I posted my story before but I have been meaning to post in recoveries.
I want to give hope to all that are suffering. I know how it is. It is the worst but don’t give up.
From 2013:
Here is my first post:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2221#p11993
Basically on propecia for a year and then one day crashed after I started to taper off.
As my first post notes I was a healthy happy guy, who didn’t take drugs, smoke, etc and NEVER had any sexual problems and always had a high libido.
After the crash I thought I would recover in two weeks or so (believing Merck) but I didn’t. Was 5 years of not being able to get it up or not very well. This was embarrassing and depressing in the decent amount of situations I was in with women in bed and ready to go. I told maybe 3 people about this situation, all women that I was in bed with but even then I didn’t mention how it might be permanent. I was depressed and takes a toll on your life.
I read a lot of forum posts on what people were trying, clomid and other treatments. I wanted get back to normal but after this nightmare with propecia frankly I was scared to take anything else and didn’t want to mess myself up further.
I did begin to eat healthier and cut down on sugar more. I did hit the gym more. This being said I was already relatively healthy person and did not eat much fast food or have lots of sugar. It was only a slight change in diet. I thought the exercise might help but so many times I was on the machines hoping to start feeling my penis again but it didn’t happen. I had to keep myself from crying in the gym (and I probably have cried only like 3 times in a decade).
I started propecia in '06 and quit in '07. In the fall of '11 I broke up with this gal who was not very understanding and I was a not in a good place emotionally. About a month later I was over at this new gal’s place I had just met. Was later at night and I was not expecting anything to happen, at least not go that far, but we end up in her bed. I am not saying I am some super suave guy but as I said I had been in this situation a number of time in the past years but had problems of differing severity. Maybe it was the surprise factor and knowing that if I didn’t go all the way it would not be something she would be wondering about (again since we had just met earlier in the week), but as we were in bed making out I got hard and we did it. The next morning we did it and then in the late morning we did it again! This was amazing. Back before Propecia this would be normal but after this was stunning. My erections were relatively good. I previously had sex but as many of you know the experience was underwhelming, only half hard, orgasms feeling only ok, or sometimes even hurt. Very depressing. That is of course when I could get it up. There were a lot of situations I could not. I could not even feel my penis.
This relationship went on for about a month. I could generally get it up and stay up. For the first time I felt at least partly normal in 4.5 years. I was not recovered though but had a touch of confidence for the first time since before propecia.
Later I got in to a relationship with another gal (awesome) and continued to do decently well and improve. For the first year There were still times that I had problems. Now in the past year I have improved to the point where in sexual situations I get hard and stay hard. I would say 85% recovered. I want to say higher but I used to get hard sometimes at a bar/party just talking to a girl, again I had a high libido and NEVER had problems before.
So there is hope. That being said has been over 5 years in the making. I know some of you who have suffered for a few years don’t want to hear, hey just wait another two years and it might get better but at least for me it did. I do think waiting it out is better than risking more drugs but I can understand the people who choose a different route. I tried mineral and vitamins and natural libido boosters. They didn’t seem to help and I have not taken them in about 2 years but maybe they helped start it. I don’t know.
I would also say I also used to try to avoid cumming so I could save it up and pray that when i was in bed with a girl that it would help me. I think though once I started having sex a little more regularly my body was start producing more seaman eventually. For the first few years my amount went down and was watery like many others here. Mine has gotten better though not the same as it was before propecia.
I hope this post helps some keep hope alive. Oh, and Merck, I still hate you for taking 5 years of my life away.
Update Oct 2015
Everything is good. As mentioned above took about 5.5 years to become better.Then another 1.5 years to become normal. Past 2 years has been good. I get strong erections and can get hard touching it or being in a intimate situation. Also it actually feels good when I cum and doesn’t hurt like it did in the first few years when I stopped taking propecia.
Again I started eating healthier (though was not un healthy to begin with). I did more exercise though last 2 years have not been to the gym.
I hope this gives people hope. I suggest not taking other drugs but that is your decision. Bottom line it took over 5 years before I started recovering and nearly 2 more to be totally normal. But again now I am good.