Started fin when i was 17..im screwed up

Hello guys, well here’s my story.

I first started to notice i was balding when i was 17 (it wasn’t a receding hairline, it was just diffused), and researched hair-loss prevention treatments on the internet. All of the answers seemed to point at fin, but i definitely could not afford $50 a month or whatever propecia costs, so i ordered 90 1mg generic tablets from India (the manufacturer was CIPLA).

I took about 2 months of the 1mg dosage per day and then i decided to switch to .25mg to save money (also because i read that .25mg has the same effect as 1mg). Life went on, and within a few months my diffused balding was completely gone and i had a full thick head of hair again. I didn’t notice any negative side effects during those first few months, although as i look back on it, my personality changed significantly. I certainly loss my social appetite somewhere within those first few months and haven’t recovered it entirely since.

As the days went on, the negative side effects multiplied. I thought at first that, i acted the way i did because of my own natural hormones, or genetics. Looking back, i realize that my behavior could not be considered natural or normal. I completely lost all interest in girls. I remember having a girl (who i consider to be a 10/10 at the moment) hit on me in school ALL the time, and i made no effort to purse her… I never hung out with people out side of school, and would feel awkward in large groups of people.

Despite all this, i was simply in denial of the fact that the drug was affecting me. About the time i turned 18 (i am now 19), I developed a slur in my speech and had difficulty forming my words. I felt like i had to concentrate hard sometimes to keep up a conversation. I also developed serious mental fog and found it very difficult to concentrate, especially under pressure.

I had these problems throughout high school and my first year in college not only in front of friends and people at school, but with my family too! Yet, i still thought i was just a seriously messed up kid with some quirks here and there.

One day i blew up at my job because of a simple mis-communication. I yelled curses at a man who was three times the size of me, threw things and stormed out with an enormous rage in my head.

The odd thing was that the symptoms weren’t constant at all. Some days i would feel perfectly normal and socially capable, but others (usually the majority), i felt scared and alone.

Im happy to say that i am finally off the drug (20 days now) and hopefully will never go back on. I made the decision to quit, after reading many of the testimonies on this forum…thanks for whoever set this up btw.

I feel like i am making improvements, i certainly have been very talkative these past few days. I no longer seem to fear eye contact (which was a problem on fin), and i don’t feel perpetually dreary for the rest of the day after taking a nap (another thing that happ often to me on fin).

Right after getting off the drug, my scalp is started to get very itchy and i sometimes feel a burning in my scalp…i guess it’s starting again. It’s such a terrible thing for a man to loose his hair, especially so young. I thought that i would have at least a couple years of full complete youth left, at least enough time of full hair to find a good, permanent spouse. What a bugger.

I guess i have to research alternate hair-loss prevention methods…i heard minoxidil is the next greatest thing, is that true? I feel so embarrassed about it, i don’t want anyone to know. I can’t even walk into a pharmacy or walmart and buy rogaine because im too afraid of what the clerk or someone who might see me would think!

And then there is the possible reality that i could have completely screwed up my life with this fin drug…altogether i was on the thing for about 2 years…who knows what kind of damage it could have done up there.

Any advice, encouragement would be helpful.

Are you sure your emotional symptoms are due to Fin? I don’t know, it seems so easy to blame all of one’s problems on the pills. Could it be maybe you would have experienced that anyway? I know I have had (and still do) social anxiety from time to time (including pre-Propecia). However, after reading this forum recently, it seemed like a good idea to consider blaming Propecia for not only my anxiety, but basically everything that has gone wrong in my life since. I don’t doubt there are real side effects due to this shit, but your symptoms seem fairly common to me. Many people experience what you experience. But I could be wrong. Just making sure you consider all possibilities before making a final assessment. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, as I do wish you the best and am glad you’ve started to feel better.

well, you could be right but the very fact that i feel like a completely different person after going off the drug testifies otherwise.

Many of the symptoms could be infact just normal, but i honestly don’t think many of them are. At the time, there were no thoughts in my mind that blamed my behavior on fin…i just knew that there was something seriously wrong with me. I genuinely believed fin was not responsible mainly because of the fact that i had no knowledge of the drugs real negative side effects (also because the symptoms weren’t immediate). Therefore there could have been no placebo effect.

ofcourse my recovery could be a placebo effect…either way, im much happier being off.

I still feel like i have some brain fog, this morning i was trying to remember one of my favorite artists ( i had listened to songs by them the entire morning basically) and could not recall. Sometime i feel really stupid and i genuinely surprise people with my scatter-braininess (i dont know if thats a word).

I just quit and I’m experiencing the severe scalp itching as well. It’s so bad, I’ve made an appointment with my doc.

i have decided to take fin again on a really really low dose (my hair is falling out like crazy). I bought 5mg proscar pills so im going to try and make 20 out of each pill…im just going to hope that brain fog/slur of speech, is just the way i was meant to be.

i bought $100 worth right before i quit so atleast there is no financial repercussions…i just hope to god im not going to start growing boobs or something because that would really suck.

brain fog/slur of speech did return after being off fin…so im not entirely convinced that fin is the reason for that. maybe alot of it was in my head idk, i just don’t want to go bald right now, **** it.

You are playing with fire my friend, and can 99% guarantee your side effects will return as soon as you take Fin again.

Good luck, seems you have no use for this forum anymore.

make 20 sections out of each pill?
you are freaking crazy dude
shave all your hair off

You would rather have brain fog/ slurred speech and alot more other problems just to keep some hair? I was on it for 4 years and not being able to think and losing your personality from being numb is horrible. I think your making YOUR LOGIN NAME. Good luck tho.

hey guys, good news!

I feel like whatever symptoms i thought i had, are gradually disappearing. slur of speech is almost gone - im thinking it may have been due to me getting my braces removed. also, im a bit older now and am starting to realize that a lot of the emotional issues i used to have, were most likely a result of hormones.

I have had blood tests, and nothing bad showed up.
im going to stay on fin - it’s working and i am very healthy.

Braces, yeah. lol

That is good news. For your peace of mind of course, maybe not your ever-shrinking prostate, or your seminal production, or your testosterone/estrogen ratio, or your sexual desire, or your body’s ability to relax itself under stress.

Your mind is made up - good luck on not becoming a lifeless ghost, which will be your prize should you reap the dangerous consequences of androgen deprivation. Looks like your only big mistake is thinking you need to visit this site. See ya.

Now now… no need to be so harsh. He has clearly made his choice… if things turn out badly for him down the road, at least he’ll know and understand why. Just don’t say nobody warned ya, kid! :wink:

Since you wish to continue with Fin and are having no issues, good luck to you, as you should hopefully have no use for this site.

Ughh

Ok, so it’s been a while since I update this post.

A few months ago I came to a grips with what was really happening … I was losing my mind.

A part of me thinks that it might just be how I am, but a part of me says that it’s just not natural. Sometimes I have almost no ability to articulate in real time. I usually have no difficulty when there is no pressure (like typing this up), but when I am in front of people I am capable of being incredibly ditsy and scatterbrained. I’ve had 3 jobs over the past 3 years.

The first one was as a waiter in a restaurant. I failed the orientation test (it involved waiting to a manager), because I ordered the wrong type of sandwich she requested on top of countless other mistakes … Despite the fact that I failed orientation, they let me on the floor because I thought I could handle it. I couldn’t. I made dozens of mistakes every night, and although no one actually fired me, I was told that they were full on staff after I returned from a short break.

The second job was a year later and was a waiter job as well. I was haunted by what happened at my last waiter job so I got this one to prove to myself that I could do it. It didn’t last long. Like at the last job, I was a total dits in front of customers. I thought that with experience I might improve, but a few weeks into the job I got really pissed off at the kitchen manager and blew up in front of him and several of my co-workers. It was a total misunderstanding, but after he yelled in my face about something I yelled out “F*** THIS JOB!” and I punched a giant bowl of salad and then walked out with my apron on and all. Of course this diner was on-campus so I suspect a lot of my friends know this story … it’s so embarrassing because I’m totally not like that.

The third job was at a bowling alley and I’ve had it on and off since my sophomore year in high school. I started this job before I started taking fin, so I think my managers knew me to be once dependable. They often hire me back over breaks (when I am at home and not in college), but the last few times I worked there were not so good. It’s a simple job and I should be really good at it since I had been there for over 4 years, but I constantly frustrated my manager doing the stupidest shit. The last time I was rehired by them, I came in on a friday, even though I knew that I was supposed to work on Saturday. I honestly went through the whole day thinking it was a friday! Of course when I got in I was too embarrassed to tell my boss that so I just told her I thought my shift was on friday. Despite the fact that I concentrated really hard on doing my duty, I constantly was found making dumb mistakes and doing stupid shit. My manager, who is also my friend, thought I was on crack and constantly taunted me about it. I wish it were true, but I have a complete 100% abstinence from any drug besides fin. I don’t even drink alcohol, not even on occasion.

I am now 19, unemployed and a full time student but I am terrified at the prospect of getting a new job. Even a minimal wage dingbat job. I still have dreams, literal nightmares of screwing up things on my last jobs. I feel emasculated, and so often intimidated by other men who seem to have their head on straight.

My memory is HORRID, and being a musician, I often forget the lyric to a song that I had recited hundreds of times. I couldn’t possibly remember simple verbal directions to get somewhere a mile’s distance.

A few months ago (I think it was May or June) I quit fin entirely again. I maybe feel a little better than I did back when I was taking it. But I often feel reclusive and out of touch with reality. My brother and friends are amazed at how distracted I can get. We will be talking in the car and I will just gaze off and miss a lot of the conversation. I often have to ask people to repeat things, sometimes as much as 3 or 4 times. Many people have told me I am very good looking and I know that I am a good looking person (not to be prideful), yet I have never had a girlfriend in my life. I don’t know if this is a common thing, but I can’t seem to like anyone that is interested in me. I sometimes get terrified in crowds and am known for making tremendous gaffes in front of my friends. I feel like I should be a smart person because I spend all of my time reading, but i am clearly not. Sometimes when I am reading I have to re-read the same paragraph over a dozen times just to comprehend it - and that’s not an exaggeration. It’s so strange, I just can’t focus sometimes on the things I am trying to read.

One positive thing is that I was driving someone home and the person I was driving said that I had a good memory for being able to remember some of the turns I had to take to get to his house. That was about 2 months off the drug, and I hope it is a sign that I am beginning to clear up. I believe that was the first time I had been complimented for anything related to mental prow in a long time so it really made me happy. Amazing how my personal standards and self-expectations have deteriorated. I feel like I was a more articulate, capable person in high school.

Any advice would be helpful … I have often heard that the after effects of fin are temporary. Is this always the case? I’ve been off for a few months and I don’t feel completely liberated.

Another thing I don’t quite understand - if fin lasts less than 24 hours in the body, why does it still have an effect weeks later?

Thanks again …

HAHAHAHAHAHA

That’s not necessary.

The majority of men do not experience ongoing side effects for months or years after quitting the drug. For a small minority (ie, men like us on this site), they persist. Nobody has an exact count as to how many men worldwide are suffering from this problem.

Nobody knows the answer, and if we did none of us would be here. Various theories abound (check THEORIES section), but nobody knows why because no scientist has bothered to investigate our condition to figure out the root cause(s) yet.

That’s what makes this drug so dangerous – you don’t know what camp you’ll fall into before you take it, and if you end up in the “minority” camp with permanent side effects, there’s not much you can do about it. Best not to take it at all.

Thanks for the answers Mew.

I really do feel slightly better than when I felt on the drug. I am making less social blunders, and am often able to control my slur. All of the effects are not completely gone, but it’s an improvement. I think my case is unique because I took the drug so young. I do feel depressed every once in a while but it’s usually very mild and not long lasting.

Also on the positive side - my hair isn’t falling out! It’s been 2-3 months off the drug and I’ve retained most of the hair I had when on fin. I am wondering if I didn’t need to go on fin in the first place … am I correct in thinking that the hair retained by fin usually falls out within weeks after you stop taking the drug? I also don’t seem to have a burning scalp like I did in high school. That was one of the things that influenced me to start taking fin.

For many the mental side effects take many months, or years to clear up. It took well over a year for my brain fog/mental acuity to begin getting better, the slurring/tongue twisting to improve etc. My short term memory is still very bad compared to pre-Finasteride, but better compared to when I was on it.

Give yourself time – the body heals at a slow rate. I suggest you read these tips on how to improve brain function, omega 3s are vital:

propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2237

Give it time. My loss didn’t start picking up again until 8-14 months off. I suspect you will find similar.

I no longer have an itchy, oily, flaky scalp like I did pre-fin – likely a sign that androgen function in those tissues where Fin exterted its effects has been significatly decreased after usage.

Sorry dad. I just think blatant idiocy can use a refreshing wake-up smack, esp since atop every page of this forum is the answer.

Actually, I have heard of others who have had temporary symptoms. The word ‘temporary’, if you’ll bother to look it up, means only occurring for a finite amount of time, not permanent.

So I think it’s reasonable to ask if we can assume that the after effects of fin are not permanent for all. Especially after considering that Merck states this.

The words:

Don’t even imply that a majority of men who take fin continue having permanent side effects. It just simply states that this is a forum for those who do.