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)?
Prefer to keep it to myself for now.
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- probably searched for symptoms or how long until they pass.
What is your current age, height, weight?
21, 1.73cm, 58kg (I was 62kg before fin).
What specific drug did you use (finasteride, dutasteride, saw palmetto, isotretinoin/Accutane, fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, leuprorelin, etc…)?
Topical finasteride (for more information - it was a solution mixed with minoxidil. Also took Roaccutane as a teen).
What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
Pretty sure it was around 0.4-0.5ml of 1% fin and 5% minoxidil, and on day 3 I accidentally put a bit more.
What condition was being treated with the drug?
Hair loss.
For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)?
3 days.
Date when you started the drug?
12/12/23
Date when you quit the drug?
14/12/23
Age when you quit?
21
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, a few hours after the third dose.
What side effects did you experience that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
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
[ ] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ ] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[x] Loss of Morning Erections
[x ] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[x ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[x ] Watery Ejaculate
[ ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability or Difficulty to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfulness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[x ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[x ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ ] 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
[x ] 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
[ ] Tinnitus (ringing or high pitched sound in ears)
[ ] Hearing loss
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature
[x ] Other (please explain)
Trouble sleeping, numbness across the body (mostly legs), some pain that come and goes in some areas, big loss of appetite.
What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
None
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)?
None yet.
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.
So I’m 21 and almost every man in both of my parents’ family is bald, and I started to notice it as well, so I started to feel like it’s lowering my self-confidence (which was already not high). I started to look into this a bit and came across finasteride and minoxidil. I took Minoxidil by itself for a few months, had in the first few days some itchy scalp but it passed and it seemed to do its job. After these few months I ran out and just didn’t bother to buy some more, and of course I didn’t know it has a history of being able to cause symptoms similer to PFS.
During this time I saw on social media some more videos about how to combat hair loss and decided to try finasteride (I knew a bit about its symptoms). At first I went to a dermatologist who prescribed propecia for me and warned me that it’s possible that I’ll have permanent sexual effects (only the sexual ones). I bought the pills but eventually was too scared and decided to not take them. Then I ran into a video about topical fin as well as a big study that compared it to oral fin that said that it does lower the chance of side effects while being almost as effective. Somehow I never ran into anything describing the horrifying side effects people here experience except for the usual possible persistent loss of libido and ED. I went to the doctor again, this time another one and he gave me a prescription for a solution of topical fin 1% with 5% minoxidil that a big pharmacy here can make. I also asked him about the chances of the side effects being permanent and he said something like “yeah but in about a week or two it will pass”.
A few weeks have passed and I was told it was ready, I picked it up but still for a week or so I didn’t use it out of some fear I had in me. Stupid me decided to silence that fear and to just plunge into it and take the risk, telling myself that it’s very rare to get the persistent side effects and even if you do get some sides when taking the drug I’ll be one of those who recovers from them in the expressed time period. First two days were ok, took like 0.4-0.5 ml of it, now also aware it’s a lot even for topical fin - no side effects (maybe I got some weird very minor dizzying feeling after the first dose for 30 seconds that passed after that). On the third day I accidentally took a bit more and after a few hours started to get some tingly feeling in my penis and when masturbating noticed it was a bit softer. Went to sleep and woke up with that same tingly feeling that got stronger when panicking and it being much smaller, softer and shrivelled, with a weird rubbery and very soft feeling, as well as feeling a bit numb there. I don’t get any morning, nocturnal and spontaneous erections, though I can still get erect to physical stimuli (when I masturbate the size is as it always was, though it’s still softer and can bend more than it could’ve) and semi erect to visual stimuli or imagination, and a decreased but still present libido. I once got 3 days after the last dose a spontaneous erection and once a morning wood, but they weren’t full ones and it haven’t happened since).
I started panicking and thinking I ruined my life for nothing, and after around 5 days that tingly sensation stopped and I thought I was getting better. I was like that for another two days but then I started to feel my head a bit heavy, but nothing substantial and not for the whole day, and also some muscle weakness like you get when you have the flu and numbing in the limbs, mostly in the legs. 3 days ago I noticed I have trouble sleeping (in the first week after stopping I slept fine, sometimes only couldn’t because of anxiety), taking time to fall asleep and only sleeping for 3-4 hours before waking up. Today I noticed a pulsing pain in my right palm for a few minutes, that came back for another couple minutes after a few hours and disappeared, and noticed a number of muscle twitches occured only once for one twitch in different areas throughout the day.
I think the penis’s texture is better than in the beginning, not sure about the length when flaccid as I don’t know what it was before fin.
I want to mention that I took Roaccutane as a teen (I think somewhere between 14-16?) and except for the normal side effects you have when taking it like dry skin it was fine, and it did help my face acne though it created a lot of scars on my back. After stopping it everything was normal.
I’m now writing it panicking, having read a lot of posts here on the forum - probably not the best idea - and I honestly don’t know what to do or feel. I know people say to wait 3 months before dooming myself but I’m seriously full of anxiety at having ruined my life by my own stupidity, and my family beforehand telling my I don’t need to take anything and instead just need to work on my insecurities. Tomorrow I’m going to talk about this with my mother, she knows about me having the sexual side effects but I didn’t tell her about the possible physical and neurological ones as even I didn’t know it yet before finding this forum due to my bad research beforehand (and I thought I did a good job before taking fin).
During the night my anxiety from the situation worsens and the entire day I’m occupied with thoughts about this. If I don’t recover from this I don’t know how I’m gonna live my life.
I might’ve missed some stuff and sorry it’s written very awkwardly but I don’t know, I can only feel and think about awful things and how stupid I am for taking this shit drug. And it’s even worse knowing that I took it with Minoxidil, that I also took by itself for a few months.
on Thursday it will be two weeks since taking the last dose and I’m also really afraid of having a crash as a lot of people say they had after a few weeks since stopping. How can we get this fucked from taking such a small amount of a drug and even more than that, from rubbing it on our skin??
Self-reporting template - ONLY USE FOR FUTURE POSTS TO REPORT ANY TRIALS OF TREATMENTS, NOT YOUR INITIAL MEMBER STORY
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Name of the therapy/substance:
- Dosage:
- How often you took it:
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Status
- Still using [ ]
- Stopped with no lasting change to initial symptoms [ ]
- Stopped with persistent change to symptoms [ ]
- Duration of use: Days [ ] Months [ ] Years [ ]
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Response when you started:
- Greatly improved [ ]
- Slightly improved [ ]
- Stayed the same [ ]
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- Greatly worsened [ ]
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Current response (if you’re still using the therapy/substance) OR Response in the time before you stopped the treatment
- Greatly improved [ ]
- Slightly improved [ ]
- Stayed the same [ ]
- Slightly worsened [ ]
- Greatly worsened [ ]
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Lasting changes to initial symptoms after cessation (if you have stopped for more than 3 weeks)
- Greatly improved [ ]
- Slightly improved [ ]
- Stayed the same [ ]
- Slightly worsened [ ]
- Greatly worsened [ ]