my old job fell-through. I remember going for my ultrasound and the assistant saying I need to go to the hospital immediately and cannot go to my interview, but I made myself go there and complete the interview, even though my appendix could burst any moment. That's how badly I wanted to get back on track.
When I was hospitalized, they put me on IV anitbiotics and wanted to do surgery. I refused. I knew the appendix was not useless. Nature doesn't give us useless organs, nor does our creator. So I decided to cure it myself. I fasted for 7 days. Did magnesium flushes, ate onions and garlic and ended it with my first coffee enema ever. 2 of them. After the 2nd enema, I expelled 2 ropeworms. They were dead, one of which was about 2ft long. I have it all on video. After this I became obsessed with gut health. Coffee enemas all day every day. They helped with some of my symptoms and things improved, and worsened in other areas. Honestly, I feel like killing these parasites were a mistake. I needed them. They were helping control the toxicity in my gut. I learned this later on, couple years later. Most parasites are symbiotic with our body and consume toxins, dead cells and heavy metals. Our bodies allow them to be there to help us.
-------------
From July 2016-December 2017
I was stuck in the same place for a long long time. I've now developed major food sensitives. I had zero allergies before PFS and now I cannot tolerate spices, herbs, most carbs and dairy too. I needed to eat to live, but if I ate I became tired, sluggish, brain fog worsened and my job became difficult. At this time I had: Brain fog, anhedonia, poor sleep, poor stress response, food intolerances. I tried enemas, keto, 14 day water fasts and even turpentine as I blamed all this on candida. Nothing worked. I tired water kefir and it gave me the worst brain fog and emotional numbness that last 2 weeks.
------------
January 2018 - A new beginning
January 2018. I some how came across The Primal Diet while browsing youtube. It mainly consists of Raw Meat of all kinds and fruit/vegetable juices. I took it to the next level and did completely raw carnivore. I was eating raw steak, organs like liver, kidney, brain. I was eating animal fat like beef suet and even found a raw milk source but unfortunately could not tolerate dairy is it gives me brain fog and makes me irritable. I could handle dairy just fine before all this. Anyways, by following this diet, I really began to see some improvements. It was subtle but my digestion was working a little better, I had more energy, a little more clarity and probably took me from 30% functionality to about 50-60%. I had a few days where I felt 100% cured, but they never lasted. The biggest and most notable good days were the days where I practiced sungazing. I would wake up at 6 am and sungaze for 30 minutes while barefoot in grass. Something about sungazing is healing guys. My eyesight also improved considerably for that single day after sungazing. I didn't need glasses to drive and my mood was incredible. I was so social and sharp. I would like someone to look into this. How can sungazing be so healing? Does it put is back in the parasympathetic?
Moving forward, I always had fucked up sleep and poor stress tolerance after PFS. I could never fall asleep and get deep sleep. If I ever got into an arguement with my girlfriend, it would trigger massive brain fog and I wouldn't be able to feel normal until I went to sleep. Sympathetic dominance anyone?
The Big shift happened after 1 night of reading forums for cures and hearing about GHB. You guys can do the research for yourselves, but it made sense to me. Take a big dose, knock yourself out and enter all stages of sleep, including stages 3 and 4 of deep sleep. I did it. Felt a little weird when I woke up, didn't really cure or change anything, felt like nothing. But then, a few days later, I got into a fight with my girlfriend in the car. It was intense. During a moment of silence, I lit up like a Christmas tree. I told my girlfriend that I didn't have brain fog! We just fought and I am completely calm and clear right now! At this moment I knew I was somewhere on to the right path.
---------
July 2019 - Additional Notes
Here I am writing this post. I've made slow and steady improvements but I'm far from cured, but I'm more functional. I can go to the beach, enjoy outtings and spend time with others, as long as I am 100% strict on my diet and I do not eat anything inflammatory. I've understood that for myself, most of my PFS has to do with being in a fight or flight state and needing to avoid those triggers, especially dietary triggers. However I do not want to live like this forever.
I've yet to do TEI. I do not know if I am a fast or slow oxidizer and I do not know if I am currently high or low DHT. During PFS I tried testosterone with DBol and it messed me up cognitively. @Boris and I seem to have the same type of PFS. I tried 5a-DHP and responded well initially and then after, nothing.
I plan on doing bloods for: Testosterone, DHT, E2, Preg, Prog, DHEA, Cortisol, Vitamin D, Ceruloplasm, Prolactin, LH, FSH, T3,T4
GHB seems to lose its potency but will continue using it. It is not a cure for me, but definitely improved my baseline tolerance for stress. Why? Maybe because it increases preg, prog and allo. Maybe it's that it let me finally access deep sleep or that it fully activates the parasympathetic through GABA receptors. Who knows.
There's another theory that's on my mind lately and it's making a lot of sense. Many of us, myself included, have had PFS symptoms way before I ever took finasteride. I've had stressful events that gave me the same exact cognitive symptoms I mentioned before. Except, I recovered. What I believe, is that PFS is largely due to a damaged limbic system in our brain. We are stuck in a trauma loop. Our brains rely on neurosteroids and anti stress chemicals to calm us down during tough times. We know finasteride reliably destroys our ability to cope with stress. After enough time of neurosteroids being depleted, we no longer cope with stress properly, we stay in fight or flight for too long, and our limbic system gets damaged by being in overdrive. We are stuck in limbic trauma. Our body wrongly processes information and stimulus as dangerous. This results in endocrine changes, inflammatory reactions, a whole cascade of effects. One of the biggest being affected is our gut/digestive health and our cognition. I urge everyone to look into DNRS -Dynamic Neuronal Reprogramming System. People have made insane recoveries from PFS-like symptoms just by healing their limbic system in their brain. This is not mental, this is about physically correcting areas of the brain damaged due to stress. Think PTSD for example.
As far as my zinc and progesterone supplementation, I'm not sure when I stopped, but I stopped progesterone and finasteride at the same time I believe, when PFS struck. However, I cannot recall correctly, but I may have become lazy with my progesterone supplementation towards when PFS hit me...Not sure if that is big or not. It could be.
Also, when I started the raw primal diet, I also started eating high-meat. I find this helps a lot of anxiety/depression and cured my friends suicidal depression within 30 minutes. He suffered for 7 years. Most depression is due to low bacteria levels in the gut. When I have high meat, I laugh a lot easier, although I initially get a little brain fog, I feel pretty good after.
All thoughts, comments, questions and contributions are welcomed. Lets fix this.
Last edited:
