hello,just joined this site after trawling it for around two years,well heres my story anyway,like most i started taking propecia after noticing a slight bit of thinning of my hair in 2003 when i was 28 years old,as my father is quite thin on top i panicked and trawled the net for some kind of cure,sure enough i discovered propecia,and off to the docs i went to get my first prescription,if only id seen this site first,but at the time i wasnt much interested in reading about side effects only in stopping my hair falling out,my thinking was well the docs prescribing it therefore it must have gone through all the tests and be safe etc,little did i know what was to come,at first i did notice a small dip in my libido but still had a great sex drive as id had since the age of about 11 without any problems atall,the drug did what it said and stopped anymore hair falling out so i was happy with it,a few times over the years i came off propecia for two or three weeks if i remeber right after pressure from my girlfriend who was against taking any type of medications etc,but i soon started taking the drug again after my hair started falling out again,anyway one day in 2007 i just seemed to crash overnight so to speak,very sudden it was,one day i was fine the next day i was dead inside,my sex drive had gone dissapeared and i was very tired and sluggish,after a few weeks of feeling like this i quit the propecia thinking that soon i would be back to normal when the drug got out of my system like it said in the paperwork i had read which came with the propecia,well here i sit some 4 years later and im still the same,very little intersest in anything sexual,can only get semi erect at best with tactile stimulation,no nocturnal erections,no morning erections,infact no erections atall,i never feel like having sex,nor do i chase women anymore,i probably have the sex drive of a 75 year old i would imagine,i can still ejaculate but not much comes out and where before propecia it would squirt out with force and and be a very intense and pleasurable experience it now just dribbles out the end and has trouble getting up my pipe with any extremely small amount of pleasurable feelings sometimes nothing atall,its left me devastated,for someone who regards sex as one of lifes greatest gifts its hard to take at 36 years old,like many others ive been down the road of eurologists and endocronologists etc,they all tell me my hormones etc are within range and its all in my head and give me some viagra or simmilar,my story sounds like so many other ive read on here,all i can do is wait and live in hope ther’ll be an answer soon…
Are you robbocopp from the mesoforum or steroidology forum (idk) ? The guy who took t4 and dexamethasone and improved a little bit?
no im not robbocop mate,,,this is the first time ive ever posted something on a site like this...Sorry to hear this.
Can you post ur bloods for us to take a look.
I am pretty sure no one here has optimal hormone levels.
THE FOLLOWING SYMPTOMS/PROFILE TEMPLATE INTO YOUR POST.
This is so that we can more easily track our symptoms and hopefully find patterns in our syndrome. This will also help others understand your background, and help us try to determine what are the most commonly experienced side effects after discontinuation of Finasteride.
COPY AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING INTO YOUR OWN POST, then answer the questions.
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Where are you from (country)? UNITED KINGDOM
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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
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What is your current age, height, weight? 206 POUNDS
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Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise? ONLY WEIGHTS RECENTLY
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What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)? TRY TO EAT HEALTHY MOST OF THE TIME
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Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)? HAIR LOSS
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For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)? AROUND 4 YEARS
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How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride? 28 YEARS OLD, AROUND XMAS 2003
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How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit? 32 YEARS OLD,AROUND 2007
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How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)? COLD TURKEY
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What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic? PROPECIA
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What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)? 1 MG DAILY
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How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
I NOTICED A SMALL DIP IN LIBIDO ALMOST STRAIGHT AWAY BUT THIS WAY A TINY TINY DIP AND I STILL HAD A GREAT SEX DRIVE,UNTIL I CRASHED ONE DAY IN 2007,ONE DAY FINE NEXT DAY DEAD INSIDE… -
What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation? ZERO LIBIDO,SLUGGISHNESS,BRAIN FOG,ERECTILE DISFUNCTION,VERY VERY WEAK ORGASM,REDUCED SEMEN,
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
[X] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[X] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[X] Depression / Melancholy
Physical
[ ] 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
[X] Joint Pain
[X] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes
Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[X] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[ ] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[ ] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Increased hair loss STILL GETTING THINNER BUT VERY VERY SOWLY…
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature
[ ] Other (please explain)
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What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
MAINLY EXERCISE AND GOOD DIET AT FIRST,TRIED SOME T PATCHES AND RECENTLY HALOPERIDOL ANTI PSYCHOTIC DRUG… -
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)?
IVE HAD ABOUT 5 LOTS OF BLOODWORK DONE ILL POST THEM LATER… -
Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?
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Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug
HELLO,SORRY ITS TOOK SO LONG,IVE HAD AROUND FIVE LOTS OF BLOODWORK DONE,ILL GET THEM POSTED SOMETIME SOON,
im not sure what part of my bloods you would be interested in apart from my t levels and prolactin??? so heres my last two t and prolactin levels, 30-11-2009 , serum testosterone 9.7 nmol/L,prolactin 119 mu/L, and on the 05-05-2010 , serum testosterone was 11.1 nmol/L and prolactin173 mu/L,does that mean anything to anyone???
You need to post your bloodwork in a list format (ie, not in an ongoing sentence) with RANGES beside each result, otherwise any results cannot be interpreted correctly.
Yes please post ranges.
Are you still feeling sluggish?
You should do a full blood count.
Cortisol
Transcortin
Silivary cortisol
Thyroid binding globulin
FREE T3 T4, RT3.
Along with what ever else you can test. I have compiled a lot of test results and it has really helped me work out where the problem may be located.
ok,i’ll get them blood tests put up properly tonight,my slugishness has lifted a lot the last few weeks since ive been taking 0.5 mg of haloperidol every day,thats on my other post though…
why are you taking that crap?
apparently its used to help you get your sex drive back aswell as other uses ofcourse,i read somewhere a few moth back that in some countries like france they use the stop smoking drug zyban to help with sex drive,after researching it more i found that anti psychotic drugs like haloperidol are similar and also are used to help with sex drive,take a look on the san diego sexual medicine site,tha place that dr irwig runs…
You got your docs mixed up, San Diego Sexual Medicine is run by Dr. Irwin Goldstein, not Dr. Irwig. They are 1000s of miles apart.
Actually the website says something different, it clearly says Haloperidol can cause sexual dysfunction because it raises prolactin. However Goldstein does list zyban/bupropion treatment amongst others.
How did you get Haloperidol?
Are you schizophrenic?
I do not think that drug is addressiong the root of the problem, sounds dangerous.
(serum free T4 level 15 pmol/L)…(serum LH level 2.9 iu/L)…(serum fsh level 2.2 iu/L)…(serum prolactin 173 mu/L )…(serum cortisol 385 nmol/L)…(serum TSH 2.41 miu/L)…(serum testosterone 11.1 nmol/L)…(R SHBG 17nmol/L )…there are the levels off a test i got in may 2005,im sorry i couldnt put them in list,im hopeless with computers,does any of this mean anything to anyone???
different doc eh,my mistake,and no im not a schitzo mate but i know a few,just someone trying different things to get back to normal,i probably dont know 1% of what you lads know about this curse,could you recomend any treatments???,ive read loads on here over the last few years about people injecting this and that hormones etc,the only things ive tried is good diet, fitness and heavy weights and had a go with some t patches,felt a slight imrovement on the patches for around a week them nothing so stoppped them…
I have tested many many things, only thing that has helped is testosterone and anti estrogens but the effects seems to fade as you mentioned.
Can you put ranges in? Can you do more tests?
there are some ranges at the end of each test stating the ranges acceptable,is this what you mean??? the bloodwork tests i had done are limited because thats all the free health care over here in england will pay for you see,the doctor did advise me to get more indepth tests done but these would have to be payed for out of my own pocket,i havent got round to getting them done yet,i have the 4 tests ive had done from 2007 to 2010 some are more indepth than others,ill post them all in detail once i learn how to put things on here in list form,any help would be appreciated as im not very computer savvy…