For everyone, to educate about side effects of propecia, and my experience.

Member Stories
#1

Before I start talking about my experience and side effects, I want to briefly introduce myself.
My English may not be perfect ( I lived in the states for 6 years while I attended Boston University).
I’m 24, Male, born and raised in Japan, started Propecia 8 month ago and I have quit taking it recently.

As you all know, Propecia gives horrible side effects such as ED, depression, hormonal imbalance etc.
The main cause seems to be from strong inhibition of DHT, which is responsible for proper cognitive reasoning, skin cell repair,
and others.

However, I have a different point of view on this matter.
I have experienced minor ED(which recovered after cessation), brain fog, chronic fatigue, coarse hair, and further hairloss from taking finasteride.

I’m sure many of your guys are aware that finasteride also disrupts your thyroid.
After taking propecia for the first few months, I noticed less hair loss, and less itchiness of the scalp.
However my face started to swell/bloat so badly that I looked as if I gained 20-30 pounds.
People started to ask me if I gained weight.

after 8 month of usage, I experienced severe fatigue, excessive hairloss (NO ITS NOT THE LOSE-HAIR-GAIN-STRONGER-HAIR phase), extreme coarse and dry hair and inability to concentrate on anything.

I went to meet up with a physician here in Tokyo, and took a blood test.

Feratin level was normal.
Calcium/Mag balance was normal.
No signs of Anemia.
Insulin level was normal.
Cholestrol level was normal.
R15 level was normal.
Kidney was normal.
Liver was normal.
Body temperature was normal.
Heart was normal.
Testostrone/Estrogen level was normal.

My doctor told me I was one of those people that will live a very long time.

I still had these problems and doctor could not explain why I am having these symptoms.
So I went to get a full panel Thyroid test.

TSH 0.60
T4 1.58
T3 2.38
rT3 391 ( this is my main topic of discussion).

My T3 was low and my rT3 was wayyy off the charts.
Basically, your T4 gets converted to T3, but it was rather converted to rT3.

If you are not aware, T3 is the single most important hormone that is needed to have proper erectile function, cognitive reasoning,
concentration, skin development, immunity, and most importantly HAIR.

If you do a full panel blood work for your thyroid and get similar results like me, the Doctors will tell you that you are healthy.
What most doctors don’t understand is that even tho, T3 2.38 might seem normal, T3 below 3.1 is considered to be a low T3 output.

Here is the link if you wanna educate yourself about Low T3 Syndrome. http://chriskresser.com/low-t3-syndrome-i-its-not-about-the-thyroid

What I am trying to tell you is that the symptoms that most of you are experiencing might be directly linked to your thyroid.
And some kind of mechanism from finasteride directly disrupt you T4—>T3 conversion. (hence increasing your rT3).

You might have thought that low DHT was the biggest factor of your side effect but that might not be the case.

I have taken T3 hormone monitored by my doctor for the past 2 months and I have more hair than before I started taking finasteride.

All the side effects that I have written above have subsided COMPLETELY also.

My face is slimmer than ever, I lost 14 pounds in 2 months, and I am so energized throughout the day and so emotionally happy.

My ED symptoms have subsided completely.

This post was to inform you some of the stuff that I have experienced, and if you fall in this category, please to see your doctor for a full panel thyroid checkup (especially rT3) before your body shuts down completely.

#2

This is interesting to me, because now that you mention the hair loss…only initially (first couple of years of usage) did finasteride seem to strengthen my hair…it worked amazingly at first…but over the years, I kept progressively losing hair, and not in the standard/symmetrical male pattern baldness pattern, but more patchy, uneven hair loss.

One guy in Kos was hypothyroid before taking finasteride, and then had to double his thyroid medication immediately after taking finasteride…by the end of the month, he was sexually decimated. He also has chronic prostatitis and an independently verified infection.

This is one case study, but it seems as if along with the known knowns of the consequences androgen deprivation that fiansteride induces, finasteride has a horrible effect on the thyroid and immune system…perhaps this is why some get such accelerated cases of CP along with all manner of infection, fungus, allergies, etc.

Depending on which doctor I go to, my thyroid’s fine, or I’m hypothyroid or I’m sublicincal hypothyroid. I’ll have to dig up my labs and cross-reference with the link you provided, but I just don’t know where I stand, and if, at some point I should try some T3 as was recently suggested by a doc. I’d previously tried armour thyroid for about 5 months, and while it did raise my body temperature back to normal (from 95 degrees when I’d first seen that doc), it did nothing else for me.

#3

Daniel,

Can you provide ranges for your Thyroid Panel and help interpret my results from a few months ago?

These were my results, and the doctor’s comments in parentheses:

TSH: 3.11 (high-ish) (.4 - 4.5)
T4 TOTAL: 7.7 (low) (4.5 - 12)
T4 free 1.4 (ok) (.8 - 1.8)
T3 FREE: 2.6 (low-ish) (2.3 - 4.2)
T3 TOTAL: 2.6 76 (76-181)
T3 REVERSE: 34 (high) 11-32

Thanks

#4

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5142

Others have tried it.

#5

They have, but perhaps at the point where Daniel, who’d already recovered from the E.D., he wasn’t as damaged, or at least not physically (atrophy, fibrosis, etc.)

I wonder what kind of tweaking, if any, might be needed for those who have cleared a CP situation. I’m trying to look a few steps ahead.

#6

The ranges were the following

TSH 0.38 ~ 3.64 uIU/mL
FT4 0.95 ~ 1.74 ng/dL
FT3 2.13 ~ 4.07 pg/mL
rT3 ~ 350 (upper limit) My reverse T3 was on a separate paper and I can’t find it right now. But the high end was 350.

Here is another great article about T3 and rT3.

http://tiredthyroid.com/rt3.html

According to this post, T3 supplementation should be administered by T4 supplementation.
However I was fine with T3 alone because I didn’t actually have a Thyroid problem.
It was NTIS (Non-thyroidal Illness Syndrome).
If your high rT3 is caused by thyroid disorder, it should be administered with small dosage of T4 (along with T3 of course)
According to this article I mean.

Hope this helps.

#7

I am sorry but what does CP stand for?
I am fairly new to this site.

#8

Tried T3 for a couple weeks. Lost weight, felt hyperthyroid - not help that much.

Did improve morning erections but this is most likely due to the upregulation of androgen receptors. It might be a player in some of us.

#9

Hyperthyroid symptoms, it seems that you were overdosing your T3 medication.
You need to monitor your hormone levels very frequently when you first start taking any thyroid medications.

If I overdosed I would have ended up having hyperthyroid also.

#10

The thyroid def. plays a part in this. Although, the actual mechanisms going on/what is causing what is what is confusing here.

Does anyone remember the thread about the guy who took T4 and got better? I’m curious what his TSH level was because Danielmotion, it looks like your TSH reading was on the low end making believe your thyroid was overproducing. Myself and I know others have had a high TSH, which would mean we are under producing.

I havne’t even looked at thryoid stuff in a while, maybe someone could answer… T4 = solution for underproducing thyroid and T3 = solution for overproducing thyroid?

Anyway… I’d still be cautious to people trying to do something like this… because we don’t know why the thyroid is over/under producing either way which is concerning to me…

#11

my rt3 was 447 pmol/l (140-540)