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)? UK
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?) Googling of my symptoms
What is your current age, height, weight? late 20’s, 5ft 10in, ~100kg
What specific drug did you use (finasteride, dutasteride, saw palmetto, isotretinoin/Accutane, fluoxetine, sertraline, citalopram, leuprorelin, etc…)? Finasteride
What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)? 1mg/day
What condition was being treated with the drug? Hair Loss
For how long did you take the drug (weeks/months/years)? 19 days
Date when you started the drug? Mid June 2023
Date when you quit the drug? Start of July 2023
Age when you quit? late 20’s
How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)? cold turkey
How long into your usage did you notice the onset of side effects? Day 18
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
[X] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[X] Erectile Dysfunction
[X] Complete Impotence
[X] Loss of Morning Erections
[ ] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[ ] 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 Had this pre-fin
[X] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks Had this pre-fin
[X] Severe Depression / Melancholy Had this pre-fin
[X] Suicidal Thoughts Had this pre-fin
Physical
[X] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[ ] Testicular Pain
[X] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[X] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[X] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[X] Muscle Wastage
[ ] Muscle Weakness
[ ] Joint Pain
[X] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes
Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[ ] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[X] 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
[ ] Other (please explain)
What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
~2 months of L-Arginine/L-Carnitine supplements
~2 weeks of 25mg sildenafil before bed every other night
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)?
No pre-fin blood tests to compare to but since coming off I’ve had the whole gamut of standard blood tests the NHS offers. Nothing out of range apart from my cholesterol.
Plasma test result was 13.4 nmol/L.
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.
3 months in and i’d hoped this nightmare would have been over by now, but here I am…
2022 was a very very difficult time for me and I was just starting to get my mojo back when earlier this year I noticed my hairline was starting to recede so thought I’m going to be proactive and stop it. I was diligent in researching the drug - multiple YouTube videos by doctors, tressless, NHS website. All assured me of low chance of getting the sides and will disappear soon after cessation. Like so many I thought I’d be in the majority and took the risk.
I took 1mg of Fin for 18 days before waking up one morning and seeing my penis had shrunk, was super cold and had a dull sting in my penis and testicles. This continued into day 19 and I stopped taking the drug. The coldness and stinging disappeared after cessation.
Day 10 after coming off the drug I felt the horniest I’d felt in years - erections would come from nothing. This lasted 1 afternoon and then disappeared, but I didn’t experience the crash that people describe, more just a return to baseline. Since then I’ve had a few brief windows here and there, usually preceded by a day of relaxation or seeing family/friends so I do accept there may be a stress/anxiety aspect to my condition
Medical experience
GP 1: Told me the human body is amazing but I need to give it time to sort itself out
GP 2: Told me to give it more time
GP 3: Finally got the standard NHS ED blood tests and Urology referral
GP 4: Junior Doctor who had to run for a second opinion was ‘confident’ things will clear up and prescribed me sildenafil
Private Urologist: examined prostate and all normal (very small). Assured me any shrinkage will be reversed over time when erections return. Advocated daily sildenafil/tadalafil usage
GP 5: Gave me a large prescription for sildenafil and ran blood tests for everything available from a GP.
NHS Urologist - Despite the usual boilerplate about the size loss being in my head he did concede that finasteride does cause serious ED problems and the literature is ambiguous when it says side effects will go away quickly. Also said that watery ejaculate is a transient side effect and any penile tissue loss would regenerate over time (funnily enough he also told me my penis is still above average size despite being shrunken and thinned)
Next step is to try and get an NHS referral to an andrologist/endocronolgist but it’s proving a bit more challenging
Most GP’s quickly dismiss everything as stress and anxiety (including beard loss and loss of body odour) which feels like such a lazy diagnosis with no appetite to think beyond the medical scripts they have. I do accept that stress and anxiety could be factors but last year when I was on the phone to the Samaritans multiples times a day just to not kill myself I was still able to get erections and had none of the symptoms I’m now experiencing.
Since coming off Fin and reading the forums it seems for years I had been taking/eating almost a tick list of things to lower DHT, so I wonder it that contributed. I’m a powerlifter and I’d heard/read about all of these being beneficial for lifting purposes and had no issues for the ~8 years of taking them.
- Daily Omega 3
- Vitamin D3
- Zinc daily
- Panax Ginseng
- Maca Root
- Beetroot Extract
- Collagen
- asparagus
- blueberries
- Coconut water
- Daily almonds
Symptoms
Things that are less bad since day 1:
-
Penile Shrinkage - The size during the first few weeks would be comical if it weren’t so distressing and traumatising. It was almost as if I was looking at my penis in one of those carnival house of mirrors where it makes you look really small. Lots of spider veins and wrinkles appeared. Skin wrinkles have disappeared but the spider veins remain. Size is still diminished but less bad than day 1.
-
Interrupted sleep - for the first 2 months I’d often wake up throughout the night with my heart racing but then not feel any feeling of tiredness to fall back asleep (though I would always be able to). This side seems to have improved a certain degree
-
Erectile dysfunction - Complete impotence for the first 2 weeks but have had sporadic improvements since - can achieve a very weak erection when sexting women. sildenafil has given me intermittent abilities to get erections from watching porn. It’s impossible for me to self-stimulate an erection
-
Gyno - Definitely developed puffier tissue while on Fin - this seems to have returned to pre-fin baseline
-
Sebum production - seems to be improving - now producing sebum from my ears and face again.
-
Nocturnal erections - seem to get these more often than I did at the start, even had sexual dreams a few times
Core symptoms that remain:
- Penile Shrinkage (flaccid and erect)
- Complete loss of libido
- Testicular Shrinkage
- Hard Flaccid
- Loss of sexual sensation in penis
- Erectile Dysfunction
- Weird dribbling/watery ejaculate
- Thinning beard (getting worse)
- Complete absence of body odour
- Complete loss of appetite and thirst
- Interrupted sleep - Can’t seem to sleep more than 3 hrs consecutively.
- Sunken eyes (developed after month 3)
- Sensitive stomach - have become far more intolerant of foods than before.
- Weird super retraction of left testicle before a bowel movement
- Can’t get a pump in my muscles - the most brutal workouts will still only get my muscles ~40% pumped
- Weight loss (-8kg since July but it’s not uncommon for my weight to fluctuate that much in times of non-lifting)
Apologies for writing War and Peace but feels somewhat therapeutic to write it all out. I’ll drop an update in monthly going forward - here’s hoping I won’t need to do many more.