Hello everyone, I just made an account here so I hope I am posting this in the right place. I am 19 years old and have been suffering from mild depression and sometimes severe anxiety over the past few years. The fact that I was losing hair really didn’t help at all. In fact, it made everything a lot worse. Being laughed at by everyone, including my friends, and not being able to go outside confident about my self image made my situation worse. It was because of this that I consulted a doctor who perceived me 1mg of finasteride daily along with minoxidil. I started taking it about a month ago and three weeks into taking it I suffered an extremely severe anxiety attack. I have had anxiety over the years but nothing like that day. It was hard to breath and I couldn’t even stand up. It was also very hard to fall asleep that night, since it didn’t seem to go away. It was then when I decided to look up if finasterise had anything to do with it. I found out about all these terrible side effects people are suffering from and it scared me away from the drug completely. Even though I stopped taking it a week ago, I have been feeling very strange recently. I believe I am suffering from brain fog. I feel like I am out of touch with the world and everyone around me. It is extremely difficult to focus on things and I feel highly unmotivated to do anything. Because of this, I haven’t been able to get anything done for the past week. I have also had suicidal thoughts, which has been the scariest part of anything I have experienced. Even though I had mentioned I have been suffering from mild depression previously, I had never actually thought of committing suicide seriously until this week. I, however, have not had any sexual side effects. I am posting this because I am extremely scared. I have read about people’s experiences and I do not want to feel like this for the rest of my life. Do I have PFS? Will it just go away soon, since I have just stopped taking the drug about a week ago? I need advise from anyone possible because I don’t want my life to be ruined at 19. Things we’re looking up for me in life in general before taking the drug, and I now feel like I’ve dug myself in a deep hole.
Hi! I am sorry this is happening to you. Stay away from Finasteride and all the drugs mentioned in the forum header. They are just not safe.
You quit only a week ago. Most people revover with time. Give your body the time to recover and don’t obsess about the things you read here. It won’t do your anxiety/depression any good.
If in a couple of months, you still feel differently, we will be here for you. Good luck!
Thank you for replying, this really made me feel a lot better. I’ts good to know I always have people here to talk to if anything.
That’s good advice that he’s given you.
Take some time, chill out as much as you can and try to not get stressed out.
One more question, should I keep taking minoxidil? I havent heard of it causing any terrible side effects, but just wanted to ask to be safe.
No. If you’ve had a reaction to finasteride, minoxidil is on the list of things to avoid you’ll need to make.
I would stop minoxodil and any supplements until you are “stable” again
If you don’t have any sexual effects I am inclined to say that your issues may not have been caused by finasteride. There are a hundred other possible reasons for getting a panic attack. So far I am willing to bet money you don’t have PFS.
My advice would be to try to forget about this and focus on the other things in life that need attention. In 6 months you will re-evaluate the finasteride hypothesis if you still have any lingering side effects. There is no point worrying about this now as there is absolutely nothing you can do, nor can you know if you have a permanent problem before at least 6 months have passed.
It is still a good thing that you stopped Finasteride though - and remember to never start it again no matter how bad your hair gets, as it will, because many people including me got PFS when they resume finasteride.
Sibelio is correct, never go back on it, it cannot be emphasised enough.
Just to echo what the others have said, definitely quit the minoxidil, and try not to fret too much about your current symptoms during these early stages.
I would advise you get onto an ultra healthy diet (cut out sugar, alcohol, caffeine, fried foods and radically reduce starchy carbs), to give your body the healthiest environment to re-calibrate itself as possible.
I had all neurological effects you described. I found them easier to deal with than the sexual side effects.
Also couldn’t stand up with anxiety. I had no idea this kind of pain existed. I also had suicidal thoughts (because it felt like I couldn’t stand a week of that, let alone a month)
However, I got rid of 80% of the symptoms by cutting carbs and eating healthy. For me carbs = anxiety. That simple. The remaining symptoms were sexual, along with a few anxiety episode when I cheated on the diet.
I also did weight lifting. First time in my life with a six pack !
So yes, cut carbs, eat healthy, exercise and don’t stress about this.
Yes, this all day plus the rest of it.
Get out of here, forget about PFS, lift weights, shave head, acquire tan and you’ll kick the depression’s ass and pull women all day. At 19 you’ll be smashing life by 21!
Don’t try and take anything to “speed the process up” either. At all. Just eat right, exercise and relax.
Also unless LITERALLY life or death, stay away from antidepressants, saw palmetto (and anything with beta sisterol in it,) dutasteride, licorice root.
I didn’t realise you had sexual side effects, @Ozeph. Have you written about them? I know a lot of people feel that neurological problems tend to subside easier than sexual ones so it would be a nice affirmation to hear from someone who has got over both.
In the month an a half after I crashed but before I went on a very low carbs diet, I had a period of no morning erection, difficult and incomplete erections with stimulation, desensitization so that many time I masturbated or had sex with my wife and just gave up after a while because I couldn’t finish. It’s sad my wife had to experience that. Desensitization was the longest to get rid of.
I had a week with absolute zero sex drive, when a pretty girl, a tree or a car were just as unappealing. This really played with my innermost motivations in life. I’ve always been driven to do business and get rich with an afterthought I would get plenty of pretty girls to have sex with. Sex drive gone, my desire to make money vanished and I started thinking why not just live a minimalist life and work as little as possible.
Also my balls must have hurt for 8 months. I had almost forgotten about that. Now I don’t feel a think and it was constant at the time. I also had a weird thing: when I did come close to orgasm, I felt like a needle prick, always at the same spot, on my ball sack and it would throw me off. At first it would always happen but now It’s become infrequent and not as intense.
I must have had watery semen for years while taking fin, 4 or 5 months into the diet, when it became thick again, I had forgotten it was ever thick before. (I took fin 20 years)
During the first months of the diet, sex drive went up and down and was hard to stabilize. Desensitization was an issue until I tried 3 specific supplements, which I keep taking and now I can feel normally. Sex drive is still lower than usual, with need for sex 2-3 times a week (as compared to basically all the time, before fin. Lol), refraction time is lower than 3 hours compared to days when it was at it’s worst.
Altogether, I didn’t have the worst sexual symptoms. I didn’t have physical transformation or alteration of my genitals. Neurological symptoms were debilitating. I couldn’t work, drive or even stay with my family. I had de-motivation, insomnia, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, anhedonia (lack of emotions). I couldn’t stand up or climb stairs at times. I had head splitting headache, stomach ache, gastric reflux (If I layed down, I would choke on my stomach fluids. I had to put some pillows and sleep at an angle). Gee those are bad memories now that I recall them.
Anyway. Most of the neurological symptoms took 3 days to disappear once I completely stopped eating carbs, and so did the headache and stomach problems. All sexual symptom got better but took months to improve and did so very slowly.
I stopped fin 1 year and 2 weeks ago, crashed a month later, suffered most of all I described above for a month and a half and finally got a break with the diet, which I’ve been doing 9 and a half months. Of course I had more symptoms at the beginning of the diet and it went decreasing from then on. Many people know I’ve been taking dozens of natural supplements during the diet. I’m not talking about them here, because except for diet and exercise, it’s a bad idea to go and take supplements in the first 3-4 months, until the body stabilizes.
But the good news is, a year latter, I’m basically symptom free, I forget to take the supplements half the time and nothing happens, but I’m still taking sleeping drugs. I’m not cured, I’m just having a normal life. Insomnia slowly appeared 4 years ago while on fin, was at it’s worst after the crash and is finally decreasing slowly. Oh so very slowly…
So there’s a way. If I had just found out I may have pfs and was having neurological symptoms, I would stop carbs as soon and as much as possible. It’s possible to eliminate them completely. Google carnivore or ketogenic diet.
I don’t know if this would work here, I’m just sharing my experience.
I wish you all the best and this is why I posted all I’ve done, in the hope it could help others.
Ozeph.
I’d take more comfort in them if I didn’t like carbs so much, lol
You should be good.
Part of the feeling unreal is possibly because as you have underlying anxiety, it could be exacerbated for numerous reasons that aren’t PFS, including finasteride’s effects on neurosteroid synthesis, your own anxious reaction to reading all this stuff, a combination of the two, it could be anything. The good news is, it’s probably one of those rather than PFS, and you should be feeling better sooner rather than later. Just give it time and avoid Finasteride, Minox, Saw Palmetto, Accutane, SSRIs, really any of these things people talk about here if you believe you’re someone who could get this disease (which funnily enough, almost none of us did).