No kidding, about sympathy, ha, try persecution. I’ve forgiven my co-workers, all Registered Nurses who were as in the dark about this drugs side effects as I. There were so many expectations after I finished my Master’s degree in 1995, but during this time, I had began the propecia. I had no motivation though after graduation. My co-workers noticed my energy and behavior decline but were quick to assume I was diverting narcotics (it’s an occupational hazard because of access). Others, too, as I assumed, it was the HIV that was still doing something, somehow, despite the fact that my immune system stayed normal and I didn’t die along with the other 11 male RNs I worked and cared for in my San Francisco Hospital in the early 1980’s. Yes, all the time I’m thinking HIV is eating away at my brain, my penis too but Viagra worked in the beginning… but just not doing the usual HIV things like infections. My labs were normal. Well, I’ve said this all already, but when the it hits the fan…on my last days in my 28 year employment in Critical Care and Open Heart Surgery, pressure was put on me to not call in sick–as I was doing so often when I felt bad and shaky. So, I came in to work feeling bad and shaky. I must have looked ghastly because of the way co workers were looking at me. Even one of my patients said she didn’t want me near her (which had never happened before). I knew I should have stayed home but I couldn’t lose my job from calling in sick too much. The Main Nurse manager was called at home and I spoke to her on the phone. She said my speech was slurring. I said, yes, I’ve been unable to sleep because how I"ve been feeling. My latest antidepressant, like all the others aren’t working, but I had to come to work anyway. The nurses I had known for years and years and spent more time with than my family all turned against me instead of supporting me and believing what my interpretation of the cause of my health was (of course during this time 2007, I had no clue propecia was the culprit…self esteem takes a huge hit. The ego gets annihilated. Luckily, because of thinking I would die at any moment during the HIV deaths I began a spiritual journey which kept me alive from propecia (I digress), so I decided to leave my job because they just offered the same counseling I had already been doing for years. Well, soon after, everything I owned and my then $750,000 home in San Francisco, appraised nearly 1 million by now, were lost. All of it, and I was hungry. No body helped me. I tried selling some things to people at work and even though I was still employed, but not with patients I was told to leave and not come back or they would call security. (That Nurse manager, really a lovely women, suddenly lost her job a couple months after I left…I really believe it was from the fallout from me and the perception that she let a nurse loose on patients that was diverting drugs for umpteen years…I don’t know… but this poison in our lives runs deep and repercussions blindly effect others too. It’s kind of funny these major diseases I have had before I knew they existed inside me or even had a name. HIV, then Propecia. Ha Ha. Oh I’ve got lots more which I know each of us could write a tragedy of stories with never ending sequels. I know I should have put this in my bio/history but my point is appropriate here, plus I’m new and Propeciated. the point is that like mental illness people that don’t have it can’t really understand it and think its all made up and we are hypochondriacs or kooks. but its numbers around the world, growing, that will tell our truth. Oh, I told my new MD to look at this website(this one) to get an idea of where my health concerns are. I told her what Propecia is doing to people world wide, and its why I’m disabled and sexless and alone, and poor, and hopeless and tired and in pain and anxious and I’ll stop… she looked at me and said, " well, all medications have side effects" she doesn’t get it yet, but she will. Hang in there people…but I don’t think this is reversible, especially for as long as i took it. The theory of spotty mylin sheath destruction of the neurons, similar to multiple sclerosis really makes most sense to me. I know physiology, and nerves don’t regenerate the sheaths, at least without some future help. That’s enough. bye.
