Are there women in this forum? 
The SSRI-finasteride from side effects also to women?
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Thanks for bringing this up Kitsunebi. A few of us were recently discussing the near absence of women describing their side effects on this forum. There seem to be quite a few female victims posting on the PSSD forum and in the Accutane sexual dysfunction thread on RxISK, so they are indeed out there.
Quite striking that they tend to describe similar physical and neurological symptoms and what can be considered the female version of our sexual side effects. Genital numbness and libido loss is prevalent among both sexes with this condition.
If there are any women out there reading this, please feel free to join and participate on this forum.
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There was one poor woman who suffered from PAS who was driven away by male users from this website from a few years back. It was so stupidly pathetic. I hope she’s doing well now. Seems like people of all genders could equally suffer from taking any of these drugs with 5ARI activity. These drugs don’t discriminate. Neither should we. Everyone regardless of gender should be welcome to participate here.
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I agree with you mercked. I think at the time guys on the forum didn’t know how closely symptoms aligned between the different post drug disorders. I’m not excusing their behaviour but sometimes people can get a bit confrontational on here.
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Well, I am new to this forum - I think what we have in common is that I was a woman with naturally high level of testosterone (for a woman), so I was a little bit crazy, but very intelligent, also - I had PCOS problems, and a bit of hair thinning - so, the endocrinologist prescribed the birth control pills and SPIRONOLACTONE (this shit is not only 5AR inhibitor, it inhibits all androgenic activity, this is the worst shit ever) that I believe destroyed me. Maybe 10 years ago this combination would have helped me, but now, as I am already old for a woman, I needed my testosterone to age well and keep me young…Now I look and feel like a 60 year old MAN (not even an old woman). The symptoms are all the same: numb genitals, dryness, thin and dry skin, neurological: depression, derealisation, dark thoughts…
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You’re right @mercked, as is @chapman, however I think we need to be a bit forgiving. People insist on this and that all the time. It is a very complex issue, especially for patients, and obviously as you say, the bigger picture has become clearer than it was before. I don’t think it’s useful to dwell on unhelpful posts of patients in the past. Rather, what we can all do now and going forward. This forum was successfully rebooted with a clear set of guidelines for conduct and additionally the administrators of this site have been very clear since on our view of the bigger picture here: Namely, this syndrome is occurring via reduction of androgen action at the cellular level, be it through direct receptor inhibition or an “upstream” reduction of circulating ligand as in the case of finasteride or accutane. Establishing this situation of endocrine disruption in predisposed individuals leading to a persistent, widely variable and too often very serious health condition is what we are trying to achieve to take this problem forward. We believe doing so will generate huge interest in something that is in our view a highly preserved mechanism across cell lines, and not just a small group of patients with problems tied to one drug. @Asia’s problems following Spironolactone is a great example, and @Asia: it would be excellent if you could consider participating in our community projects. The survey will launch very soon.
To answer the topic, there’s not so many right now, but we are in close contact with a leader of the community of women affected by GnRH analogues in similar ways to severe cases of PFS. They will hopefully be participating in our cross drug survey. Of course, women affected by this condition and the antiandrogenic substances responsible are very welcome here and we’d love more to share their stories. It’s interesting to note that late last year there was a publication titled ‘Post-finasteride syndrome’: what to tell our female patients?, which notes the posited explanation of alterations in androgen metabolism.
Re circulating levels, I don’t think that’s so important - at least, in terms of any potential hypogonadism. It’s a proven situation that PFS entails variable and significant overexpression of the AR, an epigenetic change at the local tissue level. In women with lower than average female levels of circulating T, peripheral tissue response is implicated in the development of androgen dependent conditions. Although some respond positively, in my personal view, as you are quite severely affected it’s unlikely, as with male patients, that administration of exogenous testosterone will aid with an issue that evidence is supporting cell level changes driving. Theoretically, and noted over and over practically, this could exacerbate symptoms. Both myself and the OP of this topic @Demon are very severe cases. We both have higher androgen levels after development of the condition despite atrophy of androgenic tissue.
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What values do you have to say you have higher androgen levels?
Yes, actually we two are the most serious cases of the forum. @axolotl even the most reckless, I would like to have his courage. Every day that passes I feel like dying… @Asia try to resist 
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This is a general point.
We know that women are as heavily affected as men.
See this article in Elle magazine about women hit by Accutane:
Accutane is just one part of the libido loss jigsaw. Propecia and anti-depressants are the other big boys.
Quietly these meds are hammering the libido and fertility of millions of patients, unknown to them. And currently, we do not know why Accutane, Propecia and anti-depresants have these side effects.
Women and men hit with side-effects need to join us here. Get onto our studies and let’s solve this together.
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