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)?
Ireland
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?)
What is your current age, height, weight?
34, 180cm, 61KG
What specific drug did you use (finasteride, dutasteride, saw palmetto, isotretinoin/Accutane, fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, leuprorelin, etc…)?
Finasteride
What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
0.25 mg every other day
What condition was being treated with the drug?
Hair thinning
For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)?
3 months and one week
Date when you started the drug?
21st April 2024
Date when you quit the drug?
31st July 2024
Age when you quit?
33
How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
Cold turkey
How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects?
One month
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
[ * ] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ * ] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[ * ] Loss of Morning Erections
[ * ] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[ * ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ ] Watery Ejaculate
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability or Difficulty to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfulness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[ ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts
Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[ ] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ ] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes
Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears)
[ ] Hearing loss
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature
[ ] Other (please explain)
What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
Viagra, Cialis
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)?
No changes, all is normal
Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience?
No
Tell us your story, in your own words, about your usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
I will spare you all the full story of how and why I started this drug. I finished using it on the 31st of July, 2024, fully expecting the side effects to disappear after a month. When I still had ED in September, I began to panic. For the first three months, I struggled to get my erections up and I had to finish masturbating flaccid due to stamina issues. However, my sex drive was still normal at that time.
By mid-October, something incredible happened: I seemed to return to normal. My erection quality was back, spontaneous erections were back, nocturnal erections, everything. I thought I had just overreacted. Then by December, the problems started. My erection quality slowly declined, my libido declined, spontaneous erections became impossible, and soon getting erections of any kind became impossible. Even Viagra didn’t work. This persisted well into January of 2025. By February I was considering suicide.
It was at this point that I came to understand what PFS meant for me: fluctuations. Because February turned out to be another temporary recovery - erections were back to 80% strength, nocturnal erections returned, morning wood returned, and my sex drive was high enough to jack off multiple times per day. This began to decline in the final week of February, and I went through another bad period from March to April, followed by another incredible good period in May and another severe decline in June.
Finding reliable information about what to expect for the future has been an exercise in frustration. Most people experience repeated crashes and a range of severe physical symptoms, which I thankfully have not. No penis shrinkage, no loss of sensitivity, no hard flaccid, no extra veins. Supposedly fluctuations are a good sign, with the good periods and bad periods gradually converging on one another.
I find however that while my good periods have improved enormously, my bad periods are as brutal as ever. I can still decline to a level approaching complete impotence and total loss of sex drive, and even in good periods I still need ED meds since my erections just vanish after a certain amount of time. I also have no idea what kind of timeline to recovery I might be looking at, I know some people recovered by the one year mark, but they didn’t seem to have fluctuations like I do.
I have found the online communities to be of limited help. There are desperate people taking everything under the sun in an attempt to shock their bodies back into balance, people who are still sick after ten years, people who got better and then relapsed a decade later from taking antidepressants or antibiotics, but very few people with fluctuations without crashes. My case seems to be unusual since my sides are purely sexual. I have had no cognitive issues, problems with anhedonia, digestive issues, or anything of that nature.
I could take hCG, Anvar or other things of that nature but I am scared to try them with my fluctuations being this bad. If I could somehow get back to where I was in February and stay there, that would be good enough for me. I am scared that I will get stuck in a bad fluctuation or a semi-recovered fluctuation and not be able to get out of it at some point. Supposedly the median time for ED issues to persist is 3.7 years. I don’t know if I can survive the rest of my thirties without ever knowing if recovery is in sight.
I know recovery stories are rare but I need hope. I don’t know how long fluctuations can continue for or if they ever stop.
Self-reporting template - ONLY USE FOR FUTURE POSTS TO REPORT ANY TRIALS OF TREATMENTS, NOT YOUR INITIAL MEMBER STORY
-
Name of the therapy/substance:
- Dosage:
- How often you took it:
-
Status
- Still using [ ]
- Stopped with no lasting change to initial symptoms [ ]
- Stopped with persistent change to symptoms [ ]
- Duration of use: Days [ ] Months [ ] Years [ ]
-
Response when you started:
- Greatly improved [ ]
- Slightly improved [ ]
- Stayed the same [ ]
- Slightly worsened [ ]
- Greatly worsened [ ]
-
Current response (if you’re still using the therapy/substance) OR Response in the time before you stopped the treatment
- Greatly improved [ ]
- Slightly improved [ ]
- Stayed the same [ ]
- Slightly worsened [ ]
- Greatly worsened [ ]
-
Lasting changes to initial symptoms after cessation (if you have stopped for more than 3 weeks)
- Greatly improved [ ]
- Slightly improved [ ]
- Stayed the same [ ]
- Slightly worsened [ ]
- Greatly worsened [ ]