Hi everybody
My name is Morten, I am from Denmark and I am 22 years old.
I am one of the victims suffering from taking Propecia. I just wanted to share my story with you as it has been so far. It is mostly positive, so I think it is interesting for you to read. I won’t be posting the full story at this point, because I am busy today, but I will follow up with more details on how I got to the point where I am now and how things will work out in the future. I am primarily doing this because of you guys. I remember the first long period after quitting the drug, where I was pretty much in hell. I didn’t know what to do, and it was like a had no future. But there is! And I actually think that there is a good chance that you may recover from this, if you treat your own body well. My english is not perfect, but I hope you’ll understand what I’m writing anyway.
So, this is my story:
As many people in here, I couldn’t accept the fact that I was loosing hair at the age of 21, so I started taking Propecia around february/march 2011. Soon after I started taking the drug, I got side effects. Therefore I stopped after only a week. After a week off the drug I started on a lower dose, 1/2 pill, but it still gave me sides. Last shot was to go with 1/4 pill which worked out pretty well. I still had some sides but compared to my hair loss problem at that point, I could live with them. I continued on this dose for some months until the start of july, where I stopped taking it for a week when I was at Roskilde Festival (big music festival) where I had the possibility to get laid. After that week when my side effects disappeared, I felt a big difference in my body. It was like I had forgotten how much more energy and lust I had before starting on this stupid drug (Propecia). As stupid as I am, I started on the pill when I came home from festival but quickly realized that there was no future in it. My sides returned again immediately. I thought to myself that I, at some point, was going to loose my hair anyway, so I quit again after a week, assuming that I would return back to normal. But as you can probably imagine… I didn’t!
A rough period of my life started: Extreme fatigue, crappy sleeping, a mild brain fog (compared to other guys on this forum), no lust at all, no interest in life and women, very seldom erections. If I watched porn I could barely get an orgasm (a weak one) and my semen was reduced and watery. My testicles were also remarkably smaller than before. After probably a month or 2 after quitting, I started having pains in my prostate area and I also started having pains in testicles and the area between my abs and penis (i think it’s called “groin”?). My digestive system was barely working which resulted in hard stomach. Things were not so bad in the beginning but got worse 1,5-2 months after quitting and peaked around middle of september.
In the first period just after quitting, I ate normal food (fast food, soda, candy and of course also healthy food). I drank alcohol almost every weekend while not paying attention to my body. After a 1-1,5 month after quitting I read some posts on this forum. I also thought there was a little chance that I might have got Candida Albicans (yeast infection in body and sometime prostate). I began on a very healthy diet with no sugar, no bread and no alcohol. I ate lots of vegetables and meat and I almost only drank water. I didn’t even eat sweet fruit like raisins, banana, orange and stuff like that. Also no juice. This was to treat my body well in hopes of getting better. Also the way to get rid of candida is to follow this kind of diet with no sugar and alcohol. I wanted to try everything, so I a gave it a shot. It did work. I had problems in the beginning of the diet where I felt awful, but then I started to improve around middle of september.
I bought a quality bed and a good pillow because my sleep was crappy. I didn’t have any dreams and I couldn’t get up in the morning. Slowly I started to dream more and more. In the beginning it was only nightmares, but at least I was dreaming.
Today, 2 months after starting on diet, focusing on sleep and exercising, I feel much better. My penis works much better. Much more lust. I can get an erection by thinking of girls. I have some returning pains in my prostate sometimes but NOTHING compared to the pain I had in september. No pain in testicles and groin. This last week I have had a great sleep. I am starting to have good dreams and sometimes even naughty dreams. I have more energy, I can act socially with my friends. No brain fog. Much better digestion.
I have good and bad days. Some days my penis works much better than others. The improvements are VERY slow and sometimes it doesn’t seem like if there are any improvements. But I feel so much better compared to two months ago. I even had sex with a girl. It wasn’t that good and I didn’t have an orgasm, but she liked it and my penis worked okay.
My conclusion is to have PATIENCE and discipline. I was in HELL too - thinking that nothing happened at all. Don’t fill your body with other drugs before you are absolutely sure that it won’t recover by itself. I think that by taking new drugs, you will “disturb” the body and make things worse. Maybe I am not right about this, but at least it is what I feel.
I will leave my computer for now and come back to answer questions and post updates on how my recovering is working out.
Good things come to those who wait. Eat healthy, focus on sleep and workout (also leg-training).
Kind regards
Morten
