petro new member story

  1. Where are you from (country)?
    US

  2. 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?)
    Googled “chest pain propecia”

  3. What is your current age, height, weight?
    48, 5-11, 127

  4. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
    daily walks 15-30 minutes

  5. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
    progressed from regular diet to mostly veg to vegan (6 months)

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

  7. For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
    approx 8 years

  8. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
    40

  9. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
    approx 6/24/15

  10. How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
    cold turkey

  11. What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
    started with dutasteride then propecia,finasteride

  12. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
    1 mg/day

  13. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
    various. physical symptoms soon after but did not correlate with use of finasteride. noticed lack of ejaculate in last year and acceleration of new symptoms

  14. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontinuation?

Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[x] Loss of Libido / Sex Drive
[ ] 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
[ ] Emotional Blunting / Emotionally Flat
[x] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[x] Confusion
[x] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[x] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[ ] Slurring of Speech
[x] Lack of Motivation / Feeling Passive / Complacency
[x] Extreme Anxiety / Panic Attacks
[x] Severe Depression / Melancholy
[ ] Suicidal Thoughts

Physical
[x] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[x] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[x] Testicular Pain
[ ] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[x] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[x] Muscle Wastage
[x] Muscle Weakness
[x] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes

Misc
[ ] Prostate pain
[x] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[x] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[x] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[x] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[x] Increased hair loss
[x] Frequent urination
[x] Lowered body temperature

[x] Other (please explain)

chest pain, tightness, shortness of breath, loss of hair lower legs, dry eyes, vericose veins, vericose testicle, abdominal pain lower right,
abdominal bloating, accelerated aging of appearance, feel like organs have dropped lower in abdomen, urine abnormally clear, elevated liver enzymes, abdominal bloating
cold hands feet,unable to sleep on sides, black lines on fingernails, massive headache behind right eye, lack of dreams, rash on chest,
small veins on chest right side, slow healing of wounds on legs, no sweat, no body odor

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?

none so far

  1. 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)?

plan to follow up on this

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

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

Healthy, athletic background, started medication at age 40. Stopped a few weeks ago. Plagued by numerous issues for the last 8 years.
Early symptoms included dry eyes and losing the hair on lower legs and feet. Anxiety attacks, depression, moodiness, fatigue, fogginess, vericose veins.
After approx 4 years experienced a heart “attack” of some kind followed a few weeks later by massive headache behind my right eye that lasted all night (stroke?).
Forced to sleep on back after 40 years of sleeping on sides. Increased belly fat and loss of muscle tone despite regular exercise.

Experienced increased fatigue and chest pain/tightness. Been to several cardiologists with no successful diagnosis despite persistent symptoms.
Found a varicose like nodule on bottom of testicle and feared cancer, ultrasound test negative. Noticed Peyronie’s at some point (curve to left).

In the last year symptoms have accelerated, feels like on a downward slide. Fatigue worsened. More of the classic sexual side effects emerged along with gastro intestinal pains and bloating.
Pain in lower right abdomen, constipation so went to see a couple of different GI doctors and then had a colonoscopy.The constipation is more like a feeling that digestive tract
is very slow or not working correctly (lack of fluids going to prep stool?), so difficult to defecate during day/evening even though I felt I needed to go but next morning able
to go as if the body could catch up overnight. Weaker vision in general.

Black lines on finger nails, cold hands and feet, slow healing bruising on left leg (not healed after months). Salty tasting saliva (weird one).
Increased urine frequency and urgency -every two hours and wake at night to go. Lack of sweat or body odor. Popping shoulder/back joints. Very clear urine, used to be more yellow after vitamin or meals.
Absense of dreams and morning erections. No libido (normally very strong) and no ejaculate (zero). Weight dropped from 144 down to 127, muscle wastage and pot belly (at times feels like there is a large grapefruit in lower abdomen). Thinning itchy dry wrinkled skin, dull dry hair, looks like I have suddenly aged 10 years. Rash in middle of chest and patch of small vertical veins on right chest.
Pain on right breast bone (for 3 days). Double vision for half day - unable to type. Severe body aches lasting 2 days, second day moved to lower torso.
Severely depressed and thinking body functions shutting down (lack of blood flow? hormones?).

Googled “chest pain propecia” and found this website.

Since stopping propecia approx 3 weeks ago have noticed some ejaculate return (none before). Other symptoms still in place but will be sure to update if anything changes.

Recently received a PM but unable to reply. Maybe there is a minimum post limit before you can PM?

So will add an update. Not much change so far but I do not think I am crashing (yet) which is a big concern after reading what some other posters have experienced. Have noticed some dryness in mouth in evenings and during the night when I wake to use the bathroom. This a new thing I think since stopping.

As symptoms were piling up I had adopted a more and more healthy lifestyle in response so that now that I am working on recovery I am hoping this will serve well.

Current routine is to walk twice a day for 15-30 min depending what I can do without discomfort, morning and early evening (10am, 7pm). The evening walk I regularly experience chest pain. If this ever subsides that will be a major victory.

Had to stop light weight training while taking finasteride due to muscle atrophy and joint pops/pains but after reading some posts here have made an effort to do some pushups and light dumbell arm exercises.

As for diet, am following a very clean organic-plant-based diet. Originally this was adopted to address chest pains but have learned this is a great lifestyle adjustment to keep for all kinds of healthful reasons and future ailment prevention. But prior to this still was eating healthy compared to standard american diet.

Taking a multivitamin that is designed for half morning/ half evening (trader joes) and vitamin D 3x1000.

Was asked in PM to better describe testicle nodule. I noticed this first in the shower. At first it felt like a hard half-pea sided lump. After further examination it seemed that it was more like a vessel with swollen thickened hard walls (vericose). Bottom end of the testicle. Had ultrasound but nothing was found so kind of put in back of mind, though I checked it periodically and it seemed to stay pretty constant. Mentioning it I need to check it again.

Wanted to add a few symptoms noticed while taking finasteride.

-Low vitamin D levels even while taking 1500 IU of Vit D
-episode of severe edema on lower legs (have pics), saw specialist and use compression stockings since
-“corns” on bottom of feet. anyone else? never had before finasteride
-muscle spasms in hands, twitching fingers
-sores in corners of mouth, at one point looked like corners of mouth were splitting open. have had these for several months

Plan on getting some blood test soon, Vit D, Liver enzymes, and whatever hormone tests make sense (need to research).

Dear Petro,

how are you?

I just read your story and the symptoms reminds exactly to mine.

I went recently to an endocrinologist, regarding the following symptoms:

  • cold body temperature
  • salty taste
  • no body odor

and he found out that my thyroids are not working properly anymore. I also had antibodies. (Hashimoto!)

How is your thyroid working?
Have you seen any improvement, yet?

Thanks for your feedback,

Dizzy