For anyone that has experienced blood pressure issues this may be helpful information. These are emails between myself and another forum member discussing Blood pressure problems we both have had while on Propecia or Finasteride. He is 27 and has been off for about a month. I am 35 and have been off 13 days as of today. I hope this may help someone that is having issues like this as well.
Theo wrote
I know how you feel.The pain bellow your ribs is cause by adrenal glands which were stressed to the limit.I had pain in the neck also where the tyroid gland is.I also had blood pressure of 150/100 and 120 heartbeats+extrasystoles.But now is normal 120/80.My first treatment was to stop finasteride
I took natural suplements and seems that things are getting very well for me(i’m as normal as I can get).I think you will have better days from now on, as long as you dont screw it again.
Don’t mess with your hormone balance.Your heavy lifting and testosterone abuse brought you here.Was not enough you already messed up with finansteride.
Each one separately could brought you down, but you had them both.
Here is what I took after quiting:
propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1037
Oh,
This is only my case.I dont know if it works for you.But I can tell you that after quiting finasteride in my case the first 2 weeks were the worse, not during finasteride:(
I quit this thing for over a month.I still have some body tremble sometimes during the day, but headache is gone, blood pressure normal, heartbeat 80.I feel like in convalescence.I started swiming a little heavier.No more sweats.
Aaron702 wrote
I’ve now been off of the Propecia for about 10 days and I do feel better. I’ve opted to quit all drugs that doctors were prescribing for the headache because they just seemed to make the symptoms worse as far as the fuzzy headedness etc. As far as the testosterone part goes. My last levels taken about a week ago were at 217 which is obviously very low. I am back on testosterone. I do however only use the gel that you rub on your arms in low dosage and they are taking my blood tests every 2 weeks to make sure that I don’t go above 750 or 800 which is a healthy range for my age and weight.
I don’t think that you understood what I was saying about the Testosterone use in my story though. I am not a body builder, nor do I really ever work out with weights. I noticed that my muscles were becoming rock hard and larger, and that it was also becoming very easy to lift my son who was 53 lbs at the time. I decided to see just how strong that I was and went to the gym in my community center and found out just how strong I was. I only lifted 1 time. About a month later my Testosterone levels were in the 1100’s and they took me off cold turkey. 1 month later I ended up in the Hospital with what is now being called Migraine headaches and High Blood Pressure. The low levels of testosterone are also a contributing factor.
It was important to mention because since most Doctors don’t know that Propecia/finasteride can drop Testosterone levels they don’t know what to do when they see the blood work and see the low levels of testosterone. Their answer was of course to supplement it. Because of this I think they may have caused permanent damage. I’ll have to wait and see though.
In the mean time they prescribed a few different medications for headache and now have given me a prescription for Blood pressure meds. I have opted to wait a couple more weeks to see if I recover from the BP issues after the Propecia is out of my system completely before I take any other Meds besides the Testosterone. The Testosterone is a must for survival at the moment. I will probably have to slowly wean off of it in a month or so and see if my body will produce testosterone again after that.
I am very glad that you have contacted me. I am sorry to hear that you too had side effects, but I hardly had anyone contribute their story or opinion to my post. It is nice to hear about people recovering while I am beginning to recover myself.
How long did it take for the pain under your ribs to go away? If we’re talking about the same thing. My pain seems to be subsiding a bit, however still very much there. It effects the area under my bottom ribs on both sides and a bit into the center sometimes. When I am sitting up at the computer like right now I feel this burning , almost bleeding type of pain. It’s tolerable at the moment, but can get to be really painful if I stay sitting up like this too long.
Thanks for your input. Quick question about the supplements/diet that you mentioned. What was your testosterone level at the time that you started this. The reason that I ask is that before I started supplementation again, mine was 217 which for by height and weight (6 ft, 268) was not even enough to function in the least. I cried like a little girl about just about anything, the whole world seemed gray and I could hardly get out of bed. Just bending down to put my shoes on was enough to wear me out.
Will this boost my T levels enough to go off of the testosterone completely, or should someone with levels as low as mine still take the testosterone for now? Or is this a question for Mew or Hypo? I can post this email to the site otherwise. I do notice it quite a bit if I miss my testosterone for the day.
Aaron
Theo wrote
Hello,
Well my story goes like this:I was arguing with my girlfriend and I went to gym that night.I noticed that I have some high blood pressure:140/90 for 2-3 months ,but that night things got precipitated.I started to have palpitations,anxiety,tremble.
The problem is I dont have medical insurance because I just finnished my international one and just swiched to Kaizer.The Kaizer will be valid starting january(I already start paying from october)
So in november I got this episode and I was very close to go to ER.But because I was afraid of 30k bill I decided to wait and see what is happening.
I will do my bloodwork in january.I presume is ok anyway I dont want to see some low levels of hormons now and I dont think this will help me.
I had some pain only on the left side but not very strong and from time to time.I also had in my neck were the tyroid is.
I think that testosterone will help you as long as you use a small quantity.You cannot jump from 217 to 1000.Your body somehow got used to low levels.Also check your CSF pressure(brain spinal fluid) and I suspect that thing is high too that why you have headache.
I’m now at one month after my first episode and things are getting better:headache is almost gone, small tremble blood pressure in normal range still varying a little:120-140 the big one and 70-90 the small one but in general is 125/80.Pulse again varies but between 75-95 usualy 80.I can sleep on my heart side.I couldn’t sleep before because everything was moving 
My plan is to get as my garlic+protein as possible to boost my testosterone.Antiinflamatories+vitamin C to calm down the body , some light exercise:I swim every 2 days+sauna. and in janurary if my testosterone is still low to use some testosterone cream too just to boost it.I avoid coke and alchool and anything that make my heart pumping.
Hey by the way last night all night my dick was so hard I couldn’t sleep
I wake at 2 am ,dick was hard as a rock, wake at 9.30 am in the morning again hard as a rock, went to bath and had to move around to calm it down to pee.
I realy improved alot, but dont forget at 3 months some guys get prostatitis so try to avoid that.Also it takes 1 month for finasteride effects to subside(early than that you are still under its influence).That if the crap doesn’t stay in the system for 6 month to 1 year.Nobody said finansteride doesnt get into deposits of your body.
I wish you fast recovery and keep in touch.Please dont think you have permanent damage yet.Just stay away from getting a crash again.I broke my back when I was young and I thought I will never be the same.And guess what 10 years later I was good as new.By the way I’m 27 yo.
p.s.When you use that cream everything returns to normal:BP, headache or just you feel better?
Aaron702 wrote
Thanks for the reply.
The Testosterone gel works very slowly compared to the injections. I have been on the gel for almost 3 weeks now and have shown improvement, but if I accidentally skip a day then I feel it a little, So I’m assuming that I don’t have a stable quantity.
The Headaches have been really bad at times, but I’ve been good for the past couple of days, I manage it with Motrin or Tylenol. Before that my doctor had me on Topamax, which is seizure medication that in lower doses works well with migraines. I was doing alright on it until it go to full dosage in my system and then had irregular heartbeat/arrhythmia and was sent to the hospital again. The stupid Neurologist didn’t even take me off of the drug because he didn’t know this was a possible side effect. I looked up the Drug on line and found out about it. I then fired him the next day.
No major BP issues either at the moment I am 140/90 or lower the past couple of days, and pulse around 80 to 85. Not great, but not as bad as I was at before. I am being very careful at the moment not to overstress, and I too have changed my diet a bit mostly to cut out high sodium and fat content.
You’re making me laugh my ass off about the “hard as a rock” thing. I never really had erectile dysfunction until right after I got out of the Hospital. I have tried twice since and no real luck. I could get it up, but I couldn’t keep it up long enough to really do anything with it. I attribute that to the low T levels and am sure I’ll be “strong like bull” again shortly. As my story shows, When my T levels were up my wife was very happy. I also think that the fear of having an aneurism or something comes into play as well. The last time we had sex was right before I went into the hospital. I got such a bad headache and my heart was pounding so hard that my wife almost called an ambulance.
Anyways. I am not really worried about it at the moment. I am just barely off of this crap now. ED is the least of my worries for the moment. If I can just get my head and BP right again I’ll be really happy. I’m thinking that we may want to post our conversation to the site in case there is somebody else like us with these issues as well. What do you think?
Talk to you later,
Aaron
Theo wrote
Hello,
Sure You can post it.The only thing is that we dont have a real treatment sugestion yet because is too early so others should proceed with caution.
It seems that ER decision is probably not the best option as money wise and actual getting better because they dont know what they are doing.And also quiting finasteride is a must and it seems this high blood pressure is definitely getting lower after quiting with or whitout low testosterone.In my case and in your case too BP had a lower trend after quiting.Also walking outside for 15 min help me calm down.
From what I read it seems things will get better in time anyway.Yesterday I had a really normal day.Today I feel a little tired, but I’m writing this from my desk at my job .
Aaron702 wrote
I don’t think that a treatment option is as important as people understanding all of the possible side effects that you can see with this crap. Your decision about not going to the ER, even though a bit dangerous, in the long run could be correct. I’ve been there twice now, the Dr’s bills are just now coming in. Wow! It’s almost criminal what they charge. I have insurance and this is still going to be a big chunk out of my wallet.
Western medicine {in my opinion} does not look for options for treatment. They just look at the symptoms and then treat with medication. As I said, this did not help. I still have no diagnosis of what they even think happened. All they have done is try to treat the headache and the blood pressure now.
As I’ve mentioned before in my postings the dangerous part is that most Dr’s wouldn’t think to take you off of this crap during treatment because there aren’t any “known side effects” like this published on the Merck Website. If my mother hadn’t found this website then I would probably still be on Propecia. No Dr’s attempted to take me off of it during treatment until I showed them the info from the website. What else could have happened do you think had I not stopped? I hate to think about it, but nevertheless, the thought keeps entering my head. If they didn’t conclude studies to find these side effects then they don’t really know the drug interactions either. I guarantee you people have died from this crap by now.
What do you think happens if you add BP meds with a drug like Topamax, add in some Testosterone and still on the Propecia? The fact that Dr’s are uneducated about any side effects like this is just as dangerous as the drug itself. Companies like Merck don’t see this as a problem. They will lose a law suit over this one day, but won’t give a shit because in the time that it takes for them to finally lose, they will have made billions more off of the drug.
At this point they must have had thousands of cases put in front of them explaining these and other side effects to their drug. Responsible business practice would be to at least mention that these other side effects may exist. Instead they say… “Tell your doctor about these or any other side effects.”
How do you know that they are side effects if there has never been a side effect like this mentioned? I am pretty sure that there are a lot of people like me that couldn’t link their issues to Propecia due to the fact that the issues came on slowly and had nothing to do with the side effects listed by Merck. As I mentioned previously in postings, I had asked my Dr if the Propecia could have anything to do with my low T levels and he said No.
So to answer your question, if you had gone to the hospital you probably would just be on other meds that are interacting with the Propecia as well. Believe it or not, the ED was a blessing in disguise. It was probably the only thing that made you think to quit the finasteride, right? Now you are recovering from all of the rest of the issues that came along with it hopefully and the ED is going away. If not for the ED you would have most likely been treated for the other stuff, and be stuck on costly and unnecessary BP meds for the rest of your life.
Hopefully we will both be back to the 120/75 BP that we had before the side effects kicked in. On top of all that, I have 50 extra lbs to deal with that came on since March or April of this year. I’m 268 now and was always between 205 and 225 over the past 10 years. The last 24 lbs were added under Dr’s care after coming to him complaining of uncontrollable weight gain and depression in May and June. The 24 Lbs was mostly muscle so I didn’t care at the time, but it is all fat now. Dr’s did this to me, and I paid for it. Mother-F!@kers
Aaron
Theo wrote
Hi,
I found a very interesting article:
postgradmed.com/issues/1998/ … chmidt.htm
My question is 
nly testosterone is low?what about LH what about FSH, what about cortisol, Tyroid hormons.Please read the article.In my opinion our high blood pressure was caused by different mecanism:yours is more adrenal fatigue, which you have that pain in the abdomen, mine by hyper/hipotyroidism - I have pain in my neck.
Can you tell me your whole hormone tests.I’m eager to get mine done in january.The good news in all this is that the other guys improved over time so things are not completly ireversible.
By the way adrenal fatigue has different stages.Cortisol regulates blood pressure and not testosterone.
postgradmed.com/issues/1998/ … chmidt.htm
Take your blood pressure while sitting down. Then, stand up and immediately take your blood pressure again. Your systolic (first) number should have raised 8 to 10 mm. If it dropped, you probably have adrenal fatigue
- Pupil dilation exam – (Equipment required: Flashlight and a mirror) Look into the mirror and shine the flashlight into the pupil of one eye. It should contract. If after 30 seconds, it stays the same or, even worse, dilates, you most likely have adrenal fatigue.
- Pain when pressing on adrenal glands (located over kidneys)
Aaron702 wrote
I don’t have a full screen of the tests. I will have to find out what they are. To my understanding, back in June, when I got the original blood work that showed the low T, the thyroid levels were “within normal range” At this time I did have a neck issue that felt like the scalene muscles hurt connecting to my clavicle. Now that I think about it, this did have a similar kind of burning, bleeding type of feeling. It went away though so I haven’t really thought about it in the past few months.
The Article is interesting. There is a book called “Living well with Hypothyroidism” if you think this is a possibility check out the book. It will list the symptoms as well. I think it may be a temporary thing as well though. Probably best to treat/recover from the main issue right now which is the Propecia. The other problems may just go away. I know that I am beginning to feel better. I added it up and this is my 12th day off of it. I have a long way to go still, but am very hopeful now that I will recover.
Aaron
Also, I forgot to add that in the hospital they did a full work up on my pituitary gland because they thought that they saw a growth on the cat scan. They later ruled out the growth with an MRI. My results were “normal” according to the Dr’s except for the low T levels. Again, I don’t know for sure what else they tested. I have requested from my new Internal Med Dr to have the full work up done. Problem being is that he doesn’t see “the need” to and insurance won’t pay for all of the tests according to him, I may go ahead and pay for it myself if necessary.
Aaron
