New member story

Member Stories
#1

  1. How did you find this forum?
    Internet search

  2. What is your current age, height, weight?
    25, 6’2"

  3. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
    two times a week, soccer or basketball

  4. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
    Everything but try to stay on the healthy side

  5. Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
    Hair loss

  6. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
    2 years: March 2008 till March 201

  7. How old were you when you started Finasteride?
    23

  8. How old were you when you quit?
    25

  9. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
    Cold Turkey

  10. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
    Proscar

  11. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
    1/4 of 1.25 mgs

  12. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
    Not for two years but sides definitely set in before then

  13. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?
    ED, low libido, watery ejaculate, no morning erections or nocturnal

Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[ []] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[[] ] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[ []] Loss of Morning Erections
[ []] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[[] ] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[[] ] Watery Ejaculate
[[*] ] Reduced Ejaculate
[ ] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[ ] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility

Mental
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[ ] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[ ] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[ ] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[ ] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[ ] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[ [*]] Depression / Melancholy

Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[ ] 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
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature

[ ] Other (please explain)

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
    I’ve only done herbal supplements, L-Arginine, Yohimbe, zinc, multi, gaba, maca, horny goat weed

  2. 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)?
    I have blood tests, however I don’t know what they were at before fin. Some of the numbers seem questionable.

  3. Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?

  4. Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.

I’ve been lurking on this forum for the past six months. After being in a state of utter depression for the last week, I decided it was time to start taking action and accepting what has happened to me, thus I am here.

I started taking propecia when I was 23 after noticing my hair was thinning. I thought to myself, I am too young to go bald, this can’t be happening to me and I am willing to do anything short of murdering someone to make it stop. Taking fin. wasn’t even a question, it was the only solution. My doctor told me to be aware of any side effects, particularly sexual sides, that may occur from taking the drug. I thought surely if I were to have any side effects they would emerge early on. I did not experience any side effects within the first six months. I was having normal sex with my then girlfriend, I thought I was on the golden path to thick hair, and life was good. I graduated college and went to South America where I taught English for 6 months.

I believe it was during my arrival in South America that I began feeling sides. I remember oddly enough that I didn’t masterbate for two weeks when I first got there. Two weeks!!! This means I wasn’t even getting erections. I attributed this to being in a foreign country and in culture shock, which was also very real, but I never thought for once it could be fin. and if the thought crossed my mind I probably banished it because to me fin was my savior. Anyways, I was faithful to my girlfriend my whole time there, so I never really got to experiment with the function of my penis. Then I came home and things took a turn for the worst.

When I got back to the States, I started fighting all the time with my girlfriend, I was an emotional wreck, lazy, listless, didn’t want to to do anything except drink and sleep in. I remember being excited to see my girlfriend but didn’t care about having sex with her. Actually the first time we had sex when I got back it was sort of emotionless and weird, for me I mean. We fought and fought and fought, I blamed it on more culture shock of being back home and having a mid twenties crisis. My girlfriend whom I loved and still love dearly noticed I wasn’t acting myself emotionally or sexually. I simply wasn’t the outgoing happy person I once was. So we had our issues and we broke up, got back together then broke up again. She found another guy whom she is still with. We were together for four years and this breaks my heart.

For the next six months I started focusing on other things, becoming more productive, found a job, etc. But there was still something weird. I was incredibly emotional all the time. Also at this time my parents were splitting up, so I figured the emotional pain of that coupled with my breakup with my gf was too much for me to handle. I drank a lot and cried a lot. Just felt empty inside. However I still managed to be productive and move my life forward, but I was NOT AT ALL interested in finding another girl.

Fast forward to March of 2010. In one of my spouts of sadness, I was laying in bed trying to masterbate when I realized i wasn’t hard. I thought about it and couldn’t remember the last time I was hard. I think I had been masterbating with a limp penis for quite some time. I instantly looked up this site which I had remembered stumbling upon before, and my worst nightmare came true. I even remember before taking the drug finding this website and thinking, “what are the chances?” I used to get an erection just laying next to a girl or seeing a hot girl in short shorts. So I quit cold turkey, completely terrified. The sides should go away after two weeks, right?

That next month was physically very strange. I felt libido rushing to my penis, I felt like I could feel my prostate doing some weird things, like it hurt or something. However the ED was still there. I waited and waited some more, until at three months off I went and spoke to my doctor, who was sympathetic but obviously had not dealt with this before, but a least was willing to listen. He also said some things about depression, which does run in my family, and I think is part of this, but maybe like 5%. There’s no way anyone can tell me that depression took away my nocturnal spontaneous and morning erections and gave me watery ejaculate. My doc told me to give it time, which I did.

About 4 months off, I started taking herbal supplements, and over the course of a week or two felt things start to tingle again, blood rushing to the penis, etc. Things were coming to life. This was a great sign, I felt like i was home free. This lasted about a month and gradually faded until the point I’m at now. six month off and I think I had what people refer to here as a crash. And here’s my present status.

I can get a decent erection in the morning, however it’s not that firm. I have to maintain stimulation to really keep it there. I don’t ever get morning wood or nocturnals for all I know, or spontaneous erections. At night, it’s harder to get an erection , especially if I’ve had as little as one beer. My ejaculate sometimes is okay, other times watery and reduced. If I use viagra I can get a decent erection, sometimes yohimbe helps too. I keep giving myself time to recover but I’m afraid it’s never going to happen, and that’s why I’ve been having panic attacks lately and been pretty down in the dumps. Thoughts of suicide, regretting my choices in life, not wanting to get out of bed, scared to start relationships. This is a BIG deal for me. I recently met a girl who I really really like, she’s beautiful and probably the coolest chick I’ve ever had a chance with. We hooked up the other night and I popped a viagra, however we did drink a ton before this. I could barely keep an erection. We “sort of” had sex if sex means penis/vagina penetration, but it was pathetic and short lived. We stayed up all night talking on through the morning. I told her if she wanted to come see a show I was playing the next day, and she came! I guess that means she liked me. But I’m scared of pursuing her because of my fear of failing again. She is also young and told me she’s not that into relationships. But I don’t want to ruin this one, I think this could be really good for me. But I do want a functional dick so she doesn’t think I’m some freak. God dammit I’m so distraught over this I don’t know what to do.

Thanks for reading. I’m going to post my blood tests.

Recovered
#2

Hello everyone. First of all I’d like to tell you that for all those still suffering everyday, stay positive. I can’t tell you how much positivity will help you through this. Be honest, don’t hide your problem (but don’t go shouting about it in the street either), accept that this has happened and work through the neccessary steps to fix it. Not everyone is the same, you will react to certain things and not others. If something doesn’t work, stick it out for a while then try something else. It will take time and patience. DON’T GIVE UP. See a number of doctors until one you can trust believes you. You WILL get better. In my case, I thought I was hopeless. I was literally suicidal. I would check this forum every day, and pray to one day open that home page and see a cure staring me in the face.

Now I will tell how I recovered.

First of all, here’s my story:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4270

After realizing I was affected by this drug, everything made sense to me: my lack of zest for life, my near zero libido, no morning erections–generally no feeling at all when I looked at a beautiful girl. However, what didn’t help was I had broken up with my girlfriend months before (which I blame partly on the Propecia sides), my parents were divorcing, I hated my job. I felt like this was the worst part of my life, and that it couldn’t get any worse. When I realize what Propecia had done, it did.

Now for a while, I entertained the notion that it was depression. Do not rule this out, but don’t give it too much credit either if you know yourself well and understand what depression really is. I know a lot about depression, it runs in my family, and I have never suffered from chronic depression. Sure we all get down now and then, but I have always been a generally happy person. I, like many of you, was made to feel crazy when I went into the doctor with pages of statistics, research, on the verge of tears, practically begging the doctor to hear me out, always getting the feeling they felt threatened by me. Things were made worse when two doctors told me it was just depression, stop thinking about it so much, relax and let your body heal. Well, to an extent this was true. Most things in life aren’t absolute. For many of us the problem starts with propecia but is certainly exacerbated by our festering on the idea–day in and day out, sometimes obsessively–that we are impotent and worthless. Now, to a certain extent the doctors were right. I was depressed, because of my break-up, my parents, my life in general. But I knew and still know today that the side effects from Propecia were very real.

I finally met an endocrinologist named Eric Buxton here in the bay area. He looked me in the eyes and told me “I believe you. I have not only seen this problem before in young men, but it’s actually not uncommon. You will recover, and we’ll do what ever we can to make that happen.” I nearly cried.

Buxton also listened to me, and we worked out a recovery plan. I stopped taking supplements all together and started Synthroid. Now, I cannot promise that it helped. But Dr. Buxton also gave me some Viagra, and said to take the Synthroid, the viagra, and go be as sexually active as you possibly can be. I had met a girl, the girl of my dreams, who I’m still with now (this was seven months ago.) I had gotten her number but was apprehensive to call her because of fearing that inevitable moment at the end of the evening when I would have to get it up. I nearly didn’t call her. I was going to make up some lousy excuse. I had spoken to my mother and she knew my problem and of course believed me, and she talked me into calling her.

Another thing I’d like to say, for those of you whose sex lives has been indefinitely put on hold because you’re waiting to “get better” before you get back in the game, DON’T WAIT. I know it’s hard, but please, go for it. For the love of god! You’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did. If I hadn’t made that phone call, maybe I’d still be here crying over my keyboard. The worst that could happen is you will fail. If she’s a good girl, a real human being who likes you, she will not reject you, and if she does, she’s not worth seeing again. I know it’s hard, but you deserve it. Don’t let this turn you into an asexual hermit. You are still a good person who deserves to love and be loved.

So anyways, I did the Synthroid, the viagra, and OH MY GOD–the Viagra didn’t even fucking work. Wow. So now I’m taking this medication that gives impotent 70 year old men raging boners, and I’m 25 and still can’t get it up. Well, I went out with her again. We drank wine, saw movies, held hands, made out. I did things to her that I didn’t need my penis to do. I tried another time. I failed. I tried the next weekend, took an entire 100 mg of Viagra. Well, I felt some movement, my face was flush, and the erection this time was at least good enough for a minute or so of penetration. But it was still pathetic, and I was embarrassed. Finally I told my self that the next time this happens, I need to be honest with her. So yet again I had trouble in the erection department, and I told her what was wrong. I didn’t get into details, I didn’t use the word “propecia” or “viagra.” I simply said “I took a medication that I’m having some bad sexual reactions to, and I’m seeing doctors right now to try and work through it. This is really embarrassing for me to tell you, but the reason I’m telling you is because I really like you and don’t want this stupid problem to ruin something great.” She was so appreciative that I told her, I think it made her like me even more. She said wow that must be hard, and said I don’t have to apologize for anything and it was okay, and that she really liked me, too.

So, this is what I did: I kept taking the viagra. After a few more tries, it worked. I continued with the Synthroid. It was a six week period of time I took the synthroid, half a pill every day for the first four weeks, then half a pill every other day for the last two. After my penis had entered her a few times, I started to get more confident. Maybe that cold little bastard between my legs can learn to do his job again. So I tried to have as much sex as I could, masterbate when I wasn’t having sex. I essentially oversexualized myself. And I’m still with this girl, we love each other, and I stopped useing Viagra completely about three months ago (which means I took it for the first four months of our relationship.) She never knew about the viagra, so I wasn’t completely honest with her, but I don’t think she needs to know. I don’t use it now, I get morning erections, I can have sex a few times a day if I want to, or back to back sessions with 15 minutes between. It’s like I was before, it just works and I don’t have to think about it. I’m as horny as ever. I don’t take anything at all anymore besides a daily multivitamin. I also smoke and drink booze and coffee and I’m fine, and I don’t see this ever becoming a problem in the forseeable future. Of course anythings possible, but right now I am incredibly grateful. I feel like I was given my life back. And I would have worked at recovery for as long as it took, but fortunately this ordeal only wasted lasted one and a half years.

All of us here on this site are here to help you through this. I can’t tell you how much the support of friends and family and a girl will help lift you up to fight another day.

So basically, I took synthroid, viagra, and found a really sweet girl who I could confide in. I think the viagra woke things up a bit, reminded that region what it was supposed to do, then the synthroid (if it had an effect at all–I can’t be sure) just gave the rest of my system a fighting chance, and the support of a good girl, and engaging in as much sexual activity as I could–all these things helped me recover.

Don’t let it sit there and get cold, use that stubborn little bastard.

It was the biggest sigh of relief as I lay there naked with the limp culprit right there out there in the open and she said to me “you don’t have to apologize. Thanks for telling me, that must have been really hard to say.” Don’t underestimate the power of negative thinking also. Your mind will destroy you if you continuosly see yourself as an incomplete man. You are a human being, your body can recover, you can make your body recover, you will get better.

If any one has any questions, please feel free. If you would like to talk, I’ll give you my email address and you can send me your phone number and we can talk about it. Talking to another person is so much more meaningful than words on a screen.

P.S. I recently had a friend who started taking Propecia. I hadn’t told him what I was going through, but when he started taking it, I pulled him aside and told him my story. You better believe he threw those pills away right quick.

Good luck to all of you who are still fighting. Stay in the fight, you are a great person who will be happy again.

Best wishes

My long and winding road of sexual dysfunction
#3

Another recovery posted today.

Great.

Congrats man :slight_smile:

#4

Great, another example of recovery via Synthroid (the other one is Dury’s). Another story that points to the possibility of recovering by fixing thyroid hormones and cortisol.

One question: how long are you going to be on Synthroid?

#5

Ahhaha you lucky bastard! Hell yeah!! Congratulations! :stuck_out_tongue:

I might have questions later on, i have to go now. Congratulations once again.

#6

Congrats- that is an AWESOME story! We are all so happy for you, and really appreciate you showing up here and telling your story.

m-81- I think he said he was on Synthroid for 6 weeks in total.

#7

First off, congratulations on your recovery.

I’m just trying to reconstruct the chain of events and the possible cause of your recovery.

So was it the sustained use of viagra with synthroid that did the trick? Short term use did not help you initially.

Also were your thyroid blood tests indicating a problem at any time?

#8

I took the Synthroid for a total of 6 weeks. Again, I can’t say whether or not the Synthroid helped, but it sure didn’t hurt. I was the one who suggested Synthroid to my doctor after doing extensive research on this site. I thought it might be good for me. He said that that wasn’t a bad idea. He told me my thyroid levels were normal, right in the middle of the range. But these ranges are so subjective, what one persons thyroid needs to function adequately could be different than the next. he said people who take the Sythnroid generally feel better, it gives the body a boost which then allows you to more easily get things up and running (or so I think). So while I was on it, I also took Viagra, which started to literally wake my dick up. I took it again and again, probably seven or eight times, huge doses (100 mgs) until it really started working. And during this time I became comfortable with my girlfriend, knew that failure was okay, and things started slowly coming back. I used viagra at 100 mgs for a couple months, then tried the 50 mg. It worked. A month later I experimented with 25 mgs, and that did the trick, too. So then I nervously just stopped taking it. At least I could just say I was too tired and little willy didn’t want to work tonight. But it worked, and I’ve never taken Viagra since.

Some of you will realize, the negative thinking is a huge part of this too. For me it was maybe half the battle. Once I saw myself as a man with a functioning organ again, my mind let my body relax. Some guys simply can’t get an erection due to work life stress, all medications aside.

I’m also not trying to say it was all depression/negativity. For Christ’s sake, I had a beautiful girl give me a blowjob and that thing wouldn’t get more than half mast (on viagra).

If anyone is in or near the bay area, I recommend seeing Dr. Buxton. He knows what he’s doing, he has dealt with this problem before. If the Synthroid hadn’t worked, he would have stepped up his game plan and had me on some other routine.

Oversex yourselves gentlemen. It might do the trick.

#9

What dose of Synthroid were you on?

#10

Sorry, I don’t remember the dose.

#11

You were prescribed a medication by an endo and took it for 6 weeks as prescribed, and can’t remember the dosage? That seems a little odd.

If you can’t recall off top of your head, you could check the packaging and prescription info you were given, or call their office, yes?

#12

It was months ago, so no, I don’t remember the dosage. I could try calling to ask what the dose was.

#13

what made you choose synthroid?

i know synthroid is a t4 only medication… so i’m curious on your thought process on why you chose it.

do you have the blood work from after, or do you only have the one that you posted?

#14

I chose synthroid because I had heard good things about it on this site. I thought why not try it. I’ll try and find my results from the latest blood tests. The testosterone went up from 400 to 900 something. I’ll look for the actual numbers, though.

#15

I see. I am wondering how this got you better. Synthroid is a T4 only medication. On JN’s thread, he got better by removing all the RT3 or maybe he did something else without realizing it. Because by you taking T4 only, that would theoretically increase your RT3, doing the opposite of what JN did.

Maybe it wasn’t the RT3 that was the problem and maybe our bodies just need more T3 to be made. Maybe the T4 you took did get turned into the necessary amount of T3 to be made.

Just making speculations… I’m not sure. Also not sure about the reaction between the viagra and the T4 combination being a possible factor.

#16

WHY is this not in the recovery section?

I have requested this multiple times…

It’s gloomy enough around here mods.

#17

I’m posting it in recoveries right now.

#18

Can you please update us on this. This is an important piece of information.

#19

Sorry, been super busy. I’ll call tomorrow.

#20

Great, thanks. Could you also post results of the following, before/after your treatment. What brought your T levels up?