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 (country)?
USA
How did you find this forum (Google search – if so, what search terms? Via link from a forum or website – if so, what page? Other?)
Google
What is your current age, height, weight?
27, 5’9, 195lbs
What specific drug did you use (finasteride, dutasteride, saw palmetto, isotretinoin/Accutane, fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, leuprorelin, etc…)?
Finasteride, Paxil, fluoxetine
What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
Finasteride - 1mg/day and sometimes .25 or .5mg per day. Not sure about Paxil. 10mg fluoxetine once a day.
What condition was being treated with the drug?
Hairloss
For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)?
Finasteride- october 2012- February 2014 and then again from February 2018 to January 2019.
Paxil- fall of 2014
Fluoxetine- for a little over a week in December 2018
How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start the drug?
20
How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
21, quit finasteride in February 2014
How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
Cold turkey
How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects?
Noticed sexual symptoms right away, cognitive symptoms over a year in.
What side effects did you experience that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
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
[x] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[x] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[x] Loss of Morning Erections
[x] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[ ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[x]Watery Ejaculate
[x] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability or Difficulty to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[x] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[x] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[x ] Memory Loss / Forgetfulness
[x ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[x ] Slurring of Speech
[x] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[x] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[x ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts
Physical
[x ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[x ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[x ] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ x] Weight Gain
[x ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ x] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ x] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes
Misc
[ x] Prostate pain
[ x] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[x ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ x] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears)
[ ] Hearing loss
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ x] Lowered body temperature
[ ] Other (please explain)
What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
Tried too many supplements to list but off the top of
My head: tribulus, iodine, mucuna pruriens, bhb, probiotics, forskolin, maca, ashwaganda, 5htp, ginko biloba, etc…
If you have pre or post-drug blood tests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug (please post your test results in the “Blood Tests” section and link to them in your post)?
I have always been vitamin D deficient, and my testosterone was around 400-500 before finasteride and pretty close to that after. The only blood test result I have that is consistently very low is FSH.
Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience?
Tell us your story, in your own words, about your usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
I started taking finasteride 1mg/day during my sophomore year of college at the age of 20. I knew it was working right away as the itchiness that is a sign of hairloss stopped immediately and I grew back my whole hairline. However, I noticed almost a month in when trying to sleep with a girl that I felt absolutely no pleasure or desire but chalked it up
to not being attracted to her. I kept taking the drug despite this, even lowering the dose to .5mg a day. During this time in college I was living a very unhealthy and high stress lifestyle. (Fast food most nights, marijuana daily, drinking a lot, all nighters for tests, and going to sleep at dawn on weekends). I also have incredibly strong stress reactions to any public speaking so anytime that came up it was very stressful and traumatizing for me. Over the next year my only symptoms was decreased pleasure and desire from sex and reduction in pleasure during orgasm but I assumed I would grow as much hair back as possible and when I stopped the drug everything would go back to normal.
I eventually decided in February of 2014 that I wanted to stop finasteride and resume having pleasurable sex. I quit cold turkey expecting to be normalized within the next few weeks but what resulted was panic attacks and mental breakdowns. I attribute it to a combo of finasteride plus worry about my sexual symptoms never resolving. Nevertheless I pushed through this without any medical intervention and continued to wait out my symptoms.
In the fall of 2014 it was my last semester of college and I had some presentations for a class so my doctor prescribed me Paxil for social anxiety. All I remember was that I took it but very inconsistently as I was a dumbass and didn’t understand how the medication worked. (taking it sporadically on random days and some days not at all). during this time I feel like my genitals became more numb and orgasms felt like nothing. It was at this time that I started to get very unrefreshing sleep and fatigue set in every day. Digestion problems were becoming more prevalent too (diarrhea or loose stool most bowel movements).
I went cold turkey on everything starting in 2015 and my symptoms all remained which at this point was just numb genitals/pleasureless orgasm and fatigue/unrefreshing sleep. I did a sleep study which looked normal and any bloodwork just showed low FSH. Doctor offered me clomid but I refused.
The next few years went the same. I was dumb enough in 2015 to try RU58841 to halt hairloss and while I didn’t feel any side effects, when I stopped it I had stronger erections for about a week so I know it did something systemic.
Fast forward to 2016 spring, I was pretty depressed and had about a month in which I was taking various drugs such as cocaine which sent me into terrible panic attacks so my doctor put me on Wellbutrin and clonazepam which helped stopped the panic attacks for the most part. My anxiety is still way worse than before though even today.
In February of 2018 my only propecia symptoms were still numb genitals, some shrinkage/softer erections, smaller balls, and pleasureless orgasm and it seemed like these were permanent. My hairloss was getting worse so I figured if these were permanent what would be the problem in taking fin again? So I started on .25mg a day again only noticing pretty bad headaches that went away in a few weeks.
Fast forward to October of 2018. This dose of propecia is not helping maintain my hair so I up it to 1mg a day. BIG MISTAKE. Started getting very bad migraines again, dizzy vision, feeling detached from reality, even worse depression, and feeling very anxious and just shitty most days. Can still
maintain a decent erection but it’s all pleasureless. I started taking 10mg Prozac with it to see if it helps depression but it made me feel weird so I stopped after a week. (Was also noticing drier penis skin and some bleeding from touching it). A few days after stopping Prozac I have one of the worse panic attacks I’ve ever had in my life. It felt like my brain was accelerating and spinning at the same time. Luckily clonazepam stopped this and I slept it off
And it hasn’t happened again.
I stopped everything except clonazepam at the end of 2018, and then weened off clonazepam in summer of 2019. Clonazepam seemed to rewire my brain in the sense that I’m more OCD now and I have constant songs on repeat in my head all day.
Today my symptoms that remain are the sexual ones from 2012 (numb genitals, shrinkage, small balls, no pleasure from orgasm), unrefreshing sleep even though I can sleep for 8 hours, fatigue, anxiety, depression, and brain fog. The brain fog is worse some days and better others. I still have bad digestion but rarely my poop looks normal. I also have low FSH still after all these years. And of course still have the lingering effects from clonazepam. Sorry if what I wrote seems jumbled as it’s been a very long 8 years. I’m glad I finally took some time to type up my story though.