Hi everyone,
I am new here, here comes the survey. Please forgive me for barbarisms, I used google trad a lot. I am a bit long (to eliminate all these thoughts once and for all), so please skip to the conclusion.
- Where are you from (country)?
France (one of the 300 most beautiful countries in the world)
- 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?)
I searched papers on google scholar with “propecia + erection” and found Dr Irwig’s study. Looking for him, I found a link toward this forum on thebaldtruth.com.
- What is your current age, height, weight?
30 (dont tell my friends), 194 cm (76 inches), 80 kg (176 lbs).
- Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
2-4 swimming sessions a week (1-3 km each). Until january 2011, running once a week (5-10 km) instead of a swimming session.
- What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
One typic meal: potatoes (600g), beef (100g, sometimes chicken, pork), vegetables (> 300g: green beans / brocolis / endives / leeks / spinaches), french cheese (100-300g, depending if I have to work outside), yogurt, fruits (200-1000g), fruit juce (400-1000 ml, sometimes milk instead).
Typically 2 meals a day.
I have a sucrose-free diet since jan. 2010, and have been removing all seeds gradually since (infectious incident in China, aug. 2007, that let me sucrose and starch intolerant (except for root starches)). Temporarilly fish-free diet since february 2011 (ciguaterra in New Caledonia, jan. 2011). (Yes, I like to travel.)
I have been taking vitamins (Berroca, 1-3 comp. a day) to improve muscle cramps and tremors for the past few months, and for the last month, a magnesium supplement in addition (150 mg/day) (the treatment works).
50 % of my food is organic, but this does not seem to help my organs.
- Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
Hair loss (little)
- For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
2 years and a half
- How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
26 (july 6, 2007)
- How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
28 1/2 (jan 31, 2010)
- How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
Abruptly. Maybe propecia was upset.
- What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
Propecia
- What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
1 mg every two days from jul. 6, 2007 to dec. 1, 2008
then 1 mg / day until stopping on jan. 31, 2010
- How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
Since dec. 2008 to now (libido, creativity), since june 2009 to now (impotence).
- What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
Put an X beside all that apply:
Sexual
[X ] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[X] Erectile Dysfunction
[X] Complete Impotence (the bad days now, but most of the time from june 2008 to discontinuation on jan. 31, 2011)
[X] Loss of Morning Erections (some now, but still rare and always soft)
[X] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[X] Loss of Nocturnal Erections (some now, but still rare and always soft)
[X] Watery Ejaculate
[X] Reduced Ejaculate
[X] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm (not everytime)
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility (untested yet, but does not seem very good under my microscope)
Mental (wow, here I did a no-fault)
[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 (only when I think to my health, the first happened in aug. 2010, so after quitting)
[X] Depression / Melancholy (only when I have to think to my health, apeared after quiting)
Physical
[X] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[X] Testicular Pain (mainly after ejaculation, still hapening but more rare now)
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness (untested, but unnoticed)
[X] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[X] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[X] Muscle Weakness (but attributed until now to a temporo-mandibular desequilibrium which responds positively to chiropractics ; but an episode of muscle weakness from aug. 28, 2011 to ca. mid-sept. remains unexplained (infection, drugs, improbable ciguatera relapse, are hypotheses))
[X] Joint Pain (but attributed until now to the temporo-mandibular desequilibrium)
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes
Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[X] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems (stomach pains: yes ; digestion problems: attributed to the infectious event in China, aug. 2007)
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[X] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness (but attributed until now to the temporo-mandibular desequilibrium)
[ ] Increased hair loss
[X] Frequent urination (more rare now, it depends on the days)
[ ] Lowered body temperature (untested)
[X] Other (please explain)
- My pubic (and beard in a lighter extent) hairs got more blond.
-
My prostate sensitivity increased in such a way that the bad days (when I am more impotent) it is 50-100 % responsible for orgasms (by-product stimulation through the abs during intercourse). This sensitivity appeared under finasteride.
- Curious transitory heart palpitations (several beats), particularly the days when I wake up late in the morning. (My cardiologist said everything is OK apart from a small leak valve.) - I am significantly more sensitive to oro-pharyngeal infections (sick > 50 % of time), but it could also be because of swimming (started in sept. 2009).
The following symptoms are periodically stronger (stronger the bad days):
-
My penis is softer than the pre-fin norm even in the flaccid state. It is as if there was never enough blood in it, be it flaccid or erected. (Don’t ask me how I hypothesize that, but it seems to me that erectile dysfunction is often accompanied with a more soft flaccid state, particularly in elder men.)
- Urine stream is weaker. I do not feel it inside the penis the bad days. - A dramatic (quantitative) loss of artistic creativity gradually took place since I shifted on a 1mg/day dose on dec. 2008. Quantitatively I am ca. 30 times less creative than before. Also true at work.
- The loss of libido was accompanied with a change in my sexual fantasies (from quite open and hard to very soft and straight).
- Dramatically increased sweating while making love: the bad days we are as wet as under a shower - and dry the good days. This does not seem to be due to greater efforts to do the bad days (similar movements were tested). When tested, levitra stopped sweating.
- What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
Levitra in dec. 2010. 5 mg were enough to have spontaneous, full, but painful, erections (one try, spontaneous inextinguishable erection after 15 min ; sensible effects, including on the flaccid state, during 24h). 2.5 mg were enough to have non-spontaneous, but possible, full, always painful, erections (two tries, same dynamics as before). 1.25 mg had little effect (3 tries). However, among other side effects, my memory was severely affected (I could tell the same story twice in the evening without remembering the scene, with huge efforts, better than an old dream). I never tried again.
I tried several behavioral treatments: (1) decreasing sexual activities (including masturbation), (2) having sexual activities at least once a day and (3) consciously developing sexual thoughts several times in a day. Decreasing sexual activities had positive effects on libido and erection on the short term (one day) but negative effects on the long term (1-2 weeks). Having sexual activities every morning (at last) whatever the impotence improved libido on the long term and decreases it on the short term (no observed effect on erection on the long term). I will maybe try interrupted sex and/or different rythms, like 2-3 sessions a day every 2-3 days. Conscious sexual thoughts have positive effects on libido on the short term (several hours). The company of pretty women helps in the same way.
As for creativity, I try to read inspiring books. I tried to work other mental skills with books but I lacked motivation. I will try again.
Incidentally, a treatment led to a partial (and temporary) recovery. I suffered an acoustic trauma in Bulgaria (I definitely like to travel abroad) on july 26th, 2011.
For this, I got the following treatment on aug. 1st:
- prednisolone (cortisone): 3*20 mg every morning during 7 days
- inipomp (proton pomp inhibitor): 20 mg every morning during 15 days
- iskedyl fort (raubasine: 19.20 mg and dihydroergocristine 2.40 mg): 1 comp every morning and evening during 28 days.
This treatment had a number of side effects, including a slight depression during the 7 days of prednisolone (I am not a depressive guy at all) and a great confusion (it took me 5 minutes to calculate an approximate value of 3/2 in my head) during the 15 days of inipomp. (These are known side effects, though depression is not mentioned in prednisolone’s caption.)
However, during the 28 days of Iskedyl fort:
- I was obsessed by sex as before (2-4 long lasting sex events / day), sexual fantasies were hardcore again
- erections were better than in usual good days, longer lasting (ten or twenty seconds without stimulations instead of one or two seconds now ; but still not as much than the quasi indefinitely long lasting erections of the pre-fin state)
- genital sensitivity was restored
- orgasms were restored, including the 2-3 seconds lasting deep depression following them that has disappeared since ED started
- ejaculates were definitely less watery and 2-3 times bigger (2-3 ml instead of less than 1) (personal measures).
I give these informations here for science. I strongly recommend NOT TO try this treatment, as stopping it has been followed (24h later) by the deepest, and only true, depression in my life. I lived 5 days of complete despair with no known reason. I was crying spontaneously all the time as if my mother just died but nothing happened. I had very dark thoughts (including suicide thoughts), no hope or faith in life, etc, etc. My friends were admirable in this period. Moreover, during the month following the stop, I had serious long term memory problems. Later, I learned that a friend of mine whose wife died in the same period experienced the same symptoms (depression + memory loss, maybe there is a link).
As I knew that it was probably a withdrawal symptom, I took my troubles patiently, and I recovered a non-depressive state in 10 days. 7 weeks after the withdrawal, my memory is acceptable (for a post-fin state).
There is no need to say that the partial sexual recovery had gone with depression, and never went back.
It is worth noticing that effects on both libido and the withdrawal syndrome are not listed in Iskedyl fort’s caption (which has no known side effects). However, both raubasine (α1-adrenergic receptor antagonist) and dihydroergocristine (5-HT receptor antagonist; partial agonist at adrenergic and dopaminergic receptors) seem to be, at first sight, good candidates to explain such side effects.
- 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)?
Aug. 2001 (20 yo), during a sever gastric bleeding in the US (too crispy crispy bacon) (I love to travel)
- TSH: 2.61 uIU/ML
Aug. 28, 2010 (8 months after quiting prop): - TSH 2,60 uIU/ML
- Testosterone: 9,40 ng/ML (32.6 nmol/L)
- Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?
When I stopped propecia, erection and libido got better for 2 weeks, and then crashed again. However, periodic “good days” appeared (good days = possible penetration without hands). Good days may be 7 days in a row, maybe more, every month, I have to monitor it. I was used to have “very sexual” periods before taking fin, so the sexual periods remain, but the mean has been lowered.
When I stopped propecia, I replaced it (in 24h) with minoxidil (which has been very efficient on hair loss and regrowth). In the french caption, there is no mention of effects on erection. However, after having browsed some US and english forums mentioning such effects, I stopped minoxidil on june 1st, 2011.
24h later and during 2 weeks, erections were 90 % fine (which is far better than usual good days). Then they crashed again, like when I stopped propecia. However, they are better now than when I took minoxidil, and my refractory period dramatically diminished (from 24-72 hours to 20 min-12h now) (I am not speaking of full erections, which never happen, but of “as good as possible” erections in my post-fin state) (my refractory period was approximately 0-10 min before fin).
Recently creativity increased also a little (I suspect one particular reading to be inspiring).
However, please note that I interrupted minoxidil just after three days of math exams (that is, there was stress relaxation, but usually it lasts 24h max) and that I suffered from an acoustic trauma followed with a rough treatment in august.
Because making love with condoms is now impossible, my girlfriend has been taking nuvaring (a vaginal contraceptive ring with ethinylestradiol & etonogestrel, a progrestin) since the beginning of our relationship in jan. 2010. Nuvaring has no known effect on ED. However, I am trying to convince her to stop, both because of the identified side effects she experiences, and because I cannot stand with the idea that she disrupts her hormonal system (as I did). It seems now to me that hormones are the chemical heart of our body. Besides, it does not seems impossible to me that small amounts of E-estradiol and etonogestrel could go through the penis’ skin during intercourses and be damaging on fragile people like us. More later on this topic.
- Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
I took propecia when I objectively did not need it. Nobody but me noticed my hair loss yet, but girls used to love my hairs. So I took the pill.
I started with a pill every two days, from jul. 2007 to dec. 2008. There was no visible effect on hair loss, nor on libido or creativity (as far as I remember). Then I switched on a pill/day, and effects on libido and spontaneous erections have been immediate. Effects on creativity were gradual.
When the first erectile and orgasmic dysfunction appeared six months later (june 2009), it was the very first ED in my life. I was both scared (not much: it was supposed to be reversible) and relieved: before propecia, I used to have sexual activities several hours in a day, every day - I just could not prevent myself. With ED, I thought I would spend more time being creative. I was single at that time. So I continued to take the pill, not noticing that I was not creative anymore.
I stopped taking propecia when I met my girlfriend (to foolishly take minoxidil instead, but she liked my hairs). As I wrote above, after 2 weeks of improving erections, symptoms came back. Following the advices of my girlfriend, I stopped minoxidil in june (my hairs started to flee exactly 3 months later, during the supposedly Iskedyl-induced depression, and continue to flee now, but I don’t mind anymore). Erections instantaneously improved a lot and remained good during 2 weeks. Then I was completely impotent again for 2 weeks or so (now it is periodic).
The best sexual function (erection and orgasm) I have had for the past 26 months occurred while I was taking the treatment (described above) for the acoustic trauma. Erections were better, and orgasm function was fully restored (as far as I remember the orgasms of before).
The two partial, transitory, non-pill induced, improvements (post-fin and post-minox) make me think that the situation is as if the hormonal system was in a stable anomalous state and had fought against the re-masculinization of the body. Maybe the normal stable state is still possible, but unreachable without the right push. (When I see that it took 6 (or 24) months to put the system in an anomalous state, I fear that the right push could take as much time. But this is a more optimistic hypothesis than considering irreversible apoptosis.)
However, the more time passes, the less the recovery seems probable to me. (In particular, it is clear that we are ageing, so even a full recovery would not lead us to a pre-fin state if this recovery should last several years.)
Moreover (if I am not sterile) I fear that such a transformation could be heritable. There are good arguments for this fear (heritability of endocrinian perturbation by pesticides on more than 3 generations, epigenetic inheritance of behaviors in rats, etc), though, of course, there is no direct evidence for it for the moment (don’t panik).
A word on my and doctors’ attitudes here.
As my dermatologist told me that symptoms should improve in 3 weeks, I started to wait for recovery (I thought: maybe 6 weeks in my case?). Finally, fearing for a more serious problem, I went to an urologist who checked for anatomical anomalies. There was none according to him (but not to me, as my sex is wrinkled and too soft even when flaccid) and he sent me to a sexologist. The sexologist didn’t find any psychological problem (at least related to sex). Diabetes have also been ruled out.
These three doctors were unanimous to tell that propecia has no long-term side effect. At that time I checked the caption and noticed that it had been modified to include permanent ED. I now know that it had been modified before my dermatologist renewed my treatment in 2008. Damned.
I feel very angry against myself for having taken such a risk on my health (and possible descent). I feel very angry also against my dermatologist, who should never have prescribed a systemic treatment (propecia) instead of a topical one (minoxidil), in particular knowing that it would affect hormonal pathways. Though both of us should never have trust Merck’s caption, I feel very angry also against Merck who most probably lied, and in every circumstance should never have released such a systemic treatment for such a benign problem. Not to speak about my anger for other men that have been castrated by Merck.
Objectively, ED (partially) ruined my sexual life. It affected my relationship with my girlfriend, who likes pretty much to make love (trust me). However, we have succeeded in dealing with it for the past two years. She is frankly nice, so yes, girls like this do exist. I will free her one day if I do not recover, but her very existence is a message of hope.
ED is the most visible, but not the most important part of the problem (if it does not worsen too much with age I think I could deal with it). Mental side effects are. In particular, I find it hard to endure the loss of creativity. I am bored all the time. I used to have quite an eidetic memory, which is now more or less an average memory. I have the verbal flow of an 80 yo man, and I am as calm as a buddhist monk (I will soon have as much hairs than them).
As the brain and the sexual organs seem to be chore issue here (OK it is a typo, but it’s so true), I wonder whether the following hypotheses have been tested:
- post-finasterid syndrom affects a particular type of brain functioning (for instance, high IQ).
- post-finasterid syndrom affects a particular type of sexual functioning (for instance, hypersexual men with big organs) (who maybe often have high IQ).
I don’t know about you, but I would be a good data point*.
To conclude, I would like to focus on the following positive aspects:
- there have been 3 partial temporary recoveries
- there has been an overall, slight but significant, improvement
- there are good days
- I am a buddhist monk
- nice girls exist.
*:-p