0) Where are you from (country)?
Melbourne, Australia.
1) 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 search, via propeciasideeffects.com
- What is your current age, height, weight?
25, 6", 85kg
3) Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
I walk everywhere but do not exercise.
4) What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
I eat meat, and I also eat very healthily.
5) Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
Self-esteem for hair loss.
6) For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
28 days.
7) How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
25, started taking Finasteride on the 1st of August, 2011.
8) How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
25, stopped taking Finasteride on the 28th of August, 2011.
9) How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
Cold turkey, and with ease… the side-effects were far too frightening!
10) What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
Finasteride 5, by Pharmacor.
11) What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
1/4th of a 5mg tablet a day, as divided with a pill cutter.
12) How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
Immediate impotence on the 28th day. Never did my body give me any indication that I was responding negatively to the drug until then.
13) What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
I think I’m back to normal now, although for a good week after I quit the drug there was a deep pain from within my pelvis.
Put an X beside all that apply:
Sexual
[ ] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ ] Erectile Dysfunction
[X] Complete Impotence
[X] Loss of Morning Erections
[X] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[X] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ ] Watery Ejaculate
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate
[X] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[X] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[ ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[X] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[X] Depression / Melancholy
Physical
[X] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[X] 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
[X] Prostate pain
[X] 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)
14) What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
I have since been using the topical treatment Minoxidil, which effects so far seem to be promising.
15) 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)?
I never had a pre blood test.
16) Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?
Yes, in my story I talk a lot of self-consciousness, depression, and the insecurities trigger from going bald. I argue that many people will try Finasteride because they have no-one to talk to in regards their mental health, as hair loss is still such a shameful and “taboo” topic amongst young men.
17) Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
After a long battle, in scandal of tilting self-esteem, vanity valiantly fired the last shot and won. For months I fought a silent, psychological war in my mind. It was a painful, tiresome and very lonely period.
My hair has been thinning slowly for a long time, but noticeably faster in the past year. To hide my unveiling scalp, I bought a set of clippers and gave myself short haircuts, usually a number 2 or 3. This helped me hide my thinning crown, but accentuated my receding hairline at the front. To me, an obviously balding crown is worse than a receding hairline because you can’t see it. Confidence swiftly drops to paranoia in the presence of uncertainty.
You can sense people observing your scalp from behind. You can feel an onlooker’s judging stare in a library, or on public transport, at a cinema or a restaurant. Strangers silently noting your flawed gene pool, and without uttering a word, they wear away your pride.
I was always told that the hair gene is inherited from your mother’s side. I think this claim is a myth. My mother has beautiful, thick, curly brown hair – a shade almost black, and so does her mother. In fact, everyone on my mother’s side has thick, beautiful hair. But they do have big noses – and I inherited the big nose instead of the thick hair.
My family does have a history of male pattern baldness on my father’s side. My grandfather was completely bald by the age of 29. That depressing forecast has kept a shadow at the back of my mind since a young age. My father still has a full head of hair, although it is thin and without much volume. Unjustly, my two sisters and me inherited my father’s hair and not our mother’s. So ‘the mother holding the dominant hair gene’ fable is just that.
It took me a lot of courage to schedule an appointment with my local GP and obtain a script. My doctor was warm and supportive of my decision, but still for weeks I procrastinated over taking the pills. I was trying the high-profile synthetic antiandrogen, finasteride (commonly marketed as Propecia by Merck). Because of the known irreversible side effects (which can include impotence, erectile dysfunction and trigger male breast cancer) along with controversial, clashing lab studies on the percentages of these side effects, gathering the confidence to start taking finasteride was a big step – even while holding the miracle drug in my hand.
I started university later that most: after high school I chose to work full time for over two years, then I travelled overseas for another year. So at university most of the guys I share classes with are younger than me. Sometimes by up to five years.
Now in my final year, my hair was turning grey and thinning rapidly. Even though I have many friends at university, it was them who started making cracks about my age and my balding head. They’d make jokes at my expense, not understanding how upsetting their remarks were. I got through first semester and never retaliated to their stupid comments. I pretended it didn’t bother me. I never pulled them aside and said, “what you said back there was really hurtful”.
Making people aware of what really gets to you will always come back to haunt you. It’s not a good idea. Why? Forget what your mother taught you. When a group of young males tease, never let them know you feel victimized. You’ll only encourage them to do it again. Often I’d be really hurt by my friends.
A friend is never a permanent character. They drift between being close and distant like the tide or the arms of a clock. They can only give you their full attention for a brief period – when it is appropriate for them, like the inconsistent visibility of the moon. It is during these distant, moonless periods that people will disdainfully turf the knowledge of a friend’s most difficult insecurity.
If you grant your friends the knowledge of your insecurity – they will, even if unknowingly, abuse it. Innocently, they’ll deliver an occasional joke to remind you of the information you’ve entrusted to them. I’m not using the word ‘innocently’ light-heartedly. I must stress that they will feel their remark was justifiably tongue-in-cheek. They will manipulate you to quickly win any sharp quarrel. They will remind you of your secret, subtly when they want an upper-hand.
There are secrets in the world, but no single individual holds them for long. By writing this, a testament of my own suffering, I think I am revealing some truth in that claim. Circles of entrusted people will guard an individual’s secret. As social creatures, humans will always need to confide in others. Some friendship circles offer tighter security and protect secrets better than others, but it doesn’t mean they are subject to less gossiping than any other group.
The version of finasteride I obtained from my pharmacy was called ‘Finasteride 5’ and distributed by Pharmacor. I was instructed to eat 1/4th of the 5mg tablet each day. I bought a pill-cutter and enjoyed chopping the blue pill into pieces in the bathroom. I envisioned myself in a year from now, gazing into the steamy mirror after a shower. With one relaxed hand, I’d wipe the mirror clear to reveal my reflection. I’d have a big mop of brown hair all over my head, covering half my face. I’d look cool. I’d look shit hot. I’d be accepting of an exterior me. I’d look like a fucking lion with this mane of hair I’d soon have.
I looked into the bathroom mirror. I certainly didn’t see a lion. I saw a 25-year-old man with patchy head of short grey hair. A thinning crown. A receding hairline. Because these features, which I associated with inferiority and ugliness, consumed me, my other insecurities became accentuated. I noticed my inconsistent, mangy beard and my big nose. I noticed my un-tan-ably white skin and my lanky, un-toned body. I noticed my glasses. “If I’m bald and wearing these glasses,” I thought in shame – “I’ll look like a fucking Nazi!” I felt I looked beyond my years. I felt unattractive and completely undesirable. It was with that unhealthy and vanity-ridden mindset that I ate my first quarter-tablet of finasteride.
Life went on and nothing changed. I continued the second semester of university. I’d drink, go out and socialize. Sometimes I’d write. Every so often I’d catch a distant remark made ridiculing my thinning hair. The comments weren’t made every day. It’s not like I was being bullied – but because inside I was so insecure and fragile, I fed doubt to myself. I felt like no one wanted to hang out with me because I looked so old. I felt completely uncool and a hindrance to my friends. I fell into a forgotten, negative place at the back of my subconscious mind.
Three years ago, I suffered from anxiety and depression, which also heightened a lifelong sleeping disorder. These crass emotions were the jagged remainders, the psychological aftermath of a highly self-destructive, grinding narcotic and alcohol abusing individual. After escaping that plaguing journey, my skeletal self had to confront both past demons and future reality. Its long-term effect on my life, physically and mentally, has been beyond catastrophic. Part of me will never recover from this ultimate discomfort of self-loathing.
I saw a doctor who helped me address these withdrawal symptoms with various medical treatments. I was prescribed with oxazepam, an antidepressant, sold under the name Alepam 15. I ate half to a full 15mg tablet daily. I may have felt less depressed, more relaxed and could sleep easier, but I’d always wake up groggy and never write or do anything creative. The anti-depressants turned me into a drone and I resented their presence in my system. I could feel the drug inside me. It was because I could feel my creative tendencies being suffocated that I quit oxazepam and faced my problems without any synthetic aid.
But my depression was already present, I think, long before the finasteride tablets were introduced to my daily diet. My esteem was already low, but on finasteride it plummeted. I hadn’t been with a girl all year. All my other friends were going out, drinking, taking drugs and getting laid. I felt absolutely inferior. My stupid balding head dictated my life, like a beacon of my shame. I wished the drug would work faster. Why hasn’t anyone complemented me in so long? I wished I knew that if the finasteride was working at all. I’d chant this song I wrote whenever I cut up the pills:
Finasteride! Finasteride!
What, when and why? Finasteride!
Little blue wonder, make me alive
– And give me peace in mind!
One night I came home drunk and went into my bedroom. I took my clothes off and started masturbating. My penis was still relatively flaccid at this point. I lay down on my bed in a dizzy, drunken daze and went for it. I was getting harder. I could comfortably wrap my hand around my penis. I dramatized some past event with a girl from a while ago to entertain my fantasies. I was probably at it for a few minutes before I realized that my erection was completely gone. I looked down to my shriveled penis. “This isn’t good”, I thought. I jerked it repetitively. It felt hard like a little nut and was shriveled smaller than it usually is. It had virtually no sensuality in it at all. It was like I wasn’t even caressing my own penis. Automatically I knew it was the finasteride. Even though I was drunk, coming down from ecstasy and had been chain-smoking all night, deep down, I sensed it was the finasteride.
There is a vastly unappreciated, mystical bond between our bodies and minds. I believe firmly that each individual’s body and mind have their own unique relationship. They are friends, but some people’s aren’t very close friends. These people never learn to hold their liquor, and others over-dose and die from ambitious quantities of recreational drugs. A body and mind share and operate within a complex matrix of trust, ability and understanding of each other’s limitations.
Examples need not always be showcased with drug abuse either. Some people’s minds tell their bodies they’re fat, and as a result they become bulimic, for example. But regardless to my spiritual analysis of the relationship between the body and mind however, I never had any prior indication until that night that hinted the finasteride was sending me to impotency.
And I was absolutely impotent, quite instantly. I was humiliated. Sort of wanking – to not any kind of wanking at all. Total impotence. I looked over the Finasteride box. I read the ‘Side Effects’ section of the leaflet. On impotence it read:
For the most part these have been mild. In some cases, these side effects disappeared while the patient continued to take Pharmacor Finasteride 5. If symptoms persisted, they usually resolved on stopping the tablets.
The Pharmacor legal team is sharp enough not to elude clients with any consolation that your manhood will ever return once impotence arrives on the scene. In fact Pharmacor suggests you keep on gambling, to roll the dice again and continue to eat their pills. But what if the only chance l’m ever given to regain my manhood is to stop using finasteride right now? If I quit this instant, the drug will be expelled from my system sooner. I won’t be contributing to any further, potentially long-term, damages down there. Prolonging the use of this questionable product would be absolutely insane. Every time I re-read the leaflet, I noticed how cleverly written it was. It ultimately tells you nothing. Three lengthy sentences, and they all amount to saying absolutely nothing.
I guess if I’m already impotent because of finasteride – I may as well continue using it. I mean I could regain some extra hair. I may further damage the odds of getting my cock back – but I wouldn’t want to throw away that old dream of possibly getting some hair back… “Fuck that!” I thought aloud, “My hair was shit anyway. Even in high school it was crap. I don’t want it back”.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I didn’t dare go on the internet and scare myself on forums filled with horror stories from either California, Hong Kong or Italy. That wouldn’t be healthy or constructive in the slightest.
At a respectable hour after dawn, I got up and showered. I cleaned my fragile, shriveled penis carefully. It was still very small and felt dead. Zero sensation. I used my clippers around my public region so I could inspect the area. I felt a slight pain from deep inside my pelvis. I ate a big healthy breakfast and continued to eat well throughout the day. I didn’t smoke as much as I usually do. A local pharmacist couldn’t offer any valid remedies and told me to wait a few more days. I tried wanking again that night. It was difficult, and even though my penis was inflated, it wasn’t very stiff. I was able to ejaculate, but it was a persevering feat of endurance.
It took about three days for my penis to fight the impotence and return to its former self. I can now be aroused as easily as before and it appears that there hasn’t been any long-term damage.
I am not a Christian. I do not believe in that sort of almighty God, but because I had no one else to speak to, I did pray to a “God”. There is a quote I found, which I think if I’d found sooner would have helped me cope emotionally. It just so happens the writer of the quote is a well-known Christian, but to me this quote is beyond religion.
Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
– Paul Tournier
I have always struggled talking to people about my feelings, even though I am a very emotional person. My trial of finasteride lasted only two months and left me entirely impotent for almost five days. Every day it did get slightly better, but I can tell you that each of those five days were equally as frightening and stressful as the last.
Hair is a gift, an additional extra or a bonus, and to loose it does not compare with the psychological inadequacies that come hand-in-hand with impotency. To loose the sense of physical touch is on par with being deaf, blind or mute. You shouldn’t risk any of these senses for hair. No one should. You want hair so you can feel accepted and reconnect with people. I know this now.
In retrospect, I can say that gambling on finasteride – a drug that can potentially leave you impotent forever, is a foolish choice. I feel that most people who will try this drug will already be silently suffering from low self-esteem, social paranoia and depression. All I can offer to you is my story. I sincerely hope I’ve helped people identify some of their own psychological symptoms with my story.