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  1. #1
    SwoleSource Member Feedback Score 0 alphacfi's Avatar
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    The climb out of hell!

    Wanted to share my story instead of just eaves dropping on everyone else's

    I took finasteride 1.25 for only 4 days. The last day being December 30 2018. That night I woke up to a panic attack in the middle of the night which I had never had before and immediately stopped taking the pill and flushed them. The next day was new years eve and I was extremely depressed all day. So i googled "does finasteride cause depression" and the horrors of reality hit me like a freight train. I saw that I was one of the small percentage of people that could have this reaction. I hoped and prayed that I would get better in the next couple of weeks but my symptoms only got worse and worse. On Christmas day I thought I had everything in the world to live for and then a week later I sincerely thought about jumping off my balcony numerous times. I could barely sleep, had panic attacks, head and neck pains all over, sever anhedonia, felt hot and cold, major depression, shaking hands, and then the double vision. This is very bad for my particular line of work. My sexual side effects were watery seamen and numbness but this actually did go away after a couple of weeks. SO I'm left with all the mental crap.

    Around this time I discovered the totalmaleoptimization protocol and jumped on it the next week starting with a juice cleanse. I only went 4 days. I hate even putting that down here I wish I had gone a full 7. But I was already a healthy eater so I told myself I didn't need to cleanse for longer. Coming off of that I jumped in with the herbs. 7 day cycle. Taking the vitamins and supplements every day, Paleo diet.. etc. I have always been in the gym and so this part of the protocol has been the easiest and also my favorite. I was always in good shape and now I am in fantastic shape. I started feeling a lot better around the second half of March. I had no more panic attacks and even had some days that were basically perfect. Then a couple weeks later I would have days that were perfect and even the bad days were only half bad. I could and can sleep through the night a solid 8-9 hours no problem. And my eyes are perfect now accept for floaters

    I was feeling so good I came off the herbs for a week and felt pretty great. I did another 3 day juice cleanse. Symptoms came back kinda hard after that. But then went down again. I was finally feeling like I could go hang out with friends again and be somewhat comfortable with that. This past weekend I had a girl over and I drank for the first time since January. Wow this was a bad idea. I had a panic attack the next day and the anhedonia is back. I should have waited much further for that one. I read that at 80-90% recovered alcohol might be ok but I guess I am not at that point yet.

    I ordered 4 more herbs so Ill be on an 11 day cycle now. Take all the proper vitamins every day including chlorella and spirulina. Also calcium and magnesium. Paleo diet. I take L-theanine, bacopa, and lions mane every day. Do the breathing exercises and some meditation every day. Ice showers morning and night.

    Everyday I wake up I have no idea what kind of day I might have. I have had days that are absolutely symptom free! This is the weirdest part. How can I go from being completely fine back to being a shadow of myself, just like that????????? And it seems completely out of my control. Overall, undoubtedly, my downs are not as bad as they used to be. I just got the R andro pills in today as well. I'm shelving those for a later day. Hope I am doing the right things here and my recovery is coming soon. Thank God for you guys that have posted on here and CD for creating the site. I have no idea where I would be right now on my own.
    Last edited by alphacfi; 04-23-2019 at 09:14 PM.

  2. #2
    SwoleSource Member Feedback Score 0
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    You got this bro

  3. #3
    Moderator Feedback Score 0 Cdsnuts's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by alphacfi View Post
    Wanted to share my story instead of just eaves dropping on everyone else's

    I took finasteride 1.25 for only 4 days. The last day being December 30 2018. That night I woke up to a panic attack in the middle of the night which I had never had before and immediately stopped taking the pill and flushed them. The next day was new years eve and I was extremely depressed all day. So i googled "does finasteride cause depression" and the horrors of reality hit me like a freight train. I saw that I was one of the small percentage of people that could have this reaction. I hoped and prayed that I would get better in the next couple of weeks but my symptoms only got worse and worse. On Christmas day I thought I had everything in the world to live for and then a week later I sincerely thought about jumping off my balcony numerous times. I could barely sleep, had panic attacks, head and neck pains all over, sever anhedonia, felt hot and cold, major depression, shaking hands, and then the double vision. This is very bad for my particular line of work. My sexual side effects were watery seamen and numbness but this actually did go away after a couple of weeks. SO I'm left with all the mental crap.

    Around this time I discovered the totalmaleoptimization protocol and jumped on it the next week starting with a juice cleanse. I only went 4 days. I hate even putting that down here I wish I had gone a full 7. But I was already a healthy eater so I told myself I didn't need to cleanse for longer. Coming off of that I jumped in with the herbs. 7 day cycle. Taking the vitamins and supplements every day, Paleo diet.. etc. I have always been in the gym and so this part of the protocol has been the easiest and also my favorite. I was always in good shape and now I am in fantastic shape. I started feeling a lot better around the second half of March. I had no more panic attacks and even had some days that were basically perfect. Then a couple weeks later I would have days that were perfect and even the bad days were only half bad. I could and can sleep through the night a solid 8-9 hours no problem. And my eyes are perfect now accept for floaters

    I was feeling so good I came off the herbs for a week and felt pretty great. I did another 3 day juice cleanse. Symptoms came back kinda hard after that. But then went down again. I was finally feeling like I could go hang out with friends again and be somewhat comfortable with that. This past weekend I had a girl over and I drank for the first time since January. Wow this was a bad idea. I had a panic attack the next day and the anhedonia is back. I should have waited much further for that one. I read that at 80-90% recovered alcohol might be ok but I guess I am not at that point yet.

    I ordered 4 more herbs so Ill be on an 11 day cycle now. Take all the proper vitamins every day including chlorella and spirulina. Also calcium and magnesium. Paleo diet. I take L-theanine, bacopa, and lions mane every day. Do the breathing exercises and some meditation every day. Ice showers morning and night.

    Everyday I wake up I have no idea what kind of day I might have. I have had days that are absolutely symptom free! This is the weirdest part. How can I go from being completely fine back to being a shadow of myself, just like that????????? And it seems completely out of my control. Overall, undoubtedly, my downs are not as bad as they used to be. I just got the R andro pills in today as well. I'm shelving those for a later day. Hope I am doing the right things here and my recovery is coming soon. Thank God for you guys that have posted on here and CD for creating the site. I have no idea where I would be right now on my own.
    If you're already having days where you're symptom free, you're way ahead of the game. You know what you have to do now, so just stick to it and you'll be healed before you know it.
    Total Male Optimization "People who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those that are doing it"

  4. #4
    SwoleSource Member Feedback Score 0 alphacfi's Avatar
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    Thanks for the encouraging words! I ordered more herbs after my last post and am now on a 15 day cycle. I also started 24hr fast every other week. I'm thinking I am around 80% now. Depending on the day of course. I still have days that I am 90-100 and that one day a week where im more like 60-70. ON that day I spend most of the time being pissed off now though instead of being in a constant state of fatigue and anxiety. When I am home alone I can relax and almost feel no symptoms. Just the occasional negative thoughts that persist for a few minutes longer then they should but then I am ok. One thing that is weird is my head and ears pop constantly. Idk if anyone else has this?

    It does get harder to follow the protocol when you get to 80-90%. There's not that constant motivation to do every thing exactly as your supposed to. Doing breathing exercises when you don't feel any anxiety or getting in a cold shower when you wake up and feel completely normal for example. But I still am not at the point where I want to go out and drink and be my old self meeting new people etc. Mostly because I don't want to drink but I am also still a little bit slow cognitively when I'm around new people. So it's this weird limbo period. It gets a little lonely. I hope that this is my new baseline and from here I can be completely healed sometime this summer. This seemed like an impossible dream only a couple of months ago. I am hoping to avoid going on Andro cycle but if I am still stuck in this limbo by the end of June I will start that I think. Gotta keep hitting the protocol 100% for now

  5. #5
    Established Member Feedback Score 0 RickTheRuler's Avatar
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    The climb out of hell!

    Good job but You have the wrong mindset though.

    I do look forward to drinking & doing drugs again as much as the next guy, so let just leave it out the point I’m trying to make.:

    I could tell your thinking about the day all this is over so you can go back to whatever lifestyle you lived.. my advice is to take this protocol and make it a way of life even after your 100%, of course have fun drink do drugs when your recovered... im not saying be sober for life, what I’m saying is your looking at the protocol as this thing your gonna only do for a year & then back to the old shit. If you put the protocol in your mind as “this is just what you do, like brushing your teeth” vs “I have to do this for x amount of time” life will be easier to the point where you question if your even putting in work cause it’s so ingrained in your everyday life, then boom here’s recovery.. & now your operating at much more optimal place than you ever had.

    Set it and forget it.. you don’t have to do this, THIS IS WHAT YOU DO..


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  6. #6
    SwoleSource Member Feedback Score 0 alphacfi's Avatar
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    Good advice man I am basically at that point. The protocol has become so routine it almost seems like I should be doing something more to speed things along but there's nothing more to do. I travel a lot for work so that makes it tough to stick to it 100% when I'm on the road but I stay pretty close to that. I just had a 4 week stretch of no traveling and have been able to stick to the protocol like clockwork. I feel like I made a very small improvement during that time. Was hoping for a little more noticeable improvement but I'll take it. I have been having sex 2-3 times every other day during this time. So its good to know that isn't a problem still. I hope it doesn't become one...

    I would say my main 2 symptoms are, at this point, still just a little lack of enjoyment for things. Even other people talking about enjoying things sparks something in my mind and makes me depressed a little bit. That being said it is not even in the same universe as bad as it used to be. But it's definitely still there. Something still blocking that enjoyment. Also a tightness of my head and neck that comes and goes depending on the day and the time of day. Those are the main ones that bother me still. The funniest thing about it is, because I have trouble enjoying things, I can't fully appreciate the progress I've made. It blocks me from having a good feeling about the fact that I have made such major improvements since the beginning of this.

    Other then that I am cruising.

  7. #7
    Established Member Feedback Score 0 xxaleksi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by alphacfi View Post
    The funniest thing about it is, because I have trouble enjoying things, I can't fully appreciate the progress I've made. It blocks me from having a good feeling about the fact that I have made such major improvements since the beginning of this.

    Yeah I have this too. I've made undeniable improvements since starting the protocol and I'm grateful for the recovery so far, but I can't "feel" the gratitude. I think it's some kind of anhedonia. Which is odd because otherwise my anhedonia is almost completely gone now.

  8. #8
    SwoleSource Member Feedback Score 0 alphacfi's Avatar
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    Quick update: I had been plateau'd at 85% there for a few weeks before having a nice downswing that lasted about a week with symptoms returning I hadn't felt since March. As discouraging as this was it just made me work out harder and stick to the protocol even more vigilantly (if that's even possible). Now for the past week I have felt at a good 95%. I youtubed Wim Hof breathing and realized I had been doing that shit totally wrong. Now that I am doing it right... MAN that is awesome! That definitely redefines getting high on your own supply (as he says in the video). I have 2 weeks left on my current cycle of herbs before I will assess whether or not I want to try an andro cycle.

    I emailed SoCal and they said they only have R-Andro bottles from 2016. I have the androhard muscle gel already. Any opinions on which one of these I should go with?

  9. #9
    Established Member Feedback Score 0 entropy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by alphacfi View Post
    Quick update: I had been plateau'd at 85% there for a few weeks before having a nice downswing that lasted about a week with symptoms returning I hadn't felt since March. As discouraging as this was it just made me work out harder and stick to the protocol even more vigilantly (if that's even possible). Now for the past week I have felt at a good 95%. I youtubed Wim Hof breathing and realized I had been doing that shit totally wrong. Now that I am doing it right... MAN that is awesome! That definitely redefines getting high on your own supply (as he says in the video). I have 2 weeks left on my current cycle of herbs before I will assess whether or not I want to try an andro cycle.

    I emailed SoCal and they said they only have R-Andro bottles from 2016. I have the androhard muscle gel already. Any opinions on which one of these I should go with?
    You're bouncing around like that already? Mate you're almost there.
    I'd go with the systematic dht rather than the topical dht because you want to flood it your blood with dht and get those 5ar enzymes regenerating, it doesn't make sense on paper but for some reason 5ar seems to respond to a huge jolt of dht. I think cdnuts and Eric came to this conclusion when cd was stuck in the hole but cd should clarify that part.
    Cervix stabbing ftw.

  10. #10
    Established Member Feedback Score 0 xxaleksi's Avatar
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    The transdermal androhard goes systemic though i think. I'm three weeks in on the stuff and seeing great benefits

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