Well, I was 20 and going bald. I saved up, and had a hair transplant when I was 21. I wanted to keep my new head of hair, so I started taking propecia. The hair transplant was fantastic, I got a good hairline and the propecia maintained the old hair, aswell as increasing hair growth on my crown.
In the first 2 weeks of taking Propecia, I was INCREDIBLY horny - anything would turn me on. In the second 2 weeks, I was totally uninterested in anything. However, gradually these swings evened out, and I was left in a mildly uninterested state. At the beginning I also had some bouts where I would get too hot too easily, and ended up sweating. Those were soon gone, and my condition settled. I could still get erections easily, sex was not a problem and surprisingly, I had very slight chest sensitivity but nothing major, and that brings me right up until 3 weeks ago! I am now 24, and 3 weeks ago my testicles started to feel more sensitive than usual, and gradually began to hurt when I was in certain positions. My chest also became more sensitive, and after 3-4 days of this I decided to come off Propecia cold turkey. I also went immediately to a doctor for a blood test and examination, both of which were completely normal - I was told I was suffering from ‘Stress’.
However, the last 2 weeks have been shocking. It started off with feeling light headed, infact when I had my blood test done I was scared I would faint - so it surprised me to hear that the obvious causes, blood sugar, iron, red blood cells, were all normal. I then (over the next few days) started to feel an inability to concentrate, like a pressing force on my head all the time, distracting me. It didn’t hurt, just made me feel tired and lethargic, and then I started to get slight vision problems. I could focus, but it was an effort - I had no trouble reading anything, but I just felt like my eyes were having to work hard to do it. Then almost every muscle and joint in my body hurt, one by one, sometimes a few at a time - and I started to get indigestion and stomach pains. All this time I was relentlessly reading up about symptoms and what it could be, building myself into a state of panic, and a couple of times I felt blood rushing to my head in a ‘hot flush’ - which felt like it could become a panic attack. Thankfully, it didn’t.
I also felt heart palpatations whilst trying to get to sleep, from being at rest, and lost a lot of my appetite. And that brings me to today, 2 weeks after quitting, I am still experiencing the majority of the symptoms I just described. Thankfully I have no issues with arousal or erections, I can get horny daily and this can be brought on by seing ‘sexy’ things. Ejaculation is also normal. However, I still have pains in various joints and muscles, I have a weird feeling in my head like my brain has been ‘turned down’ - but I don’t feel stupid, or struggle to find words (like some of you have) - I just feel like I don’t want to bother concentrating. I have odd pains in various places, including my testicles (still), and I still have a funny feeling with my vision (although I can see things fine and get no ‘floaters’ or any other symptoms related to vision) - but everything is sparadic. Typically in the evenings I start to feel better - my depression lifts, my pains go, my vision improves and my brain feels more normal - but this only lasts for a couple of hours, and then I get into an even more depressed and painful state before I go to bed.
I don’t know when or if these symptoms are going to go away, but it is preventing me working and I have to say the stress itself is probably causing a lot of the problems. I just hope that I start to feel normal again soon and that this doesn’t devastate the life I’ve built up.