7 months quit - things might be returning to normal

Member Stories
#1

I’m not counting my chickens. I’m writing this with the knowledge that I may crash again, but I hope it can provide hope to anyone that is suffering.

I took generic finasteride for 5 months (Aug '14-Jan '15) .5mg EOD.

The first month was weird; my desire for women disappeared, their curves and body shape didn’t arouse me in anyway. I could still recognise the beauty of woman but the sexual desire immediately disappeared. The weird thing was that I enjoyed not having the distraction of women in my life, I got on with my work and enjoyed it more than ever, and my general depressive thoughts about life subsided.

The next months taking fin my libido started to come back, not to the same level but to a level that was OK by me. But by Christmas time I was concerned as to how my 70% libido would affect me through the rest of my life. I felt less of a man. By the end of the Christmas period my sexual desire went from 70% to about 30% and even looking at porn barely gave me a semi. I had also developed a chest pain which was concerning me, whether I might have had heart problems

I decided to quit fin in January, and I had the classic crash. The chest pains went away but left with 30% libido, weak erections, and sleep problems. This got worse over the next 6 months, and I also started to get muscle aches in my biceps and thighs, and generally felt weak. I forced myself to look at pornography, to masturbate (with weak erections and high sensitivity to ejaculation) to try and remind my brain that I was a sexual being. I had a strong desire to get back what was once mine.

I forced myself to exercise as hard as I could, long bike rides at the highest speed I could muster, doing any physical work with a high level of commitment, at a lot of protein, took multivitamins, and kept a monologue in my head every time I saw a beautiful woman of ‘wow, she’s so hot’ or whatever, just to try and create some sort of spur to my former self. I had a fear of permanent side effects lingering over my head the whole 6 months.

My fear for permanent side effects never went away until this week due to my libido coming back ten fold. I feel like I used to when it comes to looking at women. My erections seem as strong as they ever where and my sensitivity to ejaculation has improved greatly. The itch that came with ejaculation has returned and my hair has started to fall out again, just like the fin shed.

I hope I retain my libido, my muscle aches seem to have subsided at exactly the same time which is positive. I honestly don’t know what’s caused the improvement, my guess that my body is finally righting itself. I had a strong mental desire to overcome the problem, I’m not sure whether the exercise was a huge factor but it surely helped my sanity.

Crossed fingers. Hope you guys find some hope in this

  1. Where are you from (country)? UK

  2. How did you find this forum (Google

  3. What is your current age, height, weight? 29. 6’4".

  4. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise? Yes. Cardio.

  5. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)? I keep an eye on what I eat, I wouldn’t consider myself a fully healthy eater.

  6. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)? Hair

  7. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)? 5 months

  8. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride? 28

  9. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit? 28

  10. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)? cold turkey

  11. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic? Generic

  12. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)? 0.5 EOD

  13. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects? day 2

  14. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation? Libido loss, sleep problems, weaker erections, muscle aches.

Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[x ] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[x ] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[x ] Loss of Morning Erections
[ x] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[x ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[x] Watery Ejaculate
[x ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[x ] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[ ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[x ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts

Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[x ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[ ] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[x ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[x ] 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)

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug? none

  2. 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)? testosterone increased marginally in blood tests comparing pre-fin to post fin. (Did not get blood tested on fin)

#2

Hi there,

Thanks for the message. It’s always good to see some people coming out of this mess, no matter if it’s permanent or temporary. It’s impressive that this seem to arrive almost overnight.

Are you taking any sort of vitamins? A good test may be to stop everything and see if you still feel ok.

Take care and we appreciate and follow ups! Hope things will stay this way !!

#3

It’s been a whole week now that I feel normal.

If my hormones have seemingly righted themselves 7 months after going cold turkey, is that a normal thing when it comes to hormonal drugs such as propecia?

It’s weird that it’s taken me the same amount of time off the drug, vs the time on the drug, to seemingly recover. (6 months on it, 7 months to hopefully recover)

Why has my dormant libido suddenly gone, “Hey! Yeah! Ready now! Sorry 'bout that.”

#4

Great news, I hope it is not temporary.

Have you made any changes in your diet, like removing gluten, sugars, coffee ?

#5

Well I don’t know. I took the drug for 18 months at first and then like 4 months later on, so 22 months total. I’ve been off the drug for 4 years now and I still haven’t “bounced back”.

#6

Just an update here; I still have an issue with sides - that week of normal libido lasted around a week and then it stopped.

My situation is better now so here is how it is;

Positives:

  • My erection quality is good (i.e. firm) and I can masturbate at least twice a twice a day
  • I quit any drinking and smoking I was doing and my memory has improved vastly (which had worsened on fin and post-fin)
  • I’m working out 3-5 times a week with cardio and anaerobic exercise which has helped with my self esteem and body image though I struggle to do this when the weather’s cold
  • When I take DIM my libido mildly comes back - but it doesn’t stick around for more than a week or so (anyone know why?)
  • For some weird reason I still don’t have depressive thoughts like I did pre-fin - I often got a lot more sad than I do now - but the same time I also got more happy

Negatives:

  • I still don’t have anywhere near the same sexual desire I did, I look at women thinking ‘why don’t I find her exciting any more?’ - probably the most depressing symptom
  • I’ve put on fat around my hips and other weird places I didn’t have before, and struggle to build muscle
  • My testicles often shrink when I have an erection to the point that my right one moves up into my body
  • My foreskin has creases/wrinkles that have developed over the past year (no f***ing idea)
  • My ejaculate quality is often not great, and doesn’t jet-out like it did even half a year ago
  • Still can’t ‘curb’ like I used to
  • My passion for life in general is minimized, I’m lucky to have a good job but I really have very little motivation to follow my ‘dreams’

Neutral

  • I’m not giving up and keep my thoughts geared towards recovery

Things I’m doing to try and alleviate:

  • (As I said) Cardio and anaerobic
  • DIM (occasionally)
  • Zinc and multivitamins
  • Quit smoking and drinking
  • Eating healthier (not drastically, just less junk food really)
  • Not googling my symptoms too much (I still do it though)

Does anyone have any advice for me on what else I should be doing to improve my libido and fat distribution?

#7

Hey HangingOn! How are you doing?! Hope you are better! Reading stories like yours help me on keep going.
Regards.

#8

Hi there,

Here are some things that have improved:

  • Muscles aches gone - I’ve been doing HIIT and my physique has improved - metabolism seems to have sped up
  • Sleep improved dramatically (I do take 50mg of Hydrochloride sleeping tablets and usually have one glass on red wine per night) - I get 8 hours sleep consistently now

    Here are things that are still bad:
  • Libido - it’s been in the same state for a while - no real desire for sex - I don’t see women how I used to at all - I used to have a very high sex drive and now I very much have to consciously initiate sexual thoughts.
  • General interest in life diminished - one of the saddest things of all is that I don’t spontaneously write music any more and don’t have an urge to like I used to. My focus has shifted to exercise and video games that take my mind off reality.
  • Erections are often weak. I can get a full blown hard erection but it seems very dependant on the circumstances, time of day, weirdly if I have less sleep I’m usually hornier. I’ve tried refraining from watching porn, but it seems I get the best erections when I do watch it. I’ve had 3 sexual encounters with separate girls since quitting - one of which was a complete failure. The other two were underwhelming - neither situation aroused me a great deal.

Here’s what I’ve been taking:

I took DIM for a while. My relationship with it was odd. It occasionally improved my libido ten fold but wouldn’t last. Though when I was using it my flacid penis would wrinkle and my pecks would become oddly sensitive. So I stopped using DIM

I’ve taken zinc, multivitamins, Tribulus, Maca, biotin and I wouldn’t say any helped considerably.

Right now I’m taking nothing, supplement wise

I’ve still quit any kind of smoking.

Last thoughts

My pessimistic brain is starting to think my libido is never going to return, it’s been a year and a half now since quitting.

Getting help from the NHS is proving difficult, I’ve been going for blood tests but I’m not getting much progress with them, I had a lower than normal (for me) testosterone last test, but have done another that I’m awaiting the results for. My GP has mentioned he is considering putting me on TRT. Not sure if I’ll take the offer or not.

So, I can get decent erections they just take a lot more work than they used to and are definitely not reliable, I have little animalistic desire or intimate pleasure with women like I used to, but the muscle aches have gone for a while now and my sleep has improved.

#9

So keep Hanging on there! it takes time for all that i have read! have you considered water fast and paleo diet?
Before you go on TRT take a look at this.
I am considering it.

toddleemd.com/2016/01/07/post-f … -syndrome/