Originally Posted by
Maxout777
I'll go ahead and post my story as well.
I'm 27 years old, from the United States. I'm a former member of the United States Marine Corps who now works as a contractor for the government, after graduating from college with an Engineering degree in honors, in a very demanding job role that requires you to be on your game technologically and intellectually at the same time. I took Saw Palmetto extract, 320mg daily, for the better part of almost two months before noticing that things just weren't the same anymore. I no longer had the mental sharpness that had allowed me to excel in my field from the get go, nor did I have the lust for life and excitement for life that I had before. Believe me, if you can be excited to wake up everyday when you're in exotic locales like Afghanistan and Iraq, then you should be excited to wake up in your brand new house on a daily basis. I no longer saw any gains or reason to go to the gym, nor did I care to ever have sex. This was the biggest clue to me that something was wrong....I normally pestered my girlfriend (and soon to be wife) for sex about daily.....sometimes twice a day haha. Given that I took Saw Palmetto for symptoms of acute prostatitis because I didn't want to go the VA for a checkup and get antibiotics (and later learning that Saw Palmetto doesnt help prostatitis at all, go me), I wasn't even aware of finasteride or the Post-Finasteride Syndrome because I wasn't a sufferer of MPB and had no reason to take the drug or consider it. So, I went online and Google'd "Saw Palmetto brain fog", because in all honesty, when you can't think clearly or react to anything with intelligence very quickly, that's the most concerning symptom of all. Low and behold, I found r/Tressless on reddit, and it was a post where someone was clearly experiencing the same thing I was. One of the commenters said "Sounds like you could have PFS. Check www.propeciahelp.com".......and so began the worst two weeks of my life after reading that stuff. I was praying, hoping that I would be one of the guys who returned to normal within "14 days" as stated on the website and by Merck (for finasteride). Of course, me taking Saw Palmetto and seeing that two of the longest sufferers of PFS took Saw Palmetto, and that one of the worst cases on the website (who ended up taking his life) also took SP, I was pretty sure that my life was gone. That I would lose everything, my woman, my friends, my career......as a highly motivated, competitive, and driven individual, that wasn't something I could take.
Two weeks went by, leading to a month with little to no improvement. I couldn't sleep, had night terrors, my dick was twisting and curving as well to go along with not working at all.....suicide was within reach. I suffer from PTSD as well, and combine the two and I was a living hell for a long time. I stumbled upon CDs post on Propecia Help, but wasn't read to buy in at first due to people there claiming it was "BS, not true, he can't drink, blah blah blah", until finally I said, I have absolutely nothing to fucking lose at this point, lets see what I can do.
I bought into the regimen 100%, and have followed it for near 10 months now I believe? May will be around a year, and I'm sitting pretty at near 85-90%, with just a few things left to go. Eye floaters, libido, and dick curvature being the only remaining symptoms. Keep in mind, I had the following: brain fog, ED, dick twist/curve, muscle wastage, eye floaters, blurry/unfocused vision (THE WORST), dry skin, eye bags and hollowing eyes, bone pain, no drive or aggression, shrunken genitals......the damn list goes on but you guys get the point. If I can recover, ANYONE can recover. I've also recieved a promotion at my job, gained a very in-demand and difficult tech certification, got engaged, continued to plug away at my Master's degree, and am in the, no doubt, best shape of my life.
Life is what you make it, PFS or not. You're the only one who can continue to make your life great, or a living hell. The choice is yours.