Welcome to our community. Please fill in the following template as a way of introducing yourself, and helping others to understand your background and situation.
Where are you from? Italy
How did you find this forum? I don’t remember, I’ve been reading it for years
What is your current age, height, weight? 43, 1.95 m, 92 kg
What specific drug did you use? finasteride
What dose did you take? 1 mg/day
What condition was being treated with the drug? I was losing my hair rapidly
For how long did you take the drug? 5 years
Date when you started the drug? end of 2012
Date when you quit the drug? end of 2017
Age when you quit? 36
How did you quit? taper off
How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects? after 2/3 years, because I remember in the first two years everything was fine
What side effects did you experience that have yet to resolve since discontinuation? I have 3 main problems:
1 - ED with total lack of libido
2 - Insomnia (sleep 5 hours max, with very poor sleep, sometimes after being awake for an hour I can sleep another 2 hours
3 - A sort of weird “inflammation” in my pubic area, it’s not pain, I would describe it as heat and discomfort
(by the way, this seems an unusual symptom so I would be glad if you guys could direct me to some member stories with this same symptom). Another symptom linked to this one is that if I don’t ejaculate for a week then the first time I do it’s really painful, it’s like lava flowing through my penis. Anyone have this?
A fourth problem would be brain fog but it receded with the years and I think my mental skills are at 80% of my normal values, even though my ability to retain memories is bad, mostly because I don’t sleep well I think.
Check the boxes that apply. You can save your post first, then interactively check/uncheck the boxes by clicking on them. If your symptoms change, please update your list.
Sexual
[ * ] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ * ] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[ * ] Loss of Morning Erections
[ * ] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[ * ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ ] Watery Ejaculate
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ * ] Inability or Difficulty to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[ * ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ * ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ * ] Confusion
[ * ] Memory Loss / Forgetfulness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[ * ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ * ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ * ] Suicidal Thoughts
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
[ ] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears)
[ ] Hearing loss
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature
[ * ] Other (please explain): Constant inflammation in pubic area, I can locate the source of the heat right above the basis of the penis, so it’s not the testicles, not the shaft, not the prostate, the inflammation comes from something else
What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug? I have tried DHEA, vitamins, pregnenolone, HCG, Bremelanotide
If you have pre or post-drug blood tests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug? Test is on the low end (350) and sometimes lower but also sometimes higher. For the year I was taking 2000 IU of HCG it was 900.
Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience?
Ten years is a long time, I’m hopeless and sometimes I think about suicide even though I know I’m not going to do it for another few years. I didn’t think this kind of hell existed on earth. I see my life pass in front of my eyes and I can’t do anything.
Tell us your story, in your own words, about your usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
Classic story, took the drug for a few years, at first no side effects and when they appeared I was too dumb to stop the poison immediately and continued for two years.
Now I wake up everyday thinking “this can’t be my life”, but it is, and I did it all on my own. How can I go on? I resist because my family would suffer too much and they don’t deserve that.
What has an effect:
- HCG - rises my testosterone, makes my mind sharp, makes my mood good, but all the other problems stay so after one year I stopped, also because my nipples were itchy and I didn’t want to develop gynecomastia, which luckily I didn’t.
- Abstinence - last year for roughly one hundred consecutive days I didn’t watch porn nor masturbate. My testosterone in the last month of that stretch was up to 850, and I wasn’t taking any drug whatsoever, so my mood was great but all the other problems stayed. Right now I’m at my second attempt at abstinence, it’s my fourth week but still feel no sign of high testosterone.
- Working out - I spent the last spring-summer working out doing calisthenics and tiring my body just to keep my bad thoughts at rest, and it actually worked because at the end of the summer I was in quite a good shape and quite in a good mood (not really but I could smile and crack jokes) so I noticed women were really attracted to me, which made me even more frustrated. I can’t believe this nightmare is real.
- Bremelanotide - This drug is weird, it’s the only drug that guarantees me an erection but it’s too random to be useful. It usually goes like this: I inject 3 mg, then for the first three hours I have a sort of nausea/stomachache, but resistible. Then 3 hours of nothing. Then from hour 6 to hour 9 or more I have several good erections (but with no libido) that last several minutes each, but at random times. These erections sometimes reappear in the morning of the next day. I usually then am in a good(ish) mood for the next three days because this stuff reminds me that my body is still capable of erections and maybe in the future we will all escape this hell.
These things did not solve my main 3 problems, but at least they made me go on. Apart from that, I’m desperate.
I would just like to have something in life to look forward to. Something. Doesn’t have to be a solution to my problems, just something to be happy about, in general.
I had everything to succeed in life, now I have nothing.