Propecia - Dht Deprevation, Testicular Changes

Hi to cut a long story short. I took finasteride and now am svrewed.

I have recovered to varying degrees by taking test and reducing estrogen the issue is it is impossible to keep stable.

I get woods within hours of injecting t. After a week this efffect is gone. Injecting t results in mid range test and over the top free e2 - e2 mesured by siliva. Symtoms match this.

I think I have worked out the issue. DHT is responsible for developing the testies. Androgen deprevation can damage and degredate cells in the testies. There is a study on this.

Now when I inject t my testiclular cells are producing too much e2 this negates all the good effects of TRT.

On guy was taking 1mg arimidex per day and his e2 went up! This kind of tells me it is testicular aromotaze as this can not be controled well with anti estrogens.

I can not see any other way TRT can not work apart from excess aromataze or perhaps high progesterone or prolactin which I do not have.

What should I do? I have a small nodule on my left nut. Nothing showed on ultrasound. I am thinking to go get it chopped off and hope TRT works. ANy imput?

Read the advice for new guys sticky and come back with a lot more info. Include all labs and ranges.

Do not accept much of what you are assuming if fact. If your testes were degraded, LH and FSH would be high. Got data? Typical for your problem is LH/FSH–>zero

What drugs, Rx and OTC are you taking?
What other health issues are you experiencing?

Liver problems can be responsible for inability to properly clear estrogens. And been overweight increases T–>E2 in peripheral tissues. So we need ALT and AST lab data.

Hey sorry for the late reply. I totally forgot I posted this.

I have read evey study on T and E and tested almost every substance in the book on myself.

I got too many labs I can not even fit them here. Maybe as a PDF file.

What it comes down to is my free T is always bottom of the range. Total T is low but not as low as free t. Blood e2 in range about 110 (<160)

I have recovered on anti estrogens and also got strength and energy back on T. But it does not last this is because it seems to end up as e2. I did a little test. I took 28.5mg test E e3d and tested on the day before inject. My test was mid range but a siliva E test showed over range.

Liver is fune.

I have little body fat and the thing is in the siliva test only E2 and E2 were over range while E1 was just above the bottom of the range. Perhas because I do not have much fat on me.!

LH always lowish despite the free T.

Chasing my e2 with any anti estrogen is a rollercoaster it is like a nightmare. Some times i feel terrible other times I am popping woods. Getting best night woods in my life. So I know that my issue is all related to T:E balance. But it can not be controlled by regular drugs.

I am not taking any drugs. I got messed up when I took finasteride. Was like night and day. I had no problems before and it basically all fell apart over night 3 weeks into taking finasteride.

Here is a video of me blabering on warning others about this crap.

I got an ultra sound on my nut and nothing really showed up. I am thinking maybe an MRI - but i do not think it is cancer maybe just some kind of nodule or changed caused by finasteride.

Sorrry for the late reply. I have subscribed to this thread.

Thank you

Hellooo - http://208.109.208.90/other/All Hormones.xls

Here are all my hormone reults. There are a lot that is why it has to go in an excel sheet.

Basically it seems that for some reason my body is creating too much e2 since I took fin and I can not control this in anyway.

When I first inject T without HCG I feel great for a week. When I have messed around with AIS I have got my libido back.

Link does not work. Spam?

Please do not tell me that liver is fine.

What AI? How are you dosing it?

Need your complete protocols that you have attempted.

You are not providing useful data.

Suggest that you try the ‘standard protocol’

  • 100mg/week T cyp or eth, injected twice a week at least
  • 1mg anastrozole per week in divided doses
  • 250iu hCG EOD SC

Ksman - I am sorry I did not get any notification from here. This is why i was so slow to reply.

http://208.109.208.90/other/Allhormones.xls

This is an excel spreadsheet of all results

There was a space in the link and that seemed to screw it up. I removed that. You can see I have tried a LOT. This does not cover all I have tried.

I have tried TRT

Transdermal
Test E
Test C
Test P

Tried high dose, low dose, mid dose etc.

This is what it seems to have came down too.

Last time I was taking test E I took a very low dose 28.5 mg every 3 days. At first energy, well being, vigor, positive mood all come back. This lasted for about 8 days. Then I started feeling worse than ever. Anxiety, total loss of appetite, fell like brick in my stomach, no energy, could not exercise. On this small dose I did a siliva e2 and e2 test to find they were both over range despite free T measured by blood being mid / low range.

So a low dose of test e that does not even get my free test above mid range increases free e2 and e3 over range.

It seems right now my body is keeping free T very low just over bottom of the range when on nothing for a reason as when I try to push it over that e2 goes to high and end up feeling worse after a week.

The test e alone even in the first week did not improve my libido. The only time I got my libido back was on arimidex. I was taking 0.1mg every second day and the libido came back for a few days and then felt worse than ever. I tried to repeat and it is a rollercoaster no matter what I do. Often end up bedridden and feeling like crap.

As far as muscles go, when using test P and arimidex I was able to keep things a little balanced for a week and all my leg lifts skyrocked by about 30 percent. Now it is so hard to gain muscle. Takes about 1 year to gain 5 percent stength. Before I was 96 kilos and could deadlift 200 + kilos now I am 78 and can not gain muscle. If I eat a lot I just gain love handles. I never had love handles before finasteride even at 96 kilos.

I have tried various AIs

Formestane
Aromasin
Arimidex
ATD
PES Erase

That reminds me at first on pes erase alone I was able to get libido back to a degree for about a week and felt pretty good all round. But as usual things start falling apart and I end up worse than I started.

Right now I am testing ATD again and hope to do some blood tests.

My blood tests from a week ago show.

Total T - 5 (2.5 - 8)
SHBG 55 - No range given but this is the top of the range of other labs
E2 36.04 pg/ml - No range given by lab but usual range is 15-40 I guess.

These tests were done on nothing.

So you can see my free test is probably very low as usual but e2 is high in the range? Low free t and high E seems to suggest too much aromotaze activity?

As I am saying. I was totally fine before I took finasteride and then BANG. Turned to an 80 year old in a matter of days.

I am theorizing that fin damaged my testicles or some organ and now I am stuck in a state of over aromitization. When I increase free T i just end up with a wave of more e. I take extra arimidex and that messes up the functioning of the brain and other areas as from what I read locally produced estrogens are important and arimidex could mess up this system.

I tried HCG on a number of occasions. When taking HCG 250 iu per week with 100mg of test E I do not even feel the beneficial effects of test in the first week. - I started HCG before the T. I am guess things could be that hcg bumped my e even higher so that negated the benefits of the T.

The question that really needs to be asked is what are we dealing with here. I was totally fine with great libido before finasteride and now 0 libido and all the low t symptoms. Regular guys may have damaged testicles so T works fine, others may have slightly increase perihperal aromitization so arimidex results in fairly stable reductions in E2. But what happend if somehow the testicles were damaged and that they were creating too much e2? You might take more T but then just end up with more e2? In order to disable all the aromotaze in the testicles perhaps you would need to take such a high dose of arimidex that the local production of arimotaze in critical organs was over inhibited. Such as the brain. This could make you feel like total crap?

The other interesting note is that my estrone level was low in range while e2 and e3 was too high. As you can see from my video I do not have excess fat. Could this be an indicator that peripheral aromatization is not a problem as e1 is produced in fat cells?

If peripheral aromitization is not my problem then as I said that could explain why arimidex is not yielding stable results.

I still have some hope as I have recovered all problems by boosting T and reducing E. If I could combine them in a stable way I would be totally recovered.

I have tried all kinds of dosing with arimidex. .1mg a day. .2mg a day. .5mg a week and more and more. I know one other guy who took finasteride and has the same problem tried messing with arimidex for 2 years and was unable to get stable. Often feeling worse than ever.

As you can see from blood tests. Liver looks fine. I do not drink and eat only organic meat, fruit, vegetables and non organic nuts. I do not eat any processed foods. I drink a max of 3 beers a week and have never been an alchoholic. As I said. All these problems happened over about 2 days when I was on finasteride and had a “crash”.

LH is almost always low despite low free T. This tells me something like e2 is feeding back and saying DO not produce any more T. And this probably explains why I feel benefits on T only for a week as it seems to end up a e2. And that is why my body has lowerd free t to that of a dying 90 year old.

Sorry I ranted a little.

I thank you for your time. And interested on your input on this one.

I will keep checking this tread as I do not seem to get any emails.

Thanks again

Let me add a few things.

My appetite also sux. But when I did my first injection of test e or even test c appetite goes up massively. I had to run out to the shop to buy all kinds of food.

Also as with low T. My morning woods suck. I used to wake up eveynight with wood now i get half a morning wood once a month if lucky.

Also as far as dosing I have dosed once every 5 days once every 3 days and even once ever 2 days. I can remain stable on 15mg test e every second day but that does not make me feel any better or worse than on nothing. As soon as I increase I feel worse.

Any ideas anyone?

When I take a heavish dose of AI I wake up with unusally stiff joints. Do you think this means that my total e2 is low? Or could it be just e levels in joints?

E2 is low if your waking up with joint pain and taking an Ai

Stop for a week and cut the dose

If your not on T cut the AI all together and see where E2 and free land in a month

Just my opinion and I’m not a doc but neither is anyone else here

Got the blood test results from 12 hours after taking 75mg of ATD. E2 went down to 12. pg/ml. I had no point doing my experements where libido came back to anywhere near normal. ATD is supposedly a partial anti androgen. Perhaps that is the problem? I Have been able to get my libido back on arimidex but was never stable and often felt crap. PES erase helped with libido for about a week then was never able to repeat.

test was up from 5 to 6.2 on the range of 2.5 - 8 felt no better. Will go back to other ais and see how they go.

@vincentv I’m resurrecting this thread because you’re dropping posts all over the board, and it’s probably better to have things in one place.

I’ve got a couple of questions for you:

  • How tall are you? And what do you weigh? You mention being 96 kg before, and 78 kg after above.

  • What range was your testosterone in before TRT and after it? You mention 5 above, but without any units. I’m guessing it was 5 ng/mL, which is 500 ng/dL.

  • Have you got numbers for your SHBG? The only one I saw above was 55 nmol/L, which is at the upper end of the range.

  • And how about free testosterone? Given the SHBG and TT numbers, that works out at 7.5 ng/dL, which isn’t great, but it’s above the level that’s being suggested as a cut-off for hypogonadism.

  • Is your TRT doctor prescribed, or are you self medicating? In Australia it’d be hard to get prescribed with the levels you gave above. 250 mg / week if a pretty high dose too. If you’re self-medicating then there’s the risk that your medicines are underdosed or counterfeit.

If you’re running 250 mg / week then I’d guess your TT should be somewhere over 1000 ng/dL. Even with an SHBG at 70 nmol/L, your free T would be about 14 ng/dL, which is about twice the level considered to be hypogonadal.

The reason I brought up non-hormonal causes is that your levels don’t look too bad, and TRT doesn’t seem to be helping with your symptoms.

I am 192cm

Right now my free t is below range about 237 (260-740)

It was about 300 a couple years back but has dropped.

My shbg used to be mid range now it is over range at about 55 and the range stops at 50.

I have been perscribed t and I have also self medicated. And no the medicines are real and they caused me to grow new body hair. Lose hair on the head but just no effect on muscles, fat, libido, well being. Some good effects in the first week.

I have run T at all doses high mid and low. Does not help much. Does not even grow muscles.

Obiously it is somehow related to hormones beause T should grow muscles and it does not. I know how to grow muscles cause I was deadlifting 200kg before all this started.

There are some guys who just do not respond to T well even guys who have not took propecia or other drugs. I am in contact with quite a few.

This is why I contacted you. If you have tried T and it does not help and your other hormone levels are ok then there is something else to it and we must work out what it is.

I’m not on TRT, and I’m not sure if it would be of benefit to me. My TT levels are above what would normally be considered hypogonadal, and free T is above the cut-off that some endocrinologists are proposing (6.5 ng/dL / 225 pmol/L).

The reason that I suggested investigating other causes is that TRT doesn’t seem to be doing much good for you. Other than Androgen Insensity Syndrome, I can’t figure out why you’re not responding. Go find an endocrinologist.

I have seen about 3 endocrinologist and 1 andrologist. They do not know what the issue is.

Androgen insensitivity is a genetic problem and I was fine till I took the drug so it is not that.

What is the range for free T at your lab and what are your free T levels?

The range for free testosterone from my lab (Melbourne Pathology) is 170 to 670 pmol/L, or about 5 to 19 ng/dL.

The range for SHBG is 17 to 56 nmol/L.

My free testosterone was calculated to be:

19th August: 231 pmol/L / 6.7 ng/dL
7th December: 243 pmol/L / 7.0 ng/dL
10th December: 339 pmol/L / 9.8 ng/dL
29th May: 249 pmol/L / 7.2 ng/dL

How long were you on Propecia for? And how long have you been off it?

Hey sorry mate I never seem to get notifications here can you add add me Facebook

I was only on propecia for 4 weeks in 2008. Seem to be getting worse…

If you only ran Propecia for four weeks then I doubt that it would have done any significant damage, and after eight years there’s a good chance that the body would have recovered.

The brain is wired to see connections between things, which was useful when we hung out on the African savanna, trying to avoid being eaten by lions. But sometimes it fools us. It’s possible that your problems started at about the time you took Propecia, rather than it being a cause.

I’m also wondering if your problems aren’t entirely hormonal. I suffer from depression, and there’s an overlap between its symptoms and those of low testosterone, namely loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, lack of motivation, etc.

Did the endocrinologists and andrologist say that they didn’t know what the issue is, or did they say that there wasn’t a problem?

The muscle loss raises a flag. Assuming you were 96 kg at (say) 10% bodyfat, then that would be at about the limit of what could be achieved drug free. I’ve never done a cycle, and found that I’ll hang onto most of my gains, even when I don’t train for a while. And I can get it back again in a few months.

Dropping 18 kg seems a lot to lose. Did you suffer from any sort of illness in that time?

I’m not sure how I can help, other than suggesting you get checked out for depression and anxiety, or see if the doctor might have any other recommendations.