Another recovery thread, hopefully

[ncsugrad2002]

Hey guys,

I am a 34 year old guy in decent health, 150lbs, 6' tall. My story is the same as just about everyone else's. I took finasteride from something like 2012 to 2016 and saw my hair line pause about where it was at that point. It didn't really get any better, but didn't get any worse either. Then in 2016 I decided since I didn't really have any issues on fin that I was OK to try the stronger stuff... Dutasteride. I was on that from 2016 to early 2018. The really depressing part in hindsight is my hairloss wasn't even that bad.

Along the way I had several instances where I forgot to get my prescription refilled and I would stop taking either med for a month or so. These incidents were typically spaced out 6+ months, they weren't something I did regularly. I would always notice increased libido, a little more acne and hair shedding every time I inadvertently went through one of these off cycles. Most of that time I was dating someone with a low sex drive, so my sex drive spiking just ended in a lot more fights, so I didn't really notice the libido reduction when it went back down as I resumed fin/dut

Fast forward to early 2018 and I stopped taking Dutasteride (forgot to pick up my prescription).. 3 weeks or so later I found sex was f'ing AMAZING (and, I was dating someone new who was fine with that several times a day..). I couldn't ever remember it feeling like that, I still remember her being like "WTF was that?" because I was into it more than usual, haha..

Then I started taking Dutasteride again a week or so later... sex went back to what I had gotten used to calling "normal", which was depressing after getting a week or so of it being so awesome. Around here is when I connected Dut to the sexual changes.

From there I said screw my hair, I'll be bald to have sex like that all the time.. so I stopped taking Dutasteride altogether, this was April/May 2018. Again, I felt great a few weeks later, then I went downhill from there. Same story as a LOT of people.. cycle on/off/on/off too quick and you end up in PFS land. My main issue is sensitivity during sex.. I just feel numb sometimes. I seem to vary from "doesn't feel nearly as good as it should but will still work" to full blown numbness depending on the day.

I am not nearly as bad as a lot of people I've been reading about. The mental sides aren't bad for me. I have trouble concentrating /being motivated sometimes and get headaches late in the day, but that's about it. I can't even be sure these are from PFS since I've been staring at a computer or phone for 12 hours a day for years, but, it seems possible it's related.

HOWEVER, the sexual sides suck. Again, not as bad as a lot of people, but bad enough to cause issues with this very important part of my life. My primary issues are lack of sensitivity and long refractory period, both of which make it very difficult to ejaculate, especially if I try for more than 2-3x a week. I do not have any erection issues, so I guess I have been lucky there.

It seems to come and go. I've had periods where I am able to have sex 4-5 times in 3-4 days without any issues, and there are periods (like right now) where I can barely finish 2x a week.

Anyways--I'm still reading about CD's protocol to get all the details figured out, but found some parts that match up with other recovery stories I've found online. In particular, the diet seems like a very common thread in recovery stories. I have accumulated a lot of the herbs that are recommended just by trying different things over the last year or so, so I've already been taking those (though not as systematically as it needs to be). I'm going to have to read more to understand the rest of what I have to do.

Hopefully this works. Over the last year I've tried HCG, Proviron, even super low doses (0.025mg) of finasteride again, which I particularly regret. Not to mention all the herbs I've tried. HCG was the only thing that might have made me feel better. It seemed to increase my libido to the point that the sensitivity issue didn't matter as much.. but most people have short lived results on any sort of hormone replacement like that, so I stopped HCG about 3 weeks ago.

That's about it for my first real post. I'll try to keep the thread updated as I move along without asking too many stupid/repetitive/common questions.