Just another finasteride casuality

[whereiscrabby]

0. Where are you from (country)? Australia

1. How did you find this forum? Researching finasteride use and side effects

2. What is your current age, height, weight? 31, around 1.75 meters perhaps, about 65kg

3. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise? No - too fatigued

4. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)? Very healthy. Some meats. Lots of broccoli, fish, salads, blueberries etc

5. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)? I was anxious about going bald. I was just a kid. I didn’t know any better.

6. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)? Roughly 8 years.

7. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride? 22

8. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit? 30

9. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)? During the 8 years I did not take it every day. Sometimes I’d take a quarter tab daily for a while but mostly I’d take one 5mg tab weekly. Sometimes I’d stop for a while (I can’t remember how long, maybe a month max) because I ran out. Just stopped taking it at the end.

10. What type of Finasteride did you use? Proscar

11. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)? ^^

12. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?I actually can’t remember. I started taking anti depressants not long after starting Proscar. Maybe it was the cause of those experiences. By the time I was really trying to sort out my health and work out what was going on, I was really gaunt and exhausted, not to mention completely mentally distraught. Then I realised it had to be the finasteride. Duh.

13. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation? Cognitive deficits, blurry vision, overly fatty tits, physical weakness, easily tired. Problem is, these (other than gynecomastia) are all the same symptoms of depression and anxiety. So, hard to see what exactly is causing what.

Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[x] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[x] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[x] Loss of Morning Erections
[x] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[x] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ ] Watery Ejaculate
[x] Reduced Ejaculate
[x] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

Mental
[x] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[x] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[x] Confusion
[x] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[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
[x] Suicidal Thoughts

Physical
[x] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[x] Testicular Pain
[x] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[x] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[x] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[x] Muscle Wastage
[x] Muscle Weakness
[x] Joint Pain
[x] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[x] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[x] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[x] Lowered body temperature

[x] Other (please explain) blood shot eyes; homosexual imagery and fantasy (this started happening in the last few months before stopping finasteride and has gone away - I guess I was just going through a phase

Really important ones - also in the year before stopping: my eyes would shudder involuntarily; I had a strange nodding back and forth of the head. It would start without me noticing. It was really subtle. You see it in a really pronounced way in some old alcoholics. Or maybe people with Parkinson’s. These have both receded and aren’t experienced anymore. Bad balance, I was pretty wobbly on my feet.

I stopped the drug and felt healthier for a few weeks, maybe a month. The main thing that changed was that my persistent blurry vision got better. Then it went bad again. After 6 months to a year I started having penile/sexual problems. I started to get a sore penis and testicles. I could still ejaculate if I tried really hard alone, but it be kind of painful. I was never getting any spontaneous erections. Dead dick. This is passed now though. I was struggling to reach orgasm with girls for the last couple of years of finasteride, and for a year and a half after stopping, but now it’s all good.

14. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug? Ok, a few. I went on to fluoxetine to try and promote neurogenesis and combat the depression, slow speech, and basic feeling of brain damage. It helped a lot. Cerebrolysin to provide the brain with as much raw materials for repairing connections. DHA+Uridine+Choline for neurognesis. B vitamins. Progesterone supplements. Blueberries. Centrophenoxine. Exercise. I’ve gone back to school. Stopped drinking in the way I used to (not that I had much of a choice in that). Drastically improved diet. I spent a lot of time going to GPs, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Neurologists. Basically non of them could tell me anything that I couldn’t teach myself via the ever trusty interwebs. Except the psychologist who listened, actually believed what I was saying, and helped talk about ways to cope with and remove the stress of the experience. Luckily she’d worked with women who had chemo, she said my symptoms were much like Chemotherapy Induced Cognitive Impairment, so she was helpful to talk to.

15. If you have pre or post-Finasteride bloodtests, what hormonal changes have you encountered since discontinuing the drug (pls post your test results in the “Blood Tests” section and link to them in your post)? I had post-fin blood tests, but nothing was in/out of range that made the GPs suggest anything was wrong.

Because I was taking the drug intermittently, I think the post-fin crash that is talked about, I experienced earlier than when I finally stopped for good. For a while when I finished work on a Friday, I’d sleep/stay in bed until Monday when I had to go to work again. Just complete exhaustion.

I’ve read around on this forum to see what others are doing, read a lot of papers re cognitive impairment and drugs and androgens, reading of the longecity forums, and undertaken a psychology degree with neuro stuff. The things that I’ve been able to do (without more specific guidance from the medical community which we’ll have to wait for - unless something has been discovered that I’m yet to hear about) that have helped me the most and that I will continue to do are: low dose fluoxetine for neurogenesis and mood improvement (hard to be healthy when you’re depressed and angry), Cerebrolysin for brain health, any exercise that I can do (neurogenesis and mood - not to mention physicality), lots of DHA, choline, B vitamins and a fresh and green diet with good lean meat and fish, schooling and learning (learning and surrounding yourself with challenging/new environments is one of the things known to cause neurological growth/repair, along with exercise, blueberries, anti-depressants, dha and a couple of other things that I can’t remember). These are the things that I’ve narrowed it down to that feel like they are worth it for me. I’ve decided it’s not really worth trying all kinds of drugs to raise this or lower that because they could potentially lead to further problems as they cause cascade changes down the line,and because the problems we’re dealing with are likely to be widespread and various. I think that doing everything I can to repair brain volume, structure an general health will best help my brain to regain the chemical make up that is right for it. It seems like it has worked for me. I’m a lot better now than I was two years ago, though mentally not fully recovered. Attention span of a gold fish. But maybe I would have had that anyway. I’ll never know. This is just my story, seems like it’s different for everyone. Thanks to everyone who shared their stories before me, I read a lot and during the darkest days it all really helped.

Good luck everyone, stay healthy.

[finbasteride]

Good that you have made some progress. Have you recovered completely in terms of lobido/sexual function?

What % would you give your overall recovery thus far?

[IthinkFingotmetoo]

Thanks for your story.

How is your vision now, and do you suffer dry eyes?

[whereiscrabby]

Hard to put a percentage on it. I don’t have any erectile problems, gynecomastea has faded. I’ve still got fat around the waist that seems kinda feminine, hard to tell if that’s PFS though. Biggest physical change is that in the last 6 months (1.5 years after stopping) I’ve grown hairier. Hair on chest and stomach has really set it (and some on back). My body hair hadn’t changed since early 20s, it’s been a noticeable and sudden change. Libido has recovered.

Something else I didn’t mention in the first post - I’ve got increasingly sore/weak ankles and knees. Nothing debilitating at the moment, just a low level intermittent soreness and weakness. Also have a small popping/grinding sound when I tilt and turn my head (can only hear it when it’s really quiet). No idea but they might be due to the same thing, and perhaps are finasteride related. Not sure if joint problems are something a lot of other people are experiencing.

Then the mental side effects. I’m definitely better off than I was when I was about to stop taking it. At the time if I tried to do anything that required concentration and reading my eyesight would become all blurry and it’d be impossible to maintain any train of thought. Now there’s a mildly persistent blur that I have to deal with. Sometimes I think it’s to do with being low energy. As in a sign of slow brain activity rather than damage to any visual hardware. Though I probably wouldn’t have said that while my eyes were still bloodshot. An interesting thought I had back when they were: so our eyes are the only part of our central nervous system that we can actually see. Pretty bad to think that ‘if this is the state of my eyes, I’d hate to think that my brain is in a similar state’. I think your eyes are probably a pretty good indicator of improved health. I’m relieved to have mostly clear white without all the blood vessels now. Not sure if i’ve experienced dry eyes. Sore eyes maybe. Mostly just blood shot and blurred vision.

Considering all of this I’d say around 75% recovery. Though if the joint thing gets worse then I’ll have to look into that. I still feel like I’ve had a frontal lobotomy at times, but it’s so much better than it was when I was about to stop and in the year after. I stumble (over words and over my feet) a lot less now.

One other thing I wanted to point out re my first post. Didn’t want to denigrate peoples efforts to find a single unifying factor. When I was worse off I spent ages reading about various things and trying different treatments. If I hadn’t recovered as much then I’d probably still be anxiously searching for the answer. It’s a natural response to having an unknown illness strike you down.

Someone posted a really interesting article in neurosteroid thread. Basically that fluoxetine (prozac) at around 20mg for a 70kg person is strong enough to raise endogenous production of Allopregnanolone and other neurosteroids to levels of non-depressed controls, while minimally affecting the serotonin system. I tried maybe progesterone to do the same thing, but going by that article fluoxetine is an effective way to boost neurosteroid activity. I was taking it (stopped 3 months ago) because it had been shown to cause neurogenesis (regrowth of dendrites and other nerve endings). My memory is/was bad from fin and alcohol (hippocampus damage) and the hippocampus shows most potential for new cell growth and dendritic regrowth. Considering that, I’ve been focussed on doing whatever I can to encourage good brain nutrients and neurogenesis (these things are listed in my first post). After reading about fluoxetine’s impact on neurosteroids I’ve gone back on it after a break.

Sorry if that’s hard to follow.