Long winded story— I had very good genetics etc. but started worrying about hair loss aged 19, and to be preemptive. I took finasteride at 0.25mg-0.5 for 3 months, in my second year of university. I contracted meibomian gland disease and very dry eyes, after 3 months, quit cold turkey, and then I had severe anxiety, loss of body hair etc. Couldnt cope with anything. I had one blood test on NHS as i could see i had hypothyroidisim, but as a 19 year old in the Uk we arent clued up, so they only measured my TSH which came back at 4, so they didnt even tell me, I also specifially asked for testosterone, which was 300 and they didnt tell me that. I just assume if they dont tell me its fine. Obviously 4 TSH is red flag and 300 is massive red flag
This drug obviously can have pharma grade damage, and I was lucky /priveleged to try everything to naturally recover ( taking a year out of university), exercising, diet, supplements. But nothing worked.
It took me a long time to realise it was the finasteride, but after reading papers about meibomian gland disease specifically arising from finasteride is irrefutable proof, I cant take something for 3 months, get this diagnosed condition, so it didnt matter how insane I felt, all those nonsense medical people just can use the easy explanation (kept trying to put me on SSRIs). Now there probably are a lot of people that jump on the band wangon and as a lot o the side effects are vague people can dismiss them. I think people can get on a different homestasis and be on it. But it is pharma grade stuff that might require pharma grade things to correct.
My theory is that taking a hormone altering drug like this at a key secondary hormonal change period (young 20s) can muck up the LH cycle.
I eventually realised and had various strategies with TRT/thyroid hormones being the last resort. And after my hormones suddenly crashed further, and I got a varocecle which is probably all related I jumped on TRT and thyroid, and most issues have gone, its just a nightmare dosing it, and I am pretty much off the thyroid , so I reckon it is possible to find an equilibrium again, but dont be afraid to muck about with clomid or other things rather than suffer endlessly as your system might need a rejig.
I still have dry eyes, but not nearly as bad, so that probably prooves that it does affect the receptors permanently somehow, as even on high testosterone my eyes are not 100%, they have slight blepharitis, but very minor.
Obviously it is very shit to be on hormones at such a young age, I think taking this as you are older, you knew what you were say 28+, so know exaclty what’s changed. whereas young 20s you are developing your niche and can go down very different world lines, and the hormonal system is ready to change, to mould to a society.
I do believe in hind sight, if I went to a private doctor straight after and had a course of clomid and thyroid, and kind of cycled steroids or whatever, the system would have rebalanced itself close enough.
It will come out eventually that this drug irrefutably causes permanent side effects, mostly through hormonal signalling changes.
The problem is some of you will be conflating your normal life problems with finasteride, which I can’t disentangle either. Like most people are pretty depressed, if your blood results are coming back fine, then its probably not receptor changes or epigenetics, as theres so much of that crap happening anyway.
And with testosterone 900 is not normal, 600 is high. and you dont need a TSH of 1, below 2 is fine. Id say go with 100 T a week, which is above average.
Doctors don’t know much at all on average, and dont give a crap,it is just about somebody who can make rational decisions with google as to what protocol to choose. The sad thing is I was dismissed constantly, told I was mad, and just weak and blah, whatever, now I work at google as a deep learning engineer so people ‘have to believe me’ now, even though I was smarter back then when I was younger. Fucked up world.