Almost 2 weeks off

Member Stories
#1
  1. Where are you from (country)?

Israel

  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?)

I agess Google

  1. What is your current age, height, weight?

39 years old

178 cm

72 kg

  1. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?

Some occasional weight lifting, but not too much. 2 times a week on a good week, but usually much less.

  1. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?

I usually eat a very balanced diet - nothing too special.

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

Hair loss

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

10 years. The “funny” thing is that I never really knew if it helps much…

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

Approx at 2001. I was about 29.

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

21 April 2011. Just 10 days ago.

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

Cold turkey

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

Propecia

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

1mg/day

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

I really noticed only when I quite. I did not have a sexual partner for the last few years (sad I know), so I just didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. I can now recall something that alarmed me about this about 1 year ago, so I definitely had some of it then. I’m pretty certain I didn’t have anything substantial 2 years ago.

I really took notice of the problem only 10 days ago when I quit. As luck would have it, I now actually have a sexual partner, so this is a major issue now. Fortunately for me, she is taking it very well until now…

  1. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?

Put an X beside all that apply:

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

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

Physical
[ ] 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
[X] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

Misc
[?] 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)

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?

None

  1. 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)?

Don’t know…

  1. Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?

Will shortly post to the “questions” section.

  1. Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.

Will shortly post to the “questions” section.

#2

I quit the fin just about 10 days ago. I realize that the FAQ says not to panic and give the body a few weeks to recover, but frankly I am starting to panic a little bit because it is hard to understand what to
expect and whether what I’m experiencing is a “normal recovery” or cause for alarm.

I’ve been taking fin (1mg/day) for about 10 years now. The “funny” thing is that I never quite knew whether it helps, but there was an impression that it helped at the back of the head and the doctors kept giving me prescriptions without asking too many questions so I just kept going.

2 weeks ago, a friend of mine posted some pictures of me on facebook. I took a look at them and realized that I’m really mostly bald by now, so I said to my self: “OK - time to quite this drug”. I would have left it at that, but for some reason I opened my laptop later this evening and looked it up in wikipedia. From there I continued browsing and was obviously shocked to learn about the various issues.

It then dawn on me that I too had some of these symptoms for the last 12 months or so. It really is sad, but for various reason I didn’t have a sexual partner for the last 5 years, so I could not “gauge” my sexual functions very well, but I did realize after reading the stories that I too had some erectile dysfunction for approx. the last 12 months. Basically: I could function more or less OK when masturbating, but it would rarely be hard enough for penetration.

After reading a bit more I can say that I also had some slight forgetfulness and tiredness.

Obviously all this has strengthened my resolution to quit, and this I did - just 11 days ago.

Since then, it seems that things are going down hill:

I’m having slight testicle pain or increased sensitivity. It comes and goes. Some days it goes away completely. Some days just one of them. Some days it’s both. This started about 2-3 days after I quit.

The same with the penis, only even more slight, and also just in the general groin area.

The first 3-4 days since I quite I could masturbate as before (only tried a couple of times), and at one time it was obvious that I got a much better erection. The orgasm was also much better than usual. Since then it again seems harder to get a full erection, even harder than before I quit, and the orgasms are also quit “flat”. No good feeling whatsoever.

In the last 2 days I am also feeling increasingly tired.

Granted, some of this can be psychological, but I somehow manage to keep my good spirits, so I think I’m thinking clear enough to distinguish the physical from the mental.

Also, as luck would have it, I met a great lady just a week ago (right after I quit really) and at least until now, she is incredibly understanding. We have been sleeping together 2 nights already, and she totally understands that I am having a “medical problem” (I didn’t have the guts to tell her the full truth yet), and until now she has been taking it as well as I could have possibly hoped. I just wish I would have met her a few years ago…

Needless to say, I cannot have full intercourse with her, which is very frustrating for both of us (my libido is still pretty much intact).

So: why am I writing all this, you ask? First, this is my attempt to complete the picture of my post in the “member stories” sections. It felt a bit “dry” when I wrote it. Secondly, I feel a little better now that I’ve shared this, but most importantly:

Can anyone tell me if any of my “post quitting” symptoms part of “normal recovery” or should I start getting alarmed?

#3

Well, it is now 15 days since I quit.

The last couple of days were a bit of a roller coaster. On Wednesday night, and again on Friday night and Saturday morning I at last succeeded in having a real full intercourse with my new lady friend. We had to fool around quite a bit in order for me to get hard enough. It wasn’t easy, but once I managed to “squeeze it in” - it started working like it should with good results for both of us. It is really a god send for me to have a friend who is so understanding, especially at this point in time…

I guess at those times I regained my potency to approximately the level it was just before I quit. Not too good - but (barely) acceptable.

However, since then there is again a regression. I seem to have a bit of a cold, which seems to be very light, but I do feel very tired and my head is heavy. I don’t know if any of this is related to “the fin” or not. My sexual drive has also gone down to almost nothing. It is very strange for me to be lying next to a lovely naked women and feel almost nothing. Trying to have sex this morning turned out a disappointment for both of us. Maybe it was a mistake to even try…

So again I’m worried… I really wish all of this will soon be behind me…

#4

OK, Now I’m just over a month off, and I’m starting to see a pattern. After my last post, when I was feeling like I almost completely lost my libido, there has seemingly been a significant recovery: A few days later, I started feeling quite horny (much more than I ever remember myself being), and having spontaneous erections - something that I don’t remember having in the last few years.

After all of my worries it was actually quite reassuring and even fun… During the week or so that it lasted I was able to have real full intercourses with my girlfriend, and I was even able to go a few times in a row (she really liked that, obviously). The only thing that did feel a bit strange at first was that I didn’t enjoy the orgasms that much - but even this seemed to have become better after a few days.

But - about a week ago, things have again become worse. I’ve been having pains in my testicles for a number of days now - pain which is sometimes quite disturbing (it happens mostly during the day when I’m at work). Libido does not seem to be too down this time, but my sexual function is in an all-time-low and I can hardly get any erection at all.

The woman who has been my girlfriend for that last few weeks has also left me last night (although it does seem that it is not directly related to this, because this started to happen only after our relationship started to deteriorate, and we haven’t even tried having sex during this time), so I can’t really “take this to the lab”, but trying to masturbate produces almost no result. I can reach an orgasm but I am almost not hard at all and it is not fun at all. I should probably stop doing this for a few days anyway…

I would really like to hear from someone out here if I am now “official crashed”… I really hope that this downturn (which is the third since I quite) will also go away like the previous two, but this one does seem to be harder and to stay longer…

#5

I experienced an awful crash.

The “crash” seems to effect many different components of your body. You should feel as though you have less energy, less motivation, Difficulty focusing, memory problems. Also possibly, muscle weakness, joint or bone pains and of course severe sexual problems.

There is no text book description of what we believe is a “crash”, it’s a generic term to describe a large number of problems. Obviously, you may not have all of these.

It sounded as if you are describing brain fog in one of your previous posts. If you want to determine if you likely have brain fog, stand in front of the mirror with your face close to the mirror. If you find it difficult to to focus on your eyes & face in the mirror, you likely have brain fog. Another user here mentioned this and I recall looking in the mirror when I had brain fog and I knew I was a mess. So this is a good test, You’ll know as soon as you look in the mirror.

Good luck, try to stay positive.

#6

Completely disagree, the “crash” has been documented by many people’s endocrinology to involve a massive drop in endogenous Testosterone production and low LH/FSH to near or hypogonadal levels within a few weeks of quitting the drug, followed by the symptoms as outlined here: propeciahelp.com/symptoms

Note the color coding of the chart for those symptoms which appeared AFTER QUITTING, when T levels drop.

#7

Thanks for the responses! One of the most difficult things about all of this is that due to the sexual, and therefore somewhat embarrassing nature of all of this, and also because of the guilt (I did this to myslef in a way) - there are very few people I can talk to about this. This site is a godsend in this respect (and probably many others). I really appreciate this!

I do feel that I have a slight difficulty to mentally focus sometimes. I am a successful engineer in a hot-shot software company, so it can’t be that bad, but I do feel there is a slight difficulty sometimes. This has been both before and after I quit in the last few months.

I did the mirror test, and other then very slight long-sightedness (normal difficulty in focusing on nearby objects common to those with glasses or those that are slightly older) - I feel no problem.

Today has been slightly encouraging for me, because I woke up with a sort of morning-erection, which though it was not very hard - did give me cause for hope because I never had these in the last few years. The pain in my testicles has also somewhat subsided - I now feel it only part of the time and it’s less pronounced.

So yes, I am trying to stay positive, but this whole uncertainty really is almost overwhelming at times…

I also really want to start dating again, but it feels a bit like cheating if I know I probably can’t “perform”… But… I think that in the spirit of “stay positive” I’ll try to date anyway… If things turn out according to my optimistic scenario - I’ll be all good by next week…

I do have two questions to Mew though:

  • A lot of people here seem to be describing various symptoms at various levels. Some cannot have sex at all. Some can with difficulty. etc. So there seems to be a continuum of symptoms and severities. Would you say that they all have this massive hormonal drop that you describe (“the crash”) and they just experience it differently, or maybe it is just the severe cases that have “the crash” and others just have hard quitting symptoms?

  • Does my story seem consistent with a more-or-less “normal recovery” or should I start worrying (I mean - really worrying - not like now when I am just worrying)?

#8

The last couple of days were again quite a ride: On Friday the pain in my testicles seemed to have subsided some more, and I could masturbate and actually feel good doing it. I got a decent hard-on for a few minutes, and got a decent orgasm with a decent ejaculate. This was a new experience since more than two weeks ago.

On Friday night I had another new experience: A dream! It was not a very good one (a nightmare actually), but when I woke up I almost immediately realized (to my surprise and horror) that I did not have any dreams lately. I can’t remember even one in the last year or so, and I now realize that I had gradually “lost” my dreams in the last few years. This is yet another amazing and somewhat horrifying side-effect that I didn’t even realize I had until now. I guess the feeling that I always wake up tired that I had in the last year or year and a half is somehow related.

In any case, since Friday, every time I put my head down I wake up from a dream. My sleep seems to be much more refreshing too…

On Saturday, even though I didn’t sleep well at all I felt very energized and had a constant feeling of something “gushing” inside. Since I have a tendency towards having anxieties - I simply assumed it’s that…

OTOH the pain in my testicles again somewhat increased so I did feel a bit down about this, but in the evening I did feel very energized so I decided to pick myself up and go to the gym. This was another eye-opening experience: First I noticed that my driving has become somewhat more aggressive. In the gym itself, I noticed that I tend to stare more at the various attractive ladies that were there, like a horny teenager, and the last discovery was that the weights felt much much lighter, and running was much easier.

I’ve been going to the gym more or less regularly in the last few years (more or less since I started the propecia when I come to think of it) so I know my abilities and the weights that I can lift pretty darn well. Yesterday it was somehow much more easy and I could lift my regular wights without any effort at all.

It seems that this is another side-effect that I’ve been having and was completely unaware of. I used to wonder why I gain very little muscle and weight, although I was working out quite regularly. I used to attribute this to genetics. I guess the genetic cause is indeed there, but after this (quite amazing) experience in the gym yesterday - I have a pretty good guess what was the other factor.

When I came back home - I had a sudden realization: The aggressive driving, the “gushing” inside, the staring at the women - this are all symptoms of my male hormones kicking back in. It’s like I’m going through adolescence over again - in the space of a few days.

This is indeed an unbelievable experience… (It could have been real fun, had it not also been a very trying one…)

Today, the pain in my testicles was about the same - a bit better but still there - but I did have one encouraging experience: A few random spontaneous erections! I didn’t have any of those since about two weeks and a half ago (and never before I quit). They were not even near to 100% erections - they were pretty soft actually, but I do think this is encouraging…

So overall I feel somewhat encouraged now, but it seems that there is still a good way to go. It seems that my sexual functions are not yet even close to 100% (far from it), and also there is the worry that I will again experience a regression or that there won’t be any more improvement…

#9

Quick update: The roller-coaster seems to continue. I had about half a day when I felt very very horny and again had some (rather soft) spontaneous erections (this was Monday evening until Tuesday morning). This seems to correlate with a few hours when I suddenly didn’t have any pain in my testicles on Monday afternoon - but by Tuesday in the afternoon the pain in my testicles returned and the horniness is gone again. My penis is also more or less dead again now…

This is hell…

#10

The same thing seems to have happened again: I became increasingly horny on Thursday and extremely horny on Friday. On Friday evening I actually felt at some point that I must go home and masturbate, which I did, and got a surprisingly voluminous ejaculation, quite different than the very poor ones that I had in the last 2-3 weeks. This more or less continued on Saturday.

Feeling all this, I started dating again, and met a very nice girl on Saturday. (I use an internet dating site, so I simply started approaching a few women when I started to feel the improvement). We already met twice. On the second date I felt very horny, and we started kissing and fondling outside of her house for like an hour. It was obvious that had she not had a friend over in her one-room apartment, we would have “gone for it”. I’m pretty sure that my sexual functions were up to it at that point, and that both of us would have enjoyed this.

But now I feel that my libido and sexual functions are going down yet again. This is becoming nightmarish…

#11

Libido and sexual functions still seem to be going down. It’s a slow decline, but it’s there…

I just met a very lovely lady. We really hit hit of and I’ll be seeing her on Wednesday. This will be our 3rd date, we plan to take the car to another city, see some museums. After that we’ll probably go to her apartment. After a very passionate 2nd date we more or less agreed that we will be having sex in the next date… This was when my libido was at its peak. I now fear that instead of sex we will have to sit down and talk about my condition… Not very romantic…

I am trying to stay positive, but it isn’t easy…

#12

Libido and sexual functions now nearly at zero level.

See full story of the last few days here:
http://www.propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38444#p38444

#13

Mixed blessings (or rather curses):

Libido is still somewhat alive. I’ve been to bed with my new GF a second time the day before yesterday, and I did have a (very partial) erection. I asked her to “try” and I did manage to “get it in there”. However - I felt almost nothing and I quickly lost it…

She is very understanding, and I really like her - but I’m not sure how long this would last while I am in this state…

The pain in the testicles seems to subside again.

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a very annoying, but slight, “brain fog” and I was feeling extremely anxious and irritable. It was like I wasn’t myself. I felt I could kill someone or hurt myself. I went to my parents house for lunch, and slept there for an hour or so - and then it was gone…

Masturbation is almost impossible now: No hardness and no pleasure whatsoever, but ejaculate volume seems to be going up (compared to nearly nothing a few days earlier)…

I went to set an appointment with a Urologist that specializes in sexual functions. The receptionist read the letter from my GP, and immediately sighed and said she is “seeing a lot of men coming with this propecia”. She said they “sometimes recover” but could not say how many do. I will phone him personally tomorrow and see what he has to say before I pay for this.

#14

any updates?

#15

Thanks for the interest, spstriken. It’s is a shock for me to realize that I’ve been away from these forums for 8 months…

Updates are as follows:

  • There have been many ups and downs during this time. The most marked and surprising effect was a problem with thyroid: Pains and high degrees of irritability and sleeping difficulties (both seem relevant to thyroid). This has been coming and going in waves, but has now mostly subsided.
  • Other side effects (brain fog, tiredness, bone pains, strange urine and body smells) have slowly subsided and are now completely gone or very close to that, except sexual functions.

The things that are remaining include sexual function that still seems low. With the girlfriend mentioned above I did manage to have normal sex after a few more tries, and I was even under the impression that she really liked it. That was very fun and partially liberating form all the worries. Unfortunately, we did split up after about 3 months together because it seemed that we weren’t “advancing into something serious”.

In the months following that, I did not have any sexual partner, so it is really difficult to tell how I’ve been doing. From what I can tell from masturbation, things are more or less the same. The urologist that I went to (who specializes in sexual dysfunctions) sent me to do a battery of tests: Many blood tests, including hormones, and a test called “NPT” which measures your erections during sleep.

All the tests came fine (at least that’s what they say - see below), except for this NPT thing, which basically showed almost nothing (one very short and weak erection during the whole night, which I actually suspect to be my waking up for the bathroom).

However, I don’t “buy” the claim that my testosterone is fine, because I can gauge that by the growth of my beard, and this is markedly slower than I remember from before all this started.

After these tests, the urologist recommended that I take 5mg of Cialis daily, which will help erections, and he also says that after a few months of this the body sort of “remembers the effect”, so he says it’s a sort of rehabilitation. I’ve been taking this for the last 9 days, and results are mixed. It did help me produce some impressive erections some of the times, but I am hesitant to say that it really helps much because it somehow seems that the problem lies at a deeper lever: Sexual drive, or other factors that are more related to psychology than to blood flow. (I realize that this is not very clear - it’s difficult for me to explain or even understand myself).

In any case, I need to abandon this treatment now, because it seems to produce an irritation in my eyes, and this is potentially a much scarier side effect than sexual dysfunction… I still need to talk to the doctor about it, perhaps we can try 2.5mg - I don’t know… Taking Cialis has helped me remember how things could have been, and it is really a bummer to abandon this so quickly.

In any case, after 2 girlfriends that I had with this condition, and the months later, I am slowly coming to the conclusions that this is probably not going to go away, but that not all is lost. Although this has not been “tested” in the last few months, it seems that when I am with a caring and understanding partner the body does allow itself to compensate for much of the problem, and I need to work on my self-confidence in these situations. The fears that I have regarding all of this seem to be my main hindrance at this point, or at least, the hindrance that I am somehow able to control…

#16

Hey man, I just posted my member story yesterday, though I have lurked and posted a bit on this site for the better part of a year. I took Propecia for 2 years (having quit in January in 2011) and I too felt like all of my side effects pretty much set in after dropping the medication. I crashed in late April/early May and since then I feel like some aspects are starting to improve gradually with time, but still lagging/behind in the sexual dept. I also definitely agree that performance anxiety can really shut down your desire to engage in sex (or really even masturbation) if you are convinced it will end in failure. Clearly most of this shit is biological, but you really can’t underestimate the power of the brain to work against you. If you consider going months or years with poor libido and that wears you down psychologically, if by some miracle your sexual function is making tiny steps in the right direction, it can all be overlooked or wasted if you just assume new encounters will be like past shortcomings. I do feel like the days when I am closest to my former self are the days that I worry about this mess the least. Let me make clear, I’m not saying I feel like a man again… but I’m at least able to fool myself for a little while.