I have just come across this board and have been reading through the possible permant side effects of finasteride use. I am 22 years old suffering from hairloss and been using finasteride for close to a year with good results. But after reading through this forum I DONT see the point in taking it or see the point in anything any longer. If I continue to take finasteride what’s the longest it will last me? 10 years? And then it will stop working for my hair and my penis won’t work at all??? Does this happen to everyone almost everyone? Small amounts of people? I don’t want to be
Permantly brain fogged or not able to have sex even after I come off finasteride. I have a girlfriend now but what is she going to think if I can’t make love to her any longer. Maybe worse is I get off finasteride because I’m worries about permanent damage I’ve been doing and I lose 30% of my hair and she leaves me for that. I don’t have the head of a bald guy and will most likely look horrible at best. Should I risk this long term damage?
No.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A cliche but very true. We’ve all seen super hot girls and said to ourselves what’s she doing with that guy, he looks like, “fill in derogatory term.” Doesn’t matter how bad you think you look, there will be girls that will want to be with you. If the girl you’re with leaves you because of your hair she’s doing you a favor. She’s not the one.
However, good luck in finding a girl, if your body and mind are destroyed by the consumption of this life altering drug.
In regards to the general public. Don’t concern yourself with what others will think. Strangers won’t die for you, so why live for them?
You’re the same guy over on hairlosstalk.com complaining about losing your libido while on the drug, right?
If that’s the case and you are concerned, I’d read FAQ at top of this site, get bloodwork so you have a baseline to compare against, and then get off the drug to see if things go back to normal.
Don’t know how long Finasteride will continue to “work” but considering many longterm hairloss users have used it over 10 years+, it seems to be quite powerful at surpressing DHT over the longterm. Of course, that also means it’s surpressing everything else that the 5AR enzyme is responsible for, including neurosteroid production in the brain, nitric oxide release, prostate function, possible fertility issues, and so on.
We on this website are in the minority in that side effects did not resolve after quitting. The majority of men who quit the drug do go back to normal. What camp you will fall in, nobody knows but most likely you will be fine if you decide to come off. But before coming off, get bloodwork done per propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=92 so if you do end up having issues, you’ll know what your Testosterone, LH, FSH, Estradiol, SHBG, Prolactin, etc levels were before quitting. This is your insurance policy to provide to Doctors who will likely disbelieve your case should you end up with hypogonadal Testosterone levels or other imbalances post-Fin.
You need to make a decision just as everyone else here did at one point in their lives, when they were faced with side effects from this drug: is hairloss (a cosmetic problem) worth the massive tradeoff of taking a drug which has negative effects on your overall health, sexual, mental and physical function?
In 99% of cases, when you think about this rationally, NO it is not. If on the other hand you have prostate cancer and the doc gives you Finasteride for androgen deprivation therapy in order to save your life – then YES, taking Finasteride would probably be warranted in that case.
In short, nobody here cares about hairloss anymore, we are all suffering from problems far worse than losing a few hairs on our head. Having these issues from the drug really puts things into perspective about what’s important in life: health, well-being and feeling and functioning like a fully sexually competent, mentally clear and physically able-bodied MALE… or being a neutered, androgen deficient, weak and cognitively-slow, gynecomastia-prone, hairloss-fearing and insecure person who takes an endocrine damaging drug at any cost, just to hold onto a few hairs on one’s head.
After this whole ordeal, I couldn’t give a flying fuck if I go bald anymore, I just want my health, sexual and mental function back. At the same time, going through this has made me MORE confident as a person in that I now realize how foolish I was to think that hair and vanity would be the ultimate source of my confidence, happiness and acceptance in society.
What I and many others around here have realized after all this is that this confidence comes from WITHIN, in how you think and act, how you handle challenges in your life, and how you deal with the opposite sex, business, friends and the hand you’ve been dealt. If people cannot accept you for WHO you are as a PERSON, vs WHAT you look like – then who cares – you don’t need those types of people anyway, and good riddance to them.
If on the other hand your self esteem comes solely from your physical appearance instead of your personality, and from being accepted by other people because of your hair… you’ve got a lot more going on between your ears than just hairloss – and by that I mean major self esteem and inferiority complex issues to deal with, which should not be the case.
If you still wish to take Finasteride, you are on the wrong forum. If you decide to quit and things don’t go back to normal (unlikely) in a few weeks/months time, then this is the place for you. Good luck with whatever you decide.
Amen to that.
that was really inspiring Mew and made me feel a lot better about losing my hair. Thank you!.
As a woman who is doing research in this forum b/c my long term boyfriend/fiance ended our entire relationship a few months after trying propecia and discontinuing it b/c of severe side effects. By the way he is acting i do not believe he ever recovered but instead may have only gotten worse. I am going to try o post my story in new members soon but right now I am trying to gather info for him. But I just feel the need to respond to your post.
First I want to say… There should be some kind of friends and loved ones section or a section where women can post to all of you men or something,some kind of support section. I have seen so many women post on every website about propecia side effects, about losing their relationships to this drug, not b/c they left their men but b/c their men left them! It definitely wasn’t what I wanted and it doesn’t sound like it’s what a lot of the women I’ve seen post on various websites wanted either.
I would do anything to help the man I love through all of this, no matter what his side effects, I would NEVER walk out on him for something he can’t even help! That’s not what love is, and even though I can’t speak for all women… Love is all most of us really care about, the women that are worth anything anyway! The most important thing to me in any relationship is how that person LOVES me, truly loves me not in a materialistic way either, the way they treat me emotionally! Respect, trust, honesty, openness, friendship etc. It’s the emotions behind everything they do that matters to me. Not what they do or how well they do it, just why they did it, or why they tried to. I just want to know that I am important enough to that person for them to try, to work at the relationship. Nothing hurts more than someone just giving up on you b/c you weren’t even important enough for them to try.
I for one would never be or not be with someone b/c of what they can or can’t do for me in bed, or even, how much money they do or do not have, the car they drive, etc. AND…I would never leave or stop loving someone b/c they lost their hair! And even though yes, attraction does matter, that really has nothing to do with looks, it’s chemistry, pheromones, and what’s attractive to one person can be repulsive to another. So please men give us as women more credit, we aren’t all as judgmental as you fear we are, don’t let fear ruin a real loving relationship with someone if given half the chance would just love to be there to support you through your difficult times.
I hope this helps some of you at least, I sure wish my boyfriend would believe this. I wish you all a very fast recovery!! God bless you all!
Hey soworried… sorry about your situation. I will say this much - as you see, not many relatives, loved ones or women make the strides to actually check out what’s going on to utterly warp our personalities and bodies, so you are extraordinary in that regard in the least.
We all can relate to the behavioral changes he is apparently exhibiting (isolation, bluntness, coldness etc) - it’s something that takes a while for the afflicted and their loved ones to fully understand, and is ultimately anything but our intent. In the Mental Side Effects area you can see many, many accounts of men in this mess railing against their inability to FEEL significant emotions and agonizing over the dissociation state Propecia leaves us in.
To be personal for a moment, his saying he doesn’t feel anything for you etc reminds me of how I broke up with my girlfriend due to this, which essentially entailed me saying “I don’t love you”. The point is that, while I did, I had difficulty putting into words what I meant due to brain fog and confusion, when I was only meaning to say “let’s slow down”. Further, there’s the matter of not wanting to be seen in this altered condition simply because, as compassionate as one is, it leaves an impression of ourselves that we don’t want to spread.
I’m sure we’d appreciate a section for loved ones to gather and discuss their experiences, but again, few do the minimal effort to look into why we are as ill as we are, and it’s not easy to express it to someone naive of the terrible hardships this brings while we’re still ill. People draw conclusions quickly, but just as well, we envy their emotional intelligence and faculties, not to mention the ability to process thoughts, which have somehow been frozen due to Propecia.
It’s a very rough thing to make it through, but going through it with someone who can be compassionate and cognizant of the issue helps, so God bless you too! I hope things work out and you guys can reach a greater understanding.
Thank you so much 3pm! How are things with the girlfriend you broke up with? Did you get back together? I was with my boyfriend for 5 yrs and we lived together and had been planning to get married for yrs now. I still want to spend the rest of my life with him.
I actually understand what all of you are going through better than you could ever imagine. I’ve had very serious health problems for a very long time myself, and I actually have a lot of the same symptoms along with others. So I really don’t understand why he won’t let me be there for him when no body else could ever understand better than me. I really wish at the very least he would just let me be there for him. I am so scared he has no positive people around him right now.
Feel better i am praying for all of you!
I hear you on all accounts. I think once he gets the wake up call regarding his health condition, he’ll have an interest in returning to health and things will pick up from there. Does he actually know about this post-propecia syndrome and it’s prevalence, or is he just playing it by ear without research?
3pm,
I don’t think he know’s anything about it even being a posiblity that he’s stilll having side effects from propecia. I mean he told me he was having them when he quit taking it, but I don’t think he realizes that he might still be having them.
Which is why I’ve been doing all this research. Hopefully it doesn’t make me sound crazy but I’ve been up 3 days straight now gathering and putting together information for him. I just emailed it all to him, but I have no idea what he will think or say. He won’t even talk to me, he hasn’t wanted any contact with me at all so all I’ve gotten is a few emails, but just from those it really seems like this is it, plus how he was acting before he left. So I really just pray that everything I just sent him helps. I just want to see him happy again.
wish me luck, wish him luck, thanks! I hope you are feeling better too! I really pray everyone recovers from this poison!
Ah… Yeah, give him time, he’ll come around and realize that he got screwed by this drug. Show him the youtube videos (user propeciahelp). Good luck to you!