Every day, when I see the amount of body hair my body’s suddenly grown in just 3 months, I’m reminded that I actually never had MPB in the first place and how stupid I was to take it despite the around 1300 pictures I’d taken from January until May 19. My body hair is too dark and too dense for my age and ethnicity, especially compared to right before I took finasteride. I really mind it. I probably wouldn’t have it if not for fin and the increase in testosterone. I didn’t listen when people and my mother always told me my hair looked OK. I would rather read “early prevention” stories and about finasteride users of my age on /r/tressless and think my case was similar. Instead, it only began after I took finasteride, along with the body hair growth, maybe due to upregulation and that increase in testosterone. Only now are my temples really receding and my hair getting noticeably thinner. My hair in May was, looking back, even better than in February or March. My skin has turned so rubbery and stretchy body-wide. Touching my face is now so depressing, as if I could pull the entire skin off. It just feels lifeless. So, I took it for a made up cosmetic reason and this is the result. Aren’t the body hair growth and my elastic skin just signs of aging? My penis feels dead, my libido is gone and my breathing problem got worse, my muscles are gone, I always wake up fatigued, never rested. I still feel confused when looking in the mirror. I feel much worse than even last week. Last week I probably felt the same. Doctors tell me it’s all psychosomatic. I can’t believe how slowly time now passes. I just regret it so much. I actually knew better than to take it, but at the last moment I just wanted to get it over with and swallowed the pill. 2 hours later came the testicular pain. After 2 days my penis lost sensitivity. Didn’t end there of course. Lately my testicles have been twitching and tingling randomly, I feel as if my genitals have shrunk. I personally don’t think it’s PFS per se, rather just taking finasteride at 17 during puberty. I could maybe have avoided it if I’d just waited out my “hair loss” until I was 18 or a bit later. See if I really needed to. It was so easy. Why did I take it at 17 despite the pictures and even though it’s advised against? Why did I have to get 5 days of testicle pain in the first place even though it’s supposedly rare? I’ve gone to doctors, they all told me this was purely psychosomatic, my skin was fine, my body hair’s fine, and that a single pill couldn’t possibly cause any of this. They all told me my testosterone which rose from a normal 24nmol to 39nmol in just 3 months, which remained since, was enviable.
Sometimes I want to kill myself. Not that I’m at the point of planning it out or actually considering it. I can’t really distract myself anymore and instead I always think about what could’ve been every hour at the slightest reminder. I really feel as if I’ve changed as a person. I’ve felt that I’m not as bright as I was before. Anyway, I just feel like I don’t want my entire life and my youth to be defined by 1/4 of a small blue pill that I took on a pure whim. And now with my physical changes, I just can’t feel comfortable in my own (very elastic and hairy) skin anymore. It just seems so silly. I sometimes feel like I have to atone by killing myself and it kind of sounds nice, just deserts and so on. I just want to end it all. This is not how it’s supposed to go. Maybe all of my problems with hair loss and such boiled down to just late-teen angst, but instead I went all the way to take medication with (lifelong) symptoms that have only worsened over 4 months. And even then, I’m not supposed to commit suicide because of a drug for hair loss, but what can you do.
