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Where are you from (country)?
USA -
How did you find this forum (Google search – if so, what search terms? Via link from a forum or website – if so, what page? Other?)
Google - Finasteride Side Effects Long Term -
What is your current age, height, weight?
32, 6’2, 182 -
Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
Yes, aerobic -
What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
Organic veggies with meat sparringly -
Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
Hair Loss -
For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
11 years -
How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
21, Nov of 1999 -
How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
32, Sep 2011 -
How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
I started taking it off and on and then decided to stop, so I accidentally tapered you could say. -
What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
Started with Propecia then went to Proscar after 7 years. -
What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
1 propecia pill a day. After I changed to Proscar I cut one of those in half and ate half of it a day. -
How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
I never realized it until I stopped, then I understood how it had changed me…now I’ve crashed. -
What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
Brain fog, lowered sex drive, slurred speech, unmotivated.
Put an X beside all that apply:
Sexual
[ x] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ ] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[ ] Loss of Morning Erections
[ x] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[ ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ ] Watery Ejaculate
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[ x] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ x] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ x] Confusion
[ x] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ x] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[x ] Slurring of Speech
[ x] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ x] Depression / Melancholy
Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[ ] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ ] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes
Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature
[ ] Other (please explain)
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What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
No treatments yet, mainly exercise and diet. -
If you have pre or post-Finasteride bloodtests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug (pls post your test results in the “Blood Tests” section and link to them in your post)?
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Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?
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Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
If you’re wondering why my name is BrongFogBoy it’s because I meant to type “BrainFogBoy”. I was going to change it but figured it suitable as an example of my daily inaccuracies due to my brain fog.
I started losing hair when I was about 17, so at age 21 in 1999 I decided to get on propecia. I thought this was safe because it was being used in Proscar for prostate treatment and I figured by then they would know enough about it and any long term side effects, I had no idea how it would ultimately affect me.
When I first started on Propecia I was so young that I never really paid attention to my mood or to symptoms, I just assumed nothing would happen (I was invincible and that stuff only happens to other people) and so any changes were subtle and hardly noticeable because I didn’t pay attention. I never suspected anything was wrong with me whatsoever. Over time the symptoms slowly got worse (now that I think back on it) but it happened so slowly it was tough to tell. For 9 years I lived with a blanket pulled over my head that the way I was acting was just “me” and how I’ve matured - I never suspected anything.
At about year 9 I heard about Avodart. I decided to get on that and stop taking propecia, I took Avodart for a year and the side effects were massive and blatant. My brain fog was unbelievable. For awhile I didn’t even realize it was the Avodart, I thought maybe I was just maturing and that stuff didn’t make me mad anymore. I realized after awhile that I didn’t give a crap about anything. Someone could have come up and spit in my face and I would have wiped it away and continue to sit there like a zombie. I never had road rage anymore, nothing bothered me nor could it because just like you can’t irritate a coffee table you couldn’t bother me.
Going further: I couldn’t remember things, I couldn’t even talk straight. I would get on xbox live and people would call me retarded because I would talk slow and with a slur. I had always been known for my sense of humor and quick wit, that was absolutely a thing of the past. It wasn’t that I didn’t say anything funny, it was that I had absolutely no desire to respond to anything anyone said. I would go to a bar and sit there by myself all night staring at the wall and smacking my lips. I had turned into a full fledged weirdo and I now somewhat understand what insane people are going through…their brain won’t allow them to be normal just as I couldn’t. It took me over so much that it wouldn’t allow me to understand something was wrong with me. Just as a crazy person doesn’t realize he’s crazy, I didn’t realize anything was wrong with me. It’s a scary thought being trapped in your own mind - but I had moments where I came clear and immediately thought something was very wrong only to be taken back under by the drug and sent back into bring a zombie. It was those brief moments of clarity that turned out to be my saving grace.
After my girlfriend of five years whom I was living with cheated on me (although this is inexcusable I can’t blame her, I wasn’t giving her what she needed, attention, love, and a healthy sex life) I decided to get off of Avodart for a week and see what happened, amazingly I still wasn’t sure there was anything wrong, the drug was lying to me. After one week I noticed huge improvements and it became blatantly obvious that the drug was affecting me. Even though the half life is 6 months and it took a year to get it out of my system there was still huge unmistakable improvements. Thinking that I had returned to normal I went right back onto proscar as I “thought” I didn’t get side effects from it and had maintained my hair. I stayed on it until recently I began thinking “if Avodart is just a more powerful version of Proscar, maybe I’m having subtle side effects and don’t know it”. I decided to put it to the test.
I went off of proscar and after about a week I felt amazing. I felt completely alive like I hadn’t felt in years (11 to be exact), my brain was working with full force and funny and creative thoughts arose out of nowhere effortlessly…I remembered this feeling, it was the way I was before I was 21. I had to sit down because it was then that I realized I’d been cheating myself for the past 11 years and there was no way I was going back on proscar…this felt too good. I was a poor dude who had just remembered where he had buried his gold.
After about a week of feeling incredible it was torn away. I was left in the state I am now which is brain fog and decreased sex drive and overall motivation, it’s worse than when I was on proscar but not as bad as when I was on Avodart. It’s like a clamp is on my brain, I swear I can feel it. It’s like something is missing. I can’t concentrate like I used to, my personality is shot, I feel like I have to try to get into the mood for sex or to even have a basic conversation. It feels like I’m slowly losing my mind. Some nights I close my eyes and find my mind racing with these incoherent thoughts, it’s like a slide-show of pictures that are all out of order and I almost have to shake my head to come back to reality. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know how I got where I am, that I’m in some type of dream-like state or that none of this is real. It feels like time has less meaning, I don’t recall how long I’ve been in a place, an hour could be ten minutes or twenty seconds, this is not the reality I know at all.
This is what led to a search and found my exact symptoms described on this board. So now I’m on a mission to get myself back to normal, I’m in an amazing relationship right now and I’m going to fight to keep it. I will say that some days I seem to feel great, not completely normal but “pretty good” while others I feel like just sitting down and staring at a wall. In the mornings I feel like I can’t possibly go through the day. I can’t have a conversation and my tongue feels paralyzed. The thought of going on like this for the rest of my life sounds awful, and although I would never kill myself I can honestly see why someone would. It’s one thing when you’re born a certain way and that’s all you’ve ever known, but when you’ve had a good taste of peace of mind and then get it stripped away it can be a living nightmare.
I’m going to be doing a lot of searching and reading, if anyone has some “first steps” feel free to drop a response. I will get through this because the thing that’s taken away my motivation is ironically what’s motivating me to remove it. In the end the affects this drug have had on me will beat itself.
