- Where are you from (country)?
Europe (for privacy reasons, as in I would prefer to stay anonymous in case someone I know bumps into my story, I’d rather stay anonymous by omitting my homecountry) - 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?)
google pfs symptoms - What is your current age, height, weight?
27, 6, 155 - Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
gym 3 times a week - What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
basically everything - Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
hair loss - For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
6 years on and off - How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
- don’t remember the exact date but 2010
- How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
- December 2016
- How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
cold turkey - What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
proscar divided in 4 once a day - What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
1.25 mg - How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
NEVER HAD ANY SIDE EFFECTS WHILE ON THE DRUG. IT DESTROYED ME WHEN I QUIT - What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
ALL SIDES CAME AFTER I QUIT AND PERSIST
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
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[X] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[X] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[X] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[X] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts
Physical
[X] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[X] 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
[ ] Increased hair loss
[X] 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?
None besides Cialis daily - 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)?
no blood work before finasteride - Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?
I just cannot believe this is happening - Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
Hi guys,
After lurking the web for months I finally and unfortunately(no offense, but i’d rather be doing something else with my life right now) decided to join this community to share my experience and maybe get or give some advice from and to the people that suffering like I am.
In 2010 I started to take proscar divided into 4 parts prescribed to me by my dermatologist out of the fear of losing my hair, that was always so important to me. It’s amazing how I could care less right now that my penis is not working properly. It could sound almost as a joke. That is what brought me here, MY BELOVED PENIS, that I always gave for granted and sacrificed for some STUPID HAIR.
Let’s be clear from the beginning. FINASTERIDE NEVER GAVE ME ANY SIDES WHILE ON IT. Maybe less morning wods but it could have easily been for lack of REM sleep.
When my dermatologist prescribed it to me, he didn’t say anything about side effects. It was my PCP to let me know that there was a slight chance of low libido. and once I realized my libido actually got better while on the drug I thought I was out of the danger zone. in addition to that he said that damn phrase:"if anything happens just discontinue the drug, everything will go back to normal’. yeah… normal my as*
During these 6 years of proscar I had a girlfriend for one, until 2011 (sex was always accomplished with no issues at all) and then a lot of rejections and fapping lol… but my god I miss that fapping now. because everything down there worked PERFECTLY. I was on and off the drugs multiple times with absolutely no problem at all.
In December 2016, I finally meet the love of my life. the girl I would give my life for. The day I went out with her I got a short haircut, she loved it and I decided that it was time to throw the pills away. If she loved me she had to love me with or without hair. I felt great. life was amazing. I had no idea that in two weeks my life would have turned into complete hell.
It was mid november when I took my last pill and by the end of november we started to fool around a little and it was fantastic. after so long without a girl I was feeling amazing. every time I kissed her I was getting a raging boner. for three consecutive nights we fooled around a lot, making out and exploring eachother, but we didn’t have sex. I was so happy that I didn’t care at all. If she wanted to wait I was absolutely fine with it. My penis was raging hard for hours and I ended up home every time with really bad blue balls. when I say hard for hours I mean maybe for a total of 5 hours with intervals of 30 minutes and never more than 2 hrs straight, so I doubt I suffered damages from priapism. After these nights of fooling around and exactly 2 weeks after I ditched the pills(proscar) I finally found myself naked in bed with her and… I literally switched off… it’s like something in my brain changed in a matter of seconds. My erection that started fine that same night went away and my nightmare started. from that moment I never had a morning or spontaneous erection again. My libido dropped drastically. Depression and EXTREME anxiety kicked in. I thought it was performance anxiety and never connected the dots. Things got worse. Keeping an erection became more and more difficult. Then it became a problem to get one. Urologists checked my hormones (testosterone over 730) and sent me home with cialis daily to take for 3 months. for three months things were better but I was somehow even struggling with Cialis sometimes. And the anxiety and depression were always around the corner. They were following me like my shadow, not giving me the ability to never really feel happy. To feel myself.
It has been around 7 months now, since this nightmare started and tonight I had an EPIPHANY. I have benn lurking the web like CRAZY looking for answers, studying what the people that felt better had in common, reading pub med etc. and I came to one final conclusion: I BELIEVE THAT IT ALL COMES DOWN TO RECEPTORS UPREGULATION AND DOWNREGULATION.
There are SO MANY different opinions on what finasteride may be messing up. But why don’t we try to focus on the most basic one. to be correct 3: TESTOSTERONE, 5A-REDUCTASE and DHT. We all know how these three elements are affected by finasteride. 5ar is stopped, testosterone increased and DHT increased. But what about the receptors? What happens to the androgen using these two fundamentals androgen? I believe that what happens while we take finasteride is that the receptors are starved from DHT and hence upregulated(sensitivity is increased), A LOT. Once you quit the drug the DHT overflows these upregulated receptors and downregulates them like crazy, to the point that even normal quantity of DHT are not sufficient anymore. These would explain the crash. It would also explain why people that do fasting feel better for a short amount of time. Fasting increases receptor sensitivity. This would explain why denarion felt better after going back on finasteride and keep going even thought the situation got worse and weened off the drug. He starved his receptors again upregulating them again and reintroduced DHT SLOWLY without downregulating the receptors again.
You could argue by saying that Testosterone was higher while on finasteride and should have prevented the receptors from getting downregulated, but you would forget to take into considerations that DHT is 10 times more powerful than T and that receptors are way more susceptible to DHT change than T change.
The only thing that I was still not understanding was: “why this didn’t happen to me all the times that I interrupted finasteride in the past?” and then it hit me. I DIDN’T HAVE A GIRLFRIEND. I was never involved in any fooling around, kissing or making out that probably increased even more the levels on my androgens! My crash in fact came around after 3 days of fooling around non stop.
My plan? Find a way to upregulate my receptors again while taking the best possible care of my body and my penis, which I forgot to mention, became more woody in flaccid state and kind of retracted. I don’t think I lost any size while erect.
I also thought I had venous leak for a certain amount of time because of the long lasting erections closed in my skynny jeans, but then I read about people that suffered 8-10 hours priapism and recovered with no problems.
Sorry for the long post. Hope the best for all of you.