My story
It all began during the last year of study at University, I started to notice my hairline receding. Feeling incredibly self-conscious and frightened by the prospect of going bald, I guess I panicked and began looking for ‘treatments’ to stop the progress. I began taking Rogaine of which I purchased from a local pharmacist for 3-6 months, while it helped to maintain my hair it caused an ugly skin reaction whereby I started to develop darkened skin, itchy skin and an inflamed scalp so I reluctantly stopped. Still fearing losing my hair, I consulted the Belgravia Centre in London, they called me in for an asssessment and after discussing with them it was confirmed that I had MPB (male pattern baldness) I was now not only at risk of receding frontally at the temples, but also in the back (crown area ). The Belgravia centre firstly tried me on Minoxidil 12.5% cream, however like my experience with Rogaine it provoked the previous skin and scalp inflammation issues after a few days. Reporting back to the Belgravia Centre, I was offered the chance to take Finasteride instead, I discussed it with my family and they didn’t feel as though taking Propecia was good idea but would stand by me whatever decision I would make. I’d done my research on the drug for a while after and was put off by the prospect of developing sexual side effects at first and decided to shave my head instead. However, feeling more and more self-conscious and experiencing people taking the mick out of my balding and shaved head at Uni, I unfortunately became even more sensitive about it and I decided that I could not cope any longer with losing my hair. I then decided to go back to the Belgravia Centre to take Fin for a trial period, on their word and by doing more research (2% risk) that if I was to take it and develop side effects they would go after discontinuing. I took Fin for four days only during the summer of 2014, I now feel as though a part of me has died or has been significantly impaired.
To this day, I have developed all of the worst imaginable sexual side effects including, low-absent sex drive, penile shrinkage, testicular shrinkage, dulled orgasms, low ejaculation volume, poor quality semen/sperm, loss of sensation/numb feeling. In addition, I suffer from brain fog 24/7 and bouts of insomnia/fatigue. 2 years later I’ve experienced improvements with, my brain fog (alhough still bad) and fatigue but no real sexual progress.