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)?
- Australia
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 Google Searched “Finasteride” accompanied with the really bad symptoms I was experiencing.
What is your current age, height, weight?
- 27 years old, 178cm, 74kg
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.)?
- 1mg, 3 days a week
What condition was being treated with the drug?
- Hair loss/Alopecia.
For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)?
- 16 months (1 year & 4 months)
Date when you started the drug?
- March 20th 2020
Date when you quit the drug?
- Approximately August 1st 2021
Age when you quit?
- 25 years old
How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
- Cold turkey
How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects?
- 3 days
What side effects did you experience that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
- Low libido. Large amounts of fatigue. Strange sensitivity to certain foods. High anxiety. Weirdly tight/sore muscles. Brain fog. Unusual memory loss.
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
[x] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ ] Erectile Dysfunction (Had this, but subsided months after quitting.)
[ ] Complete Impotence
[x] Loss of Morning Erections
[x] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[x] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[ ] Watery Ejaculate (Had this)
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate (Had this)
[ ] Inability or Difficulty to Ejaculate / Orgasm (Had this)
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[x] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[x] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion (Had this)
[x] Memory Loss / Forgetfulness
[x] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[x] Slurring of Speech
[ ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency (Had this)
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks (Had this)
[ ] Severe Depression / Melancholy (Had this)
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts (Had this)
Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled) (Had shrinkage)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[x] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness (Had this, but nearly back to normal after 2 years off fin)
[ ] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease (Had this)
[x] Weight Gain
[x] Gynecomastia (male breasts) (Nearly gone. Was worse, but better now that on specific diet)
[x] Muscle Wastage
[x] Muscle Weakness
[x] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes (Had this)
Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[x] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[x] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[x] Constipation / “Poo Pellets” (Also have nearly had diarrhoea every day since starting on fin)
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness (Had this)
[ ] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears) (Had this, but gone now. When I eat 5ari foods, comes back)
[ ] Hearing loss (My partner thinks I had this)
[ ] Increased hair loss
[x] Frequent urination
[x] Lowered body temperature
[x] Other(s) (please explain)
-
Severe OCD and ruminating thoughts. A lot less these days
-
Insomnia (This decreased after the stopping of 5ari foods)
-
Dry mouth and extreme Eczema on hands (Worse in winter. Had it every Winter since Fin. Never had before Fin.
-
I also had a strange lump in the back/roof of my mouth for about 6 months-12 months while I was on fin. It was extremely painful. Like a big hard cold thing. Really hard to explain, not sure if anyone else experienced this too? (Gone now)
-
Also had very sore soles feet from within 2-3 weeks of starting the fin, right until about 3 months after stopping fin. Sounds related to muscle atrophy. (Losing muscle on soles of feet)
Was very uncomfortable. Still happens/comes back if I diet too hard and lose muscle.
What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
- I haven’t started any treatments yet. However I have abstained from 5ari foods, and that seems to have a positive impact, and definitely lessens some symptoms (not all of them). When I try 5ari foods again, some symptoms come back.
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)?
- Had blood tests 6 months after stopping fin. Cholesterol was the only thing that was slightly high. Blood tests 18 months later all came back as normal (as far as I know).
Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience?
Tell us your story, in your own words, about your usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug:
Hi guys. Long time lurker, first time poster. My story starts in March of 2020, right at the start of the Covid Pandemic, and at a stage with many long lockdowns in my country to were coming. A known Dermatologist in my city prescribed me with Finasteride, 1mg tablet, 3 days a week. He mentioned that the only two known side effects are Depression and Erectile Dysfunction, saying that if I experience these side effects to stop taking it, and they will go away. He also said “the placebo group experienced more sides in studies than the controlled group did”.
After taking it, I quickly experienced side effects within 3 days, noticeably unusual amounts of anxiety. I thought nothing of it, as it could have been anything. Within weeks of starting fin, my city went into strict lockdown, meaning I was no longer working/out of the house. It was during this time more side effects started to appear, however I still thought nothing of them. I think that if I experienced them at work in a familiar environment, it would have been more obvious, and I would’ve put 2 and 2 together. But because I had never really been at home this long or in this situation before, I thought I was experiencing mental health and physical symptoms due to the lockdowns and the uncertainty.
Most lockdowns lasted 10 days, or up to a month. But there was one lockdown which lasted 3 months. While being locked up inside, the symptoms/side effects continued to increase, not realising the actual cause. All of the symptoms appeared during this time, most notably fatigue, insomnia, sore/tight muscles (especially in the calfs/legs), sore soles of feet (sore to walk on), tinnitus, visible muscle loss, visible Gynecomastia, Brian Fog, slurred speech, memory loss (mostly short term), increased urination, loss of morning, day & night erections, erectile dysfunctions and watery ejaculate.
But because I had changed my lifestyle during the lockdowns, ie: Going to bed late, sleeping in, playing more video games, not going outside, eating at strange times, I didn’t correlate these changes with fin. I thought it was me adjusting/not adjusting well to my new life style. Oh how wrong I was.
I did experience what I now know as a crash 10 months into Fin. High amounts of anxiety, panic attack like feeling and strange bodily reactions, but I still didn’t realise what was causing this. My cognitive symptoms/abilities really spiralled downhill after that crash, almost immediately.
Fast forward to Mid 2021 (over 12 months after starting fin), I continue to experience increased and strange symptoms. However I still don’t link it to fin. Instead linking my symptoms to just about anything else I could think of. I even saw a Podiatrist about sore soles of feet while walking. She was gobsmacked, and couldn’t think for the life of her why it was happening.
I probably would’ve continued to take fin for many years after. However fast forward a couple months later, I luckily meet my current girlfriend/partner. It is through meeting her, that I discover I had Erectile Dysfunction, Watery Ejaculate and trouble ejaculating. All of a sudden a light bulb goes off in my head. I do a Google Search with the words finasteride and these symptoms, and I find this forum. I then also search with all of the previous symptoms mentioned, and find this site again. Horrified on what I was reading, I went cold turkey that day.
Over the next 2 years, at no stage did I do any treatment, because after seeing some of the horror stories on the forum, I didn’t want that to be me. I wanted to avoid it all together, and see how much going Cold Turkey could help reduce the side effects. Some symptoms started to disappear on their own without any other help, while others are still present. I find that by avoiding 5ari foods, this lessens my side effects significantly. However after abstaining from 5aris for months, not all symptoms have subsided. To put it simply: during being on Fin, my symptoms were at their 100% worst. After waiting patiently to recover for 18 months afterwards, I felt as if I was down to 60%-70% (30-40% recovered). Now after avoiding 5ari foods, getting 8+ hours of sleep each night, I feel now that I am at 70% recovery, and feeling the best I have felt in more than 3 years.
I am still experiencing high amounts of fatigue, and gut problems, which is extremely hard to deal with. I am currently on a quest to get to that 100% recovery, and that is why I’m here now.