Hi folks,

So here goes, I took 1.25 of finasteride daily for less than a week in October 2016 then woke up with genital numbness, basically felt like my dick was gone and like it had been injected with an anesthetic, that’s the best way I can describe it. Immediately quit but things didn’t improve and what followed was the most crushing depression and anxiety I had ever experienced, it floored me, I rapidly lost weight and bulk and my personality was gone, felt like the living dead and like my soul was removed. My sleep had gone, days and days without sleep, pacing my apartment etc, my record was 5/6 days of no sleep.I began having suicidal thoughts, this was a progression over oct/nov/dec leading to me researching ways to commit suicide and planning it out. I didn’t particularly want to die but I wanted the horror I was living with to stop (it’s near impossible for me now to comprehend how bad I felt)

Visited many doctors, some good, some bad, one endo was good, his approach was similar to cds in that there’s no magic fix with this but with enhancing ones health you will eventually pull through, that gave me slight bit of hope but that hope was crushed when I signed up to prop help, The countless negative horror stories fed my fear and the thought of this is over ive blown my life im going to be like these guys living like this for years on years etc took a firm hold. I said no way am I going on like this, it was then I really considered ending my life, began ringing suicide hotlines, tried to get myself sectioned to a psych ward but doctor gave me anti depressants instead, I didn’t take them, I’d read enough shit about them too. After one nights researching on prop help I decided to say fuck it, brought a bottle of vodka and some painkillers, walked to a local river bank in the rain, knocked them back and passed out, woke up hours later, had thrown up in my sleep so thankfully not enough pills to finish me. I don’t know subconsciously if I knew I didn’t take enough pills to finish me, possibly some incling of a survival instinct keeping me hanging on.

I was at rock fucking bottom, i had lost approx 4 stone, grown a beard and also my numbness was there along with cock now curving badly to left and a loss in size and girth. I had a long term partner at that stage, sex was completely gone, there was nothing getting me turned on and my tool was not standing to attention so sex life and interest in it had evaporated, if salma hayek walked into my room in a bikini it wouldn’t have made a difference, libido, urge had vanished.

All of the above led me to almost losing my job, that was really difficult, I had gone from a very popular chatty guy with my colleagues to being completely withdrawn and silent, with people talking about me that he aint right anymore he’s lost his mind etc how could they possibly understand what was happening to me, how could I tell them that a fucking tiny hair loss drug had totally destroyed my mind and body, Hell I didn’t blame people for thinking I had gone insane, one cannot possibly understand pfs until you live it. I was hauled up to my boss basically with get your shit together or your gone, the only thing that kept my job was that I had a huge amount of good karma in the bank with my employer as before this I was an excellent worker, hadn’t recorded a sick day In years, good to colleagues and staff i managed, that was why they couldn’t get their head around the 180 I had done.

During this period I had came across cds posts over at ph but they weren’t sinking in, I was still far too cut off to let any light in, after my failed suicide attempt I guess a survival instinct told me you have to get fucking out of this, you can’t go on this way.

Signed up here I think at approx Christmas 2016, my initial posts are not a good reflection of how severely fucked up I was, it’s a personality trait i have to always put the good side out when I’m talking to people, but honestly internally I felt at deaths door.

Over the following months I introduced pieces of the protocol, it was a very slow and sloppy transition but there were signs that my depression and anxiety was slightly fading, I enjoyed the positivity of the forum and never felt like shit after reading the posts, in the midst of this I was still using alcohol to control my anxiety, this was probably the worst move i made during all of above, alcohol magnified my physical and mental symptoms, the anesthetic feeling felt stronger in my junk after consuming alcohol etc so that was a problem.

Over the coming months I get better at applying what’s laid out here, the best thing I did was hitting gym in mornings before work, something I’m still doing and found my mood etc really improved from the morning workouts.

It was May 2017 that I fully embraced the protocol, did a second juice feast and completely removed the alcohol, daily herb rotation, daily pine pollen, breathing exercises in evening before bed, eating clean, removal of gluten. I consistently chipped away from that point, I was going to use prohormones but maybe I was too much of a pussy there and over cautious lol but anyway I decided against using them.

So over the coming months my mood improved, sleep returned, libido improved, feeling in penis improved, but it was really in last two months things really have ramped up, the only thing I added in was zinc and copper day on and day off that was approx 6/8 weeks ago and definitely had a positive impact on my libido/urge for a lady.

Today as I type I put myself at 90%, the biggest indicator of my recovery has been the return of my creativity, I am also a musician and before this I was a prolific songwriter wrote an album etc then came pfs and it was gone, over the past year there have been flickers of it returning but not like now, I also teach guitar and started teaching as a small business during pfs as a distraction to obsessing about the condition, id recommend that to guys during this, whatever it is give yourself a focus away from pfs, it’s not easy as it still sits at the back of your mind and will for some time but that’s ok you will slowly push it away with introducing other hobbies. But teaching an instrument and songwriting are two very different disciplines, the teaching was a distraction but i still wasn’t fully right and I couldn’t write or find the inspiration to write. Again, the upswing ive experienced in the past two months libido wise has coincided with me writing again daily, recording demos, the creative process, like a switch has been turned back on and colour has returned to my life.

In conclusion below is my position now

Numbness - completely gone
Depression - gone
Sleep - 8 hours average
Weight - healthy and stable
Libido - back with a vengeance, i recently split with my long term partner (not pfs related) so im not having regular sex but I want it and during last few encounters with ex feeling was back and all was good and working in the junk department. I’m kind of a shy dude with ladies but my confidence is back and that’s the key, an interesting point to mention on this is that during my pfs I worked with a girl and still do who is good looking but never anything between us, since my upswing and return of confidence I’ve been told by someone else that she has a crush on me, that gave me a boost, I wasn’t directly flirting with her but I guess I was exuding confidence again and that’s what it’s all about with attracting the ladies.

So that’s really it fellas, my only remaining symptoms are slight fluctuating curve and girth reduction from pre pfs days.

To all the new guys starting the journey you will make it through, stay the course here, don’t give in no matter how bad you feel, don’t subscribe to people e saying you won’t get better, you have it within you to beat this, don’t over complicate with introducing different supplements etc, keep it simple and relax, the only way is up.

To cd I plan to subscribe to your website going forward and continue your methods for improving general health and thank you man from almost losing my life to where I am now I have no doubt that’s down to what you’ve created here, you gave me hope in a world of darkness.

God bless

Jimmy