My year long battle with an unknown poison... And how a trip to Mexico revealed it

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rrrrolla

Well-known member
Trusted Member
About a year ago, I was in Mexico with a large group of friends. We were at the barcelo Maya Riviera resort. I highly recommend the palace at this resort btw and am going back again in January. I woke up early. Had some mimosas and coffee Bailey's for breakfast, the usual.. after which my family members and I decided to go snorkeling. I was feeling no pain and I decided to swim out with just my flippers and mask to find the giant sea turtles. I had a banana in my pocket (don't recommend this!) to lure them in. I was out a ways and one giant turtle swam right underneath me and proceeded to disappear into the darkness of the sea in front of me. So I pulled the banana out (yes it was actually a banana, not MY banana!) of my pocket. Almost instantly I felt my legs hitting another snorkeler so I turned to apologize. When I turned I had the biggest turtle I've ever seen in person right in my face. After struggling with him a few seconds i threw the banana as I figured that was what he was after. By the time he had gone, I had taken on water in my mask and was sitting to panic. I began to swim back to shore, struggling to breathe through the tiny tube, staring to go dark and panic had fully set in as I was too far from anyone to yell for help and I was scared to waste the breath to do it. I spotted a huge rock and swam for that hoping if I could get to the rock it would be tall enough that I could stand and get a break. It was!! I made it to the rock, stood up and was just barely able to get my head above water. I yelled to my wife to bring me a float. It was very traumatic! But I was ok after I calmed down. This situation haunts me to this day and is integral to my journey I promise lol.

So that was in early November of last year. Not long after that, I was having some morning time with my wife and I was having difficulty breathing and almost having a panic attack. Stood up, caught my breath and thought little of it. I was taking sleeping pills the night before and attributed it to that and decided to stop taking those. To be clear I was still on mucho steroids at this point.

That would have been sometime in December of last year. A little later, I was in the gym, training no harder than usual and something came over me... I felt kike I was going to pass out when I was done a set of overhead presses. I got up, walked to the change room like a food and hid myself in the corner until the feeling passed. Hmm.. I thought.. that was weird. Didn't give it too much attention and continued on with life as normal.

Now we are coming into January and February of last year. The panic attacks keep coming more and more often. I'm still on a fair amount of test and deca. I start noticing my stomach hurting quite often. The pain is usually in one spot but was kinda migrating around as if if wasn't stationary from one hour to the next. So now I'm stating to wonder wtf is going on here! I drop the gear and go to just a little test to keep me sane, start messing with my supplements to see what's going on. Now I'm determined to pinpoint the issue. Made an appointment to see my doc and see if I can get some blood work.

Now we are into May and I'm thinking, how can this be. I have all these random problems with health and my cognition is starting to slip! One hour I'm good, the next I'm inside my head and unable to focus on anything. Either I'm losing my mind or there is something very wrong with me! So of course, after I talk to chat gpt more than any sane person ever should, I try everything I can think of to fix this. Blood results were good except hematocrit and hemoglobin (big surprise there lol), so I donate blood. This actually make me feel a bit better. So there you go! I figured it out! High rbc was causing me all these troubles. Whew! Well... A week later everything was back in full force again. It was back to the drawing board...

Fast fwd to 3 weeks ago. At this point, I had been in the ER several times, had X-rays, CT scan, blood work several times, echo cardiogram for my heart specialist (I was born with an abnormal heart valve). Everything came back ok. Tried countless other remedies you can only find on Joe Rogan podcasts. Switched to only pharmacy test at 100mg a week from my doctor. Ivermectin, oil of oregano... But no matter what I tried, nothing seemed to coordinate with the seemingly random symptoms of stomach pain and anxiety. And I mean I tried everything. Or so I thought...

A few weeks ago, our annual group trip Mexico came around. I was almost 6 grand deep for this trip and contemplated cancelling at the literal last minute because I couldn't figure this out. But I went.. before leaving I looked at what supps to bring. And I decided to bring the kitchen sink. I had it all. I even bought and filled one of those daily pill dispensers so I wouldn't miss any of the important ones like my stomach acid ppi pills or my blood pressure med (an ARB). The only pill I left was my finasteride. Didn't think I would need that since I was on such a low dose of test and it's only a week. So travel day came and it was torture. My gut was in pain so bad and I was in my usual fog. So far this was turning into my worst nightmare. We get to the resort and decide to throw a hail Mary and take only half of my BP pill the first day since I knew I would be drinking. Low and behold I felt better and better as the week went on. I did absolutely nothing healthy that week. I drank, ate garbage and somehow felt better than I had felt for a year! Maybe I'm just meant to be an alcoholic I thought.. actually what I thought was that my BP medication had been fuking with me this entire time. Although that didn't quite add up as there were times when I felt decent, but only for short periods, like a few days. So we get back and I feel good and decide to hit the gym and it goes extraordinarily well.. no anxiety, no flushed feeling after a heavy lift... I literally figured this out!! ... It was my Candesartan! That is until the begining of last week. It all came back with a vengeance. So I go to the doctor again and tell him what happened and he basically shakes his head and says "I have no idea." So I asked him for more test and went on my way.

So then this past week I start thinking back to what this could possible be, if it's not the candesartan. Why did I feel so good in Mexico. What did it start taking or doing again once I was back.. and it popped into my head that finasteride was the one thing this might be. I did a little research on this drug and low and behold!! Finasteride is not the benign hair and prostate saving drug I was under the impression it was!! Not even close!! This shit has side effects that made what's left of my hair curl!! I stopped it immediately last Monday and have been on an upward trajectory physically and mentally every since! It's night and day.

So how can I be so sure it's finasteride? Well... This poison was first prescribed to me at the beginning of November last year. This coincides with the beginning of ALL of these strange issues. I would take is MOST of the time but not everyday, sometimes every other day, sometimes I would stop for a week and stay again. I did not think this stuff had any major side effects, and in fact if you would have asked me before, I would have told you that it's not good to stop this drug since I've heard that over and over again in the past. Well.. as it turns out, this shit has been fuking with me for a year. Many of the bad side effects are reported with just a 1mg dose and mine is 5mg! I literally thought I was losing my mind for the last year.

So, very long story very short.. finasteride is poison for some, me included.
 
It's amazing how differently we all respond to different drugs and suppliments.

There are some common suppliments and drugs that are like poison to me as well that seem to be taken by the majority of people with no sides, and I only figured this out the hard way too as doctors don't seem to be of any help as they just push the drugs.

Glad you were able to figure it out, it jusy sucks that it can take so long for that lightbulb to go off in your mind as to what's causing the problems.
 
Interesting. You mentioned you are taking other medications, any chance it was an interaction between 2 medications rather than just the 1 medication?
 
Wow amazing story man. Im glad you figured it out and your ok, I was expecting it to be some toxic turtle venom or something. Ive contemplated using finasteride before and opted out after reading side effect profile. What im wondering is, was all the side effects actually just anxiety brought on by the drug? Every symptom even down to pain in the stomach can be caused by anxiety and stress. Or was the drug actually causing some toxic damage to different parts?
 
Been to Barcelo Maya and love the resorts been to all 5 and enjoyed them all.

As far as finasteride I tolerated it well for years but I don’t think it’s a good compound after seeing the changes to the male endocrine system. To keep it simple, our bodies are built and meant to be in balance and what finasteride changes are not good any way you put it. Yes yes yes I am on a steroid forum and using but after years of abuse my doses don’t venture a combined 500mg or more. I try to keep that hormonal balance which again finasteride can disrupt. It wouldn’t surprise me anything possible with its use

Ill never use finasteride again
 
Very happy you sorted out what the issue is. Finasteride is known to cause a myriad of issues (for some of the population) such as ED even after you stop which makes no sense, but a quick read on any forum of guys who wish they never took it. I on the other hand - have never had one issue from it. My blood work is fine, no issues, but it shows how it impacts one person to another. I do notice it does slightly reduce my sex drive and considering it is blunting one pathway of DHT that isn't surprising. I only know this because there is enough evidence of Deca and Finasteride don't go well together for hair loss. I stopped it once while on a very low dose of Deca and I noticed until the Deca kicked in (it takes a few weeks to a month before Deca impacts my desire/erection quality), I had a significant increase in desire which is great if your woman likes it. It sucks if your partner doesn't want more sex. There are horror stories of so many regular meds like Fluroquinolones which is almost equivelent to someone getting MS and they end up in a wheelchair, to finasteride messing up how men feel and can perform in the bedroom. Dutasteride is supposed to be even better for hair loss, but harder or men, causing ED issues for a %.
Long story - short, I am happy you figured it out.
Sometimes, when you feel like shit for an extended period and do truly have a physical ailment, you also have multiple other issues which is caused by the stress / anxiety of it coming back, your life has changed, and messes up your sleep which impacts so many things. I can relate with an invisible disease, I wrote about before, many moons ago and being sent across Canada from one specialist to another. I had no reflexes in multiple tests hence ALS/MS or a neurological disease but a normal MRI with abnormal nerve conduction tests. Before you mentioned you found out what is was, some of the docs in other Provinces said I had a virus and it is possible the pressure of flying helped it pass the BBB, which it should not be able to do and messed up my nervous system, but it was a guess. I was also going to mention see an infectious disease specialist for parasites. From experience they can mess you up terribly even if your eosiniphils are normal. They can cause anxiety, brain fog, impact almost any organ depending which one you have. The ironic part of all of this is taking a pill for 3 days usually kills almost all kinds. Only bad side effect of the medication due to it's strength is hair loss and they will monitor your organs to make sure the medication isn't damaging your liver/kidneys especially if you have liver flukes or other parasites that impact your liver. Just walking bare foot in a naturally warm climate, you can easily pick up hook worms and other helmiths. Not all parsitic medication will kill all parasites hence they should determine which ones you have through stool tests (3 minumum). If it ever comes back - something to consider.
 
Mano said:
Interesting. You mentioned you are taking other medications, any chance it was an interaction between 2 medications rather than just the 1 medication?
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This is a great point and very possible! I had thought of that, but there are so many combinations that I didn't even know where to begin. The only actual drug I take now is omeprazole and of course my hrt. I'd like to get off the omeprazole eventually too but that's a hard one. The fukin acid reflux is brutal when I stop.
 
Bigbear said:
Wow amazing story man. Im glad you figured it out and your ok, I was expecting it to be some toxic turtle venom or something. Ive contemplated using finasteride before and opted out after reading side effect profile. What im wondering is, was all the side effects actually just anxiety brought on by the drug? Every symptom even down to pain in the stomach can be caused by anxiety and stress. Or was the drug actually causing some toxic damage to different parts?
Click to expand...
The side effects of anxiety could be the biggest issue here. But for 💯 certain, finasteride causes anxiety in me. I still have a few lingering symptoms but each day is an improvement over the last.
 
Bigwheel said:
I looked into fina and said fuck it and shave my head now… funny thing I have a trip booked at barcelo Maya Riviera for the end of December glad you liked it!!
Click to expand...
We are heading down again second week of January to the palace and can't fukin wait! The adult only section was a little too sterile for us. We like the traditional colors of the palace. And kids don't bother me for whatever reason. Mine are all grown so I'm back to not being annoyed by them all day everyday lol!
 
Sorbate said:
Well I really hope that is what it is and it doesn't come back again.

BTW the turtle would have scared the shit out of me as well.
Click to expand...
Next time I'm down at the barcelo I'm gonna bring one on land and fuk with him and we will see how he likes it! 😜
 
rrrrolla said:
About a year ago, I was in Mexico with a large group of friends. We were at the barcelo Maya Riviera resort. I highly recommend the palace at this resort btw and am going back again in January. I woke up early. Had some mimosas and coffee Bailey's for breakfast, the usual.. after which my family members and I decided to go snorkeling. I was feeling no pain and I decided to swim out with just my flippers and mask to find the giant sea turtles. I had a banana in my pocket (don't recommend this!) to lure them in. I was out a ways and one giant turtle swam right underneath me and proceeded to disappear into the darkness of the sea in front of me. So I pulled the banana out (yes it was actually a banana, not MY banana!) of my pocket. Almost instantly I felt my legs hitting another snorkeler so I turned to apologize. When I turned I had the biggest turtle I've ever seen in person right in my face. After struggling with him a few seconds i threw the banana as I figured that was what he was after. By the time he had gone, I had taken on water in my mask and was sitting to panic. I began to swim back to shore, struggling to breathe through the tiny tube, staring to go dark and panic had fully set in as I was too far from anyone to yell for help and I was scared to waste the breath to do it. I spotted a huge rock and swam for that hoping if I could get to the rock it would be tall enough that I could stand and get a break. It was!! I made it to the rock, stood up and was just barely able to get my head above water. I yelled to my wife to bring me a float. It was very traumatic! But I was ok after I calmed down. This situation haunts me to this day and is integral to my journey I promise lol.

So that was in early November of last year. Not long after that, I was having some morning time with my wife and I was having difficulty breathing and almost having a panic attack. Stood up, caught my breath and thought little of it. I was taking sleeping pills the night before and attributed it to that and decided to stop taking those. To be clear I was still on mucho steroids at this point.

That would have been sometime in December of last year. A little later, I was in the gym, training no harder than usual and something came over me... I felt kike I was going to pass out when I was done a set of overhead presses. I got up, walked to the change room like a food and hid myself in the corner until the feeling passed. Hmm.. I thought.. that was weird. Didn't give it too much attention and continued on with life as normal.

Now we are coming into January and February of last year. The panic attacks keep coming more and more often. I'm still on a fair amount of test and deca. I start noticing my stomach hurting quite often. The pain is usually in one spot but was kinda migrating around as if if wasn't stationary from one hour to the next. So now I'm stating to wonder wtf is going on here! I drop the gear and go to just a little test to keep me sane, start messing with my supplements to see what's going on. Now I'm determined to pinpoint the issue. Made an appointment to see my doc and see if I can get some blood work.

Now we are into May and I'm thinking, how can this be. I have all these random problems with health and my cognition is starting to slip! One hour I'm good, the next I'm inside my head and unable to focus on anything. Either I'm losing my mind or there is something very wrong with me! So of course, after I talk to chat gpt more than any sane person ever should, I try everything I can think of to fix this. Blood results were good except hematocrit and hemoglobin (big surprise there lol), so I donate blood. This actually make me feel a bit better. So there you go! I figured it out! High rbc was causing me all these troubles. Whew! Well... A week later everything was back in full force again. It was back to the drawing board...

Fast fwd to 3 weeks ago. At this point, I had been in the ER several times, had X-rays, CT scan, blood work several times, echo cardiogram for my heart specialist (I was born with an abnormal heart valve). Everything came back ok. Tried countless other remedies you can only find on Joe Rogan podcasts. Switched to only pharmacy test at 100mg a week from my doctor. Ivermectin, oil of oregano... But no matter what I tried, nothing seemed to coordinate with the seemingly random symptoms of stomach pain and anxiety. And I mean I tried everything. Or so I thought...

A few weeks ago, our annual group trip Mexico came around. I was almost 6 grand deep for this trip and contemplated cancelling at the literal last minute because I couldn't figure this out. But I went.. before leaving I looked at what supps to bring. And I decided to bring the kitchen sink. I had it all. I even bought and filled one of those daily pill dispensers so I wouldn't miss any of the important ones like my stomach acid ppi pills or my blood pressure med (an ARB). The only pill I left was my finasteride. Didn't think I would need that since I was on such a low dose of test and it's only a week. So travel day came and it was torture. My gut was in pain so bad and I was in my usual fog. So far this was turning into my worst nightmare. We get to the resort and decide to throw a hail Mary and take only half of my BP pill the first day since I knew I would be drinking. Low and behold I felt better and better as the week went on. I did absolutely nothing healthy that week. I drank, ate garbage and somehow felt better than I had felt for a year! Maybe I'm just meant to be an alcoholic I thought.. actually what I thought was that my BP medication had been fuking with me this entire time. Although that didn't quite add up as there were times when I felt decent, but only for short periods, like a few days. So we get back and I feel good and decide to hit the gym and it goes extraordinarily well.. no anxiety, no flushed feeling after a heavy lift... I literally figured this out!! ... It was my Candesartan! That is until the begining of last week. It all came back with a vengeance. So I go to the doctor again and tell him what happened and he basically shakes his head and says "I have no idea." So I asked him for more test and went on my way.

So then this past week I start thinking back to what this could possible be, if it's not the candesartan. Why did I feel so good in Mexico. What did it start taking or doing again once I was back.. and it popped into my head that finasteride was the one thing this might be. I did a little research on this drug and low and behold!! Finasteride is not the benign hair and prostate saving drug I was under the impression it was!! Not even close!! This shit has side effects that made what's left of my hair curl!! I stopped it immediately last Monday and have been on an upward trajectory physically and mentally every since! It's night and day.

So how can I be so sure it's finasteride? Well... This poison was first prescribed to me at the beginning of November last year. This coincides with the beginning of ALL of these strange issues. I would take is MOST of the time but not everyday, sometimes every other day, sometimes I would stop for a week and stay again. I did not think this stuff had any major side effects, and in fact if you would have asked me before, I would have told you that it's not good to stop this drug since I've heard that over and over again in the past. Well.. as it turns out, this shit has been fuking with me for a year. Many of the bad side effects are reported with just a 1mg dose and mine is 5mg! I literally thought I was losing my mind for the last year.

So, very long story very short.. finasteride is poison for some, me included.
Click to expand...
Oh, the relevance of the turtle this whole time!! I thought I had PTSD from that event. I forgot to mention that when the panic attacks would happen, my mind would literally go right back to me struggling for air and seeing that rock, praying the water wasn't going to be over my head if I stood on it. I don't even know if that's what PTSD is, but if it is, I feel bad for anyone that has to relive something worse each time they get stressed.
 
rrrrolla said:
We are heading down again second week of January to the palace and can't fukin wait! The adult only section was a little too sterile for us. We like the traditional colors of the palace. And kids don't bother me for whatever reason. Mine are all grown so I'm back to not being annoyed by them all day everyday lol!
Click to expand...
Normally we say on the high end resort and there is usually another 1 or 2 resorts right beside, so our is nice and quiet, no line ups and then if we want action we go tot he other ones. But then if we don't want to put up with the insanity we can leave.
 
rrrrolla said:
Oh, the relevance of the turtle this whole time!! I thought I had PTSD from that event. I forgot to mention that when the panic attacks would happen, my mind would literally go right back to me struggling for air and seeing that rock, praying the water wasn't going to be over my head if I stood on it. I don't even know if that's what PTSD is, but if it is, I feel bad for anyone that has to relive something worse each time they get stressed.
Click to expand...
I had the delta variant of covid (checked when we got back, I knew I felt funny) we went because I knew things were going to get shut down, and it did 2 days before my trip ended. Well I was snorkeling with my grandson, and they were going fast, I had to drag my grandson along to keep up and I couldn't breathe. It got so bad at one point I'm gasping for air, thank god for the belly flotation device, I was just sitting in the ocean wondering how I am going to make back to the boat and the guy is calling me to come, but I couldn't breathe, he's getting mad and I'm thinking I don't want to drown, so fucking come and get me, so I came back super slowly so I could keep up with my breathing. That was fucking scary.

Then the next time I snorkeled like 5 years later, the ocean was so choppy it was insane. I started to panic thinking I'm going to drown (maybe partly from before) and then I finally calmed myself down and I was fine. Good thing because it was a great trip, got to hold a puffer fish, saw a ton of fish, we went on a personal guide and the kid working for us was going insane handing us all sorts of fish that were easy to catch.
 
Update, have still been improving daily, nearly 100% now and pumped to be training hard and heavy again and def gonna put some size back on! Already up 10lbs just from eating right again. Have to try and get a couple of before pics to show what's left after a year of hell.
 
Finasteride was a horrible experience for me as well. Muscle cramps/aches to all fet out (probably rhabdomyolysis but didn't have bloods to confirm) and pretry severe ED issues that lasted for weeks after stopping it. I wasn't on it very long. Terrible shit category for this guy.

Worse off to note....however related somewhat to this story....

I had a green sea turtle run into me in Costa Rica while I was standing in about 5ish feet of water on a sand flat just off a reef with my kiddo.

Fucker hit me some hard and knocked me right off my feet...theyre pretty big fuckers....not leatherback big...still....a big animal.

I was convinced a bully had finally gotten me and in the wash of my ass-over-applecart panic...all I could think was..... with all the stupid shit I've done....some cunt shark gets me while wading off some beach and I'm at least 2hrs to a hospital...so I'm fucked..

But nope....just a big cunt turtle that had no regard for me or where I was standing.

I only got a glimpse of it... but the kiddo saw everything and thought it was hilarious.
 
biguglynewf said:
Finasteride was a horrible experience for me as well. Muscle cramps/aches to all fet out (probably rhabdomyolysis but didn't have bloods to confirm) and pretry severe ED issues that lasted for weeks after stopping it. I wasn't on it very long. Terrible shit category for this guy.

Worse off to note....however related somewhat to this story....

I had a green sea turtle run into me in Costa Rica while I was standing in about 5ish feet of water on a sand flat just off a reef with my kiddo.

Fucker hit me some hard and knocked me right off my feet...theyre pretty big fuckers....not leatherback big...still....a big animal.

I was convinced a bully had finally gotten me and in the wash of my ass-over-applecart panic...all I could think was..... with all the stupid shit I've done....some cunt shark gets me while wading off some beach and I'm at least 2hrs to a hospital...so I'm fucked..

But nope....just a big cunt turtle that had no regard for me or where I was standing.

I only got a glimpse of it... but the kiddo saw everything and thought it was hilarious.
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Lol, I had the same thoughts running through my head. I thought, seriously, this is how I die? Fml. Needless to say, I don't swim in the ocean anymore. Fuk that!
 
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