Probable Gynecomastia and libido loss

Member Stories
#1

  1. Where are you from (country)?
    Italy

  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?)
    Google with search term: “finasteride gynecomastia”

  3. What is your current age, height, weight?
    28 Year Old, 1,70m height, 70 kg weight

  4. Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
    No, occasional bike

  5. What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
    quite everything, not much meat, frequent carbohydrates (pasta and similar). Practically no fast-food.

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

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

  8. How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
    26 Year Old, Approx July 2010

  9. How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
    February 2012

  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?
    Generic Finasteride: Finasteride Sandoz (used it for the first year approx)–> libido loss; maybe localization of fat on the hips (as I never had that problem). I then used Finasteride Alter–> Don’t know it there’s a connection with this particular product but nipples started progressively to swell and hurt.

  12. What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
    1/4 pill every day (1/4 of 5 mg).

  13. How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
    Libido and sperm consistency loss were expected and onset for all time of the cure. Suspect gynecomastia started 1-2 months before I quit Finasteride. Abnormal (in comparison to my past) fat dispersion worsen during the cure. But until now I never thought that could be Finasteride.
    I was about to go to a neurologist (and this is still on the plans) for a difficulty on conecentration and related problems, apparentely worsened in the last years. But I never suspected Finasteride for this. However I read below that this may be a side effect. The same applies for joint pains in the legs. I couldn’t run as strong pain was expected the next day.

  14. What side effects did you experience while on the drug that have yet to resolve since discontin uation?
    Libido loss, enlarged nipples, pain when nipples are touched. Metal agility difficulties persist but this is hard to quantify.

Put an X beside all that apply:

Sexual
[X] 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
[X] Difficulty Focusing / Concentrating
[ ] Confusion
[X] Memory Loss / Forgetfullness
[X] Stumbling over Words / Losing Train of Thought
[X] 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
[X] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[X] Muscle Wastage
[X] Muscle Weakness
[X] 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)

NOTE: I cannot be sure if all the above side effects are due to Finasteride, as 1 year ago I stopped using Efexor 37,5 mg.

  1. What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
    None: I had a visit from an endocrinologist for the nipples enlargement. He couldn’t see anything as in fact the problem is sometimes invisible, depending on physiological conditions. He assured me that if there was a problem, it would resolve alone. But he didn’t convince me.

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

  3. Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
    It is about 5 months now that I stopped Finasteride. Side effects do not appear to regress. I am somewhat preoccupied…
    Finasteride works for hair loss. But it seems it brought me big problems and the situation appears to be stable.

#2

Update to my situation, taking it short.
As I said, i took low dose efexor (an SNRI) and Finasteride 1,25mg about at the same time. I continued Efexor for 1,5 years and I took Finasteride for 2,5 years. About 5 months after cold turkey withdrawal of Finasteride I made many blood exams. My prolactin was through the roof at approx 90 ng/ml (limits approx 10-20). My LH, FSH and Testosterone were at the low limits. I made a NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) in search for a prolactinoma (an hypophysis adenoma/tumor) which appeared to neglect the presence of a tumor. I monitored the situation with 15 day cadence exams. Prolactin appeared to low down by 10 ng/ml every 15 days and accordingly, T, LH, FSH were augmenting. Unfortunately, after a result of 40 ng/ml, the next one showed it bounced back to 80 ng/ml while T, LH and FSH lowed down below the limits. Other than libido and neurological symptoms, things got worst at approx 6 months after Finasteride withdrawal (while prolactin was lowering). Maybe due to the lack of androgens and to anxiety my penis started suddenly to feel deprived of bloodflow and cold one night. It seem like it would continue shrinking. I also went to the emergency dep at the hospital LOL you can imagine they were loughing while hiding. Very unpleasant.
Anyway, also I started having very bad effects while driving the car: many times I couldn’t focus well on the street and surroundings. Driving started to be a very unpleasant task. I also had a little accident because of this and beacause of low energies. I read that this kind of neurological symptom may be due to a prolactinoma or other dysfunctions of the hypophisis, maybe due to a physical interaction with the hypothalamus. However, no NMR were taken after the occurence of this symptom. To a less extent this kind of difficulty focusing/“central vertigo”/disequilibrium appears to be present all the time but slightly perceptible unless I drive.
My penis looks and feels unhealthy, it looks longer and narrower. When I pee it gets pretty long.
I tried Cialis one time and I noticed that there was some kind of necking just below the glans when erection was at middle stage. Then it would disappear when erection was complete. I made an ecocolodoppler of the penis in erection and he said me good news, no extensive fibrosis areas and blood flow is ok. So I was a bit disappointed because I didn’t know exactly what to attribute the necking I mentioned, which was very present even when I wasn’t on Cialis. I can desume by further examination of the penis, that in fact the problem may be due to the external skin, that lost elasticity. I can in fact see an aureole of red/inflamed skin about at the hight along the penis.

Now, my new andro/endocrinologist took a look at my NMR and said in his opinion (whilst the neurologist didn’t see anything strange in it) there is a lowering of the hypophysis floor and that probably there is a disfunction in the hypophysis. It’s hard to know but I can hypotize there maybe is some kind of hyperthrophy/hyerfunctioning of the lactothrope cells due to Efexor and Finasteride (antiandrogens can cause hyperprolactinemia too).
Now the aformentioned endocrinologist put me on Dostinex: 0,25 mg monday and thirsday. Then after 4 pills I have to retest testosterone and prolactin. I took one pill as of now. I will take my second today. First pill did have some effect. I started having some moderate nocturnal erections (which did indeed diasappear before unless I helped myself with supplements). My penis looks a bit healthier and the aformentioned aureole of skin become more pink and lubricated/elastic. The necking appears improved too. Penis however feels still somewhat shrank. I can feel a bit more energic and aggressive. At evenings I had very low energy in my hands and I had some somnolence episodes. Some problems sleeping well too. My ability to drive appears to have incresed but I cannot put and endmark on this beacuse it was fluctuating before dostinex. Libido…I dunno, it appears the same or maybe a bit better. Testicle appears more firm at it’s “normal” dimension. Testicular pain vanished until yesterday when it came back along with an unhealthy feeling of my penis. It still looks better than before tough.
I will update this thread with my experiences on Dostinex.

1 Like
#3

update
First days under Dostinex have shown some improvement, my penis looks a bit healthier, It apparently doesn’t shrink anymore. Also the striction of the penis near the glans appears to be improving as it the apparent cause of this, ie probably a starting phimosis. Unfortunatly curvature of the penis appears to be slowly worsening and this scares me a bit since this is starting to look pretty unnatural, so I will probably take some vitamin E and I started two days ago to take cialis 5mg/day at approx 19.00 o’clock. This kind of therapy was prescribed to me by the first two urologists I visited. At the time I took only one pill beacuse it gave a bad headache and beacuse I was a bit scared by drugs. Now I think I understand this is most probably a good therapy as pointed out by many studies. I think I read Dr. Chrisler or another pfs doctor also strongly suggests this kind of treatment the soon as possible. It should prevent the penis from worsening and apparently makes it regain some health. It is some kind of rehabilitation of the penis. I also feel somewhat comfortable to trust some urologists because they prescribe finasteride often for BPH and contrarily to what it is believed, finasteride makes old men impotent too. One told me he does prescribe finasteride for BPH but only for a couple months otherwise patiens call him back and ask him “what have you done to me? you made me impotent”. I don’t know if teir side effects however are as bad as ours. Anyway while taking Cialis in these two days I had strong nocturnal erections.
Now I am taking Dostinex 0,25mg two times per week (I took 5 pills as of now), 2 pills (78 g each) of fish oil per day, and one pill of multivitaminic supplement per day.
Also, my ability to drive the car (which I then attribute to prolactin or hypophisis disfunction/tumor) has increased very much immediately after the first pills of dostinex. I still feel stoned with some brainfog most of the time and I still have some difficulty at university: as someone said once before on this forum, finasteride made me become retarded, althought what I study is not all that easy anyway. If this doesn’t progress I’ll have a hard time. When I was on Finasteride I had many harsh problems with concentration and cognitive dysfunction which stuck me at university. That was however surely related to extreme anxiety. Now I feel far less anxious but I can feel much more clearly the “retard behaviour”.
After taking Dostinex the gladular component of gynecomastia also has greatly decreased. The fat compontent is still the same apparently.
Today I went to the laboratory to have my blood drawn and look for testosterone and prolactin. I’ll have the results on monday and I’ll then talk to my doctor.

#4

@tab Do you have an update? How are you doing?

#5

How are you doing, an update would be great now that your back on the forum

#6

@Dknighten @LazarusRy

Sorry for the late reply, I don’t come here very often.
I’m still within it unfortunately. Some time ago I entered my 10th year since the time I took Fin.
I’m still trying to get this resolved. Unfortunately my economical condition doesn’t allow me to do the best I could.
I took a control brain MRI very recently bacause I ended up with very high prolactin after fin. The report said there’s a slight herniation of the Chiasmatic cistern in the Sella Turcica. Herniations of this type can lead to pituitary insufficiency as they compress the pituitary. I believe this is probably part of the problem for me. If not all. I’m still wainting to discuss this with my endo, also to understand if there has been a worsening. My cortisol is on the low part of the range, and this might be due to the pituitary compression leading to low secretion of ACTH. Low cortisol might be the cause of my inflamation problems.

In the meantime from what I read, intracranial hypertension is the main cause of these herniations. Which interestingly is mentioned in Melcangi’s study on allopregnanolone. I opened a post about this here

As I mentioned in the post, I also did a 3-day water fasting. When I restarted eating my penis retunerd like prefin for 1 or 2 days. Then got back to pfs state. One possibility that is just one hypotesis led by sensation, is that the androgens are too much for the penis, it would get damaged as I stayed for 2,5 years on fin and without DHT, and the body downregulates sexual pathways. Another possibility is inflammation of the brain or other parts of the body, maybe mediated by low cortisol. Water fasting drastically reduces inflamation. When you restart eating inflammation restarts but it has some delay when compared to sexual reposnse. Once it builds up, it the hinders sexual pathways. Just hypothesis. To do all the tests needed you would need tons of money, which I don’t have.

I am a bit sick of this shit. I want to get this resolved this time, no matter what.

1 Like
#7

Thanks for the update @tab a kot of what you say makes sense and so sorry youre still in this shit

1 Like
#8

Ehy, please take a look at my last message here


I’m much better now. If my suggestions can help I am happy.