- Where are you from (country)?
I’d rather not say…I’m in a third world country
- 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?)
Did a google search a long time ago and have been lingering here off and on for years.
- What is your current age, height, weight?
I am currently 36, 5’10" and about 190lbs.
- Do you excercise regularly? If so, what type of excercise?
I used to jog, bike, swim and hike regularly but I’m suffering from an injury as of the last 5 months so I’ve become inactive.
- What type of diet do you eat (vegetarian, meat eater, raw, fast-food/organic healthy)?
I eat pretty much all types of food, but I’m not a vegetarian.
- Why did you take Finasteride (hair loss, BPH, other)?
Hair loss
6) For how long did you take Finasteride (weeks/months/years)?
approx 10 years
- How old were you, and WHEN (date) did you start Finasteride?
around 2000 and I was 25 or 26
- How old were you when you quit, and WHEN (date) did you quit?
I quit last year in 2010 at age 35
- How did you quit (cold turkey or taper off)?
I quit many times for a month at a time but then started again because the side affects worsened when I got off the meds. Then last year I finally decided to go cold turkey.
- What type of Finasteride did you use – Propecia, Proscar, Fincar or other generic?
First took propecia for a few years, then I started taking proscar for the last 6-7 years.
- What dose did you take (eg. 1 mg/day, 1 mg every other day etc.)?
1mg per day
- How long into your use of Finasteride did you notice the onset of side effects?
I dont recall exactly how long ago the side affects kicked in, but it was not less than 3 years into it. And then I noticed that the side effects got worse when I stopped taking it.
- 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
[x] Erectile Dysfunction
[ ] Complete Impotence
[x] Loss of Morning Erections
[x] Loss of Spontaneous Erections
[x] Loss of Nocturnal Erections
[x] Watery Ejaculate
[x] Reduced Ejaculate
[x] Inability to Ejaculate / Orgasm
[x] Reduced Sperm Count / Motility
Mental
[x] 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] Depression / Melancholy
Physical
[ ] Penile Tissue Changes (narrowing, shrinkage, wrinkled)
[ ] Penis curvature / rotation on axis
[x] Testicular Pain
[x] Testicular Shrinkage / Loss of Fullness
[x] Genital numbness / sensitivity decrease
[ ] Weight Gain
[ ] Gynecomastia (male breasts)
[ ] Muscle Wastage
[ ] Muscle Weakness
[x] Joint Pain
[ ] Dry / Dark Circles under eyes
Misc
[x] Prostate pain
[x] Persistent Fatigue / Exhaustion
[x] Stomach Pains / Digestion Problems
[ ] Constipation / “Poo Pellets”
[x] Vision - Acuity Decrease / Blurriness
[ ] Increased hair loss
[ ] Frequent urination
[ ] Lowered body temperature
[x] Other (please explain)
Swelling of the bladder area at times. Tissues and skin in the genital area don’t feel the same as they used to…its as if they’ve changed
- What (if any) treatments have you undertaken to recover from your side effects since discontinuation of the drug?
I have not yet been to any doctors to treat these side effects. I after trying with several different home remedies that only worked temporarily, I decided to try out a herbal healer that has worked wonders for my spinal injury. His treatment seems to be working, but it is still too early to tell if it is a permanent cure.
- 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)?
Unfortunately, I dont think I ever conducted such detailed blood tests before I used finasteride. And I haven’t yet gotten tests done for treatment of this issue yet.
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Anything not listed in the above questions you’d like to share about your experience with Finasteride?
-
Tell us your story, in your own words, about your Finasteride usage and side effects experienced while on/off the drug.
I have always been an athlete with a sexual appetite that my girlfriend could never keep up with. I know a lot of guys boast about how long they could go on for and how many times in a day they could do it, but I was honest to goodness able to “hit that” more than two dozen times a day at the age of 26 all the way up to 29. At 29, I started noticing that the proscar was started to make my balls hang lower and the shaft of my penis leading up my my testicles felt like it was starting to shrivel and shrink. It was as if there was constant pressure at the base of my genitals, between my anus and the base of the penis. As time went on, my entire sac shrivelled up and would only be full on occasion rather than all the time like it used to be. The pressure and sharp pains started taking place right inside my testicles and throughout my prostrate inside my body. The feeling was as if there was some constriction and a lack of blood flow. My loads started getting weaker and weaker and sex, although still great, wasn’t as great as it used to be. I don’t feel sensations as much as I used to. Every time I stopped taking the pill even for a couple of days, the side effects became even worse. My penis became totally limp and it was as if there was nothing there. It became extremely uncomfortable to feel the sharp stinging pains and to try to get into a better position all the time. I kept going back to taking the pill but knew I would have to eventually stop altogether. Finally, my system couldn’t take anymore and taking proscar each time would put me through excruciating pain…the area between the testicles and the anus would literally kill. It would pull together and shrivel and cause sharp stinging pains that wouldn’t go away. This same sensation expanded upwards throughout base of the penis and into the testicle sac. The veins and nerves running through my genital area were constantly experiencing all kinds of painful sensations. I decided that enough was enough and I was going to quit and seek some way to heal myself. I did and my sexual side effects got much much worse. Prior to this, even during the worse of the proscar days, I was still able to have sex twice a day and once a day on bad days. Now I went totally limp and those sharp pains became near constant. I couldn’t even masturbate or get it up despite trying. Panicking, I tried a local remedy that is supposed to have tremendous effect. I used blackseed oil, both externally and ingested. I massaged the oil into the area that was most painful and it did provide some sense of relief to my nerves. The next morning, I’d wake up ready to blow a few loads…but that wouldn’t last very long. I tried using the same remedy again and again, but its effectiveness seems to be very inconsistent. I then tried blood cupping…please keep in mind that I am in a third world country and don’t have access to the same tests and doctors that many of you on this forum do…blood cupping is like chinese cupping, except that they do some minor cuts and that allows you to bleed. I had this done on my lower back and it greatly relieved the awful pressure and tightness I felt at the base of my penis. My testicle sac also got a little more full rather than hanging so low. This lasted approximately 2 months, but I haven’t been back to get more cupping done…that was about 5 months ago and my injury has prevented me from travelling to the person that performs this. Next, I tried the herbal healer that has worked wonders for my spinal injury. I was told my several neurosurgeons that I would require surgery to correct two slipped discs…and I was ready to go for surgery when someone introduced me to this guy. He is a dirt poor healer in a third world country and gets his medicines the old fashioned way…no health store involved here, no “pills”, no labels…but this guy has a line up every single day of people from all walks of life that are here to see him. He applied some herbal cream that he makes himself to my skin…and…I know this puts my credibility out the window right away in the eyes of most people…and I would feel the same way except I have experienced it myself…this man’s external application of an herbal cream has gradually put one of my two slipped discs back into position while the other one is almost there and I have full mobility back with all pinched nerves and stiff muscle issues gone. After the incredible job he did on my spine, I confided to him about my post finasteride problem and he gave me a little bag full of hand made pills. He said he made them from honey and flowers that he put through some processing and curing. He told me of a book his grandfather had a book called Rati Rahasya by Koka Pandit…a medieval healer in India. This book was the source of his recipes. I took blackish brown colored pills that looked kind of clayish and ate two of them at night with a glass of milk as he instructed. Less than 30 minutes later I started feeling tingling throughout my prostrate. There is a nerve that runs right through the base of the penis and into the testi sac, I dunno what its called, but that felt like it was back to life…it was ALIVE and feeling damned good. The sharp and stinging pains started to melt away and my sac started to well up. I went to sleep and noticed I had a rock hard erection all night. Honesty to goodness, it was as if I had come back to normal 100%. I would take the med in the morning and at night (with milk only), as instructed, and it performed just amazing. The issue I noticed was that I would take it in the morning and by late evening, the real oomph would wear off and my junk would go back to lump mode again, although its overall health was improving. One of the problems with these herbal healer guys is that they never give you a full explanation of what they’ve actually got in their recipe, and they often lack consistency too. So from one batch to the next that I picked up each month, the effectiveness varied. I also noticed that the batch would lose its potency towards the end of the month, so I would try to get less each time and buy it fresh. The problem is, you get a good batch and you want that again…its not available and you get frustrated. So I’ve been on this stuff for just over 2 months and its still tough to say whether its going to be a cure for me, but it certainly makes life a lot more livable in the meantime. I have befriended this healer and his family and I’ve offered to pay them triple their normal rates if they will take more care in preparing this medicine for me. I am expecting my new batch to be ready either tomorrow or day after. What I do notice is that it feels as if it has healed some of the worst feeling of constriction I had in the prostate/genital area and its given me fuller testicles, even though I’ve been off it for 5 days now. I would like to analyze this stuff and find out what’s in it so I can get some scientific explanation for what’s going on here. I have a link for the book that this healer claims to use, but I can’t figure out which recipe in this book he’s using…it reads like an ancient manuscript. There are names of plants, minerals and other recognizable things so maybe some of the more informed here can connect the dots. I would be more than happy to mail a sample of this stuff anywhere in the world to a lab.
[Possible spam link removed]
I know this sounds…well…I know how it sounds…but I would like to investigate it in order to remove that element of “unknown” and get a better understanding as to what is in this stuff that makes it so potent.