It has now been just about five years since I tried out Propecia. It was for the first few days of October 2011 that I decided to try out my luck with the drug since I was so determined to not lose my hair. As you can see from my posts, I immediately got pretty bad sexual side effects (nothing else) from the first pill I downed, but I figured they would go away and took another one the next day. The sides sort of came back and it was then that I decided that my hair just wasn’t worth losing… well, you know. Many of you know. I prayed that I wouldn’t crash and that everything would turn out for the best. Just two pills, right?
Well, five years later, I’m 24, my life is OK. Ironically I am of course totally OK with being bald now, if only I had been from the beginning. Life has its ups and downs but those have nothing to do with the episode described above. I’m in school, I have a decent life outside of school, I’m mostly happy with the direction my life is going in.
But I can tell you that those two pills did permanently change something in my system. In those five years since I took the pills, I think I must have had up to ten morning boners, max. The ones that I’ve had have been weaker than what they were like before Propecia. Now maybe I have morning/nocturnal erections while I’m sleeping deeply and they’re gone by the time I wake up, maybe. But I used to have one every morning, very hard, and bam, two pills and they’re gone, just like that.
What’s more, my sex drive has certainly not recovered to what it was earlier. I vividly remember the day I tried out Propecia: I had just had a post-school wank, everything was normal and then I took my first pill. Within something like ten minutes I was almost unable to get an erection and looking at stimulating photography was now like looking at paintings. Visually pleasing, but not terribly exciting. There was a “cold” feeling in my crotch, which I recall describing as a feeling of something “dying” down there in my post which you can probably still find on this forum. I still remember those sensations clearly, they were so stunning and drastic.
Things are definitely not that bad anymore and so I suppose I didn’t “crash”, but here’s where I’m at: I can get an erection fairly easily, but they are not all that strong, they disappear very quickly if I for example walk around while having one. I have to focus on maintaining an erection to keep it going. What’s more, I don’t feel like looking at stuff that much these days. I am going through an unrelatedly stressful period right now and maybe that has to do with it, but I don’t know. I get next to no spontaneous erections either. If I sort of get one, it’s quite weak, or at least feels like it. I don’t have a girlfriend and have not had one in five years. That’s partly because I just don’t really have a strong urge to get one, and that is because I just don’t have a strong urge to have sex at all.
If I decide to rub one out, I can absolutely get an erection, but again, it’s weaker than what I had before Propecia and I absolutely do not feel as excited or turned on as I used to feel before Propecia. If I had to numerically “estimate” where I’m at sexually compared to pre-Fin, I would say, I don’t know, 60%-65%? I can function and all that but it’s not something I crave terribly much. I would say just the lack of libido is the largest difference to my pre-Fin state. I am like the person I was before Fin but at least 30%-35% of my sexuality has been removed, carved out.
It has been five years, I’ve had time to reflect on this stuff and I have come to accept that unless some drastic cure is found, I may be like this for the rest of my life. In five years, I’ve adjusted to that just fine and like I said, at least I can still perform and don’t get me wrong, I do feel something sexually, but it’s very muted compared to what was before. And yes, thankfully my Propecia-inflicted suffering was and has been completely limited to sexual sides, for which I am very grateful.
Why make this post? Well, I suppose the message is something like “This drug really does some insane stuff insanely quickly”. I have checked this place out every so often and sometimes you see people wondering if taking just one or two or three pills and then quitting could do permanent damage. Well, it did for me. I’m mostly alright and fine with my life, but I am not the same as I was before those two pills. Their effect, while greatly reduced from their absolute worst points, has been permanent. I also thought someone might care for hearing from someone whose experience with Propecia was a good while ago. Take care everyone.
