I am a young male in my late 20’s and perfectly healthy otherwise. So I’m not sure where to begin but I’ll give a very brief back story of a traumatic experience that happened 4 years ago and I still suffer from the symptoms till this day. Please read as I feel like this experience might have some information that could help others going through this.
I did NOT take Propecia, however, I was given medication at a doctors visit that has caused pretty much IDENTICAL symptoms as the ones many of you suffer from. Long story short (not really), about 4 years ago I go to the doctor for an HIV test (I do not have HIV or have any sexually transmitted disease). While I’m there, one of the nurses recommended I get a chlamydia and gonorrhea pills/shot since it was free and if I did have something (which I didnt) it would resolve any possible issue. I thought “fuck it, why not. Whats the worse that can happen?” LITERALLY THE WORST DECISION OF MY LIFE. My body reacted horribly. I nearly fainted and even the doctors weren’t sure wtf was happening to me and said they never saw someone react this way. After I stabilize, i get blood drawn (which was my reason for being there in the first place) and finally go home, I hop in the shower and I look down and my penis head is completely white and was not able to get an erection. From that day forward, life was never the same again. In an effort to keep 4 years worth of experience short, I list below the symptoms I suffered and the length of time. I did in-fact resolve one big issue that might be common here. However, The ones in BOLD are the ones I am still trying to resolve and would appreciate any help or ideas:
Lack of blood in penis head causing it to look pale: Lasted several months and still slightly suffering from time to time but no where near as bad as 4 years ago.
Sharp cold feeling and strong pain in the penis head: Lasted about half a year for nearly… EVERY… SINGLE… DAY. A living hell. Eventually subsided.
Numbness and loss of all feeling (to the point where it felt like I literally did not have a penis): Has lasted All 4 years… Still plagues me till this very day. It’s not as bad but its still extremely bad. To give you some context, I am able to grab a soap scrub (those soaps that hurt like fucking hell when your scrubbing your body) and basically DEMOLISH my penis and barley feel even anything at all.
Penis feels VERY light when flaccid almost like it’s filled with Air: This is still an issue but I believe I have some pretty good ideas as to the causes and possible solutions. this should also be correlated to the numbness.
When I kegal/flex my penis, it doesnt move: Still an issue till this day. I am pretty confident this has something to do with my pelvic floor muscles. Also very likely correlated to the correlated to the numbness.
Absolutely No erection: this lasted about 2 weeks I think but I’m going off of memory here. Regardless, I was eventually able to establish an erection but it’s not like before the issue happened.
Loss of erection quality: Still an issue today. My erections are not as hard or rigid and don’t point straight up like before.
Penis would not go down after ejaculation: I did go through a period where after having an erection and ejaculating, my penis would get EXTREMELY hard that it was painful. It took hours for it to go down. This subsided for the most part but it still takes longer for my erections to go down.
Feeling that I can’t empty bladder and can’t squeeze or push all urine out: still an issue today. My urine stream is weak. This is the least of my worries but still very much all interconnected.
Soft glands (to the point where my hard penis would hurt my glands If I would have sex): Lasted 2 and half years but I SOLVED this. I ACTUALLY SOLVED THIS, which was surprising. It was a combination of pills (shit you could get on amazon) that I took for about a week or so and the issue vanished. The idea came from something a urologist mentioned during a visit. The corpus Spongiosum and head of penis both need physical and mental to fill up correctly. I know one of the bottles was super ginkgo (a very specific one) and the other was Ashwagandha. I can elaborate more on this if necessary. Solving this alone was a HUGE leap in the right direction but still not out of the woods.
Flaccid state is now elongated: Not sure if this makes any sense, but after that horrible day, my penis became elongated (almost as if whatever was holding it in when flaccid gave up on holding it in and decided to let it all hang out). I basically grew about 2 inches on my flaccid penis within days (may have been more or less days. Again, going by memory). My erection size has pretty much stayed the same. While this may be desirable for nearly every man on earth, I think this is a symptom of some other problem that is perpetuating my issue.
Anyways, In the past 4 years I’ve seen plenty of urologist and have even gone to a pelvic floor physical therapist. ALL urologist literally dismissed my issues because “your able to establish an erection so this is all in your head”. That’s all they cared about… Except for 1 urologist. He was SUPER skeptical but he decided to put my words to the test and gave me a penile doppler ultrasound.
HE WAS SHOCKED AT THE RESULTS!! He said that basically I am only getting about 30% of the blood I should be getting to my penis. 30 fucking PERCENT! He Legit had no idea what to tell but assured me “This is 100% NOT in your head… There is an actual physical issue here.” The only recommendation he gave me was to do a procedure that would basically have me sedated after I take some blue dye that will highlight my blood for a certain machine. There, doctors would be able to see if there is something wrong with my arteries and may be the reason for the lack of blood supply to the penis… That shit costs $10,000 and I simply do not have that kind of money, nor does my insurance cover it.
As for the pelvic floor physical therapist, I only went for two visits… It was FAR too expensive $200-$300 a visit and required multiple visits a week for months and I felt they were holding back information since this was also not something that my insurance would cover and they wouldn’t want to give me the solution on day 1 or 2 then have me walk away.
My current Theory:
I’ve gone through A LOT of threads on different forums, have seen PLENTY of urologists, and I’m fairly confident that this is a pelvic floor issue caused by the medication. A few of the urologists I saw said this ED might have happened as a response to the medication because I didnt eat anything before taking the medication and then afterwards got blood drawn (for an HIV test) which caused my body to go into a fight or flight mode. When that happens, the blood gets allocated to other areas. I think that during that process of “fight or flight”, one of my pelvic muscles contracted in order to prevent blood from going to the penis and instead go elsewhere. Unfortunately, it probably PERMANENTLY contracted and is now causing me hell on earth (I don’t think I need to explain the depression, emotional or mental insanity that comes with all of this. I think many of you might already know what this hell is like). This is likely the root cause of why I can’t kegal correctly (because of the muscle being contracted already), numbness and loss of feeling (because that contracted muscle is preventing sufficient blood supply and probably inhibiting the appropriate chambers from allowing the correct inflow/outflow of blood which is ultimately causing the loss of erection quality).
I plan on taking a muscle relaxant to see if it helps. Please, if anyone has any info to help me out, I will legit owe you my life. I know my issue did not come from Propecia, but it stems from a drug taken literally at a hospital in front of doctors, which is likely similar to your cases.