Hi there,
First of all excuse my english, it’s not my native language. I will try to tell my experience as good as possible.
It all started a few years ago, at the age of 18. I was getting just a little hair loss on the front sides of my head, and continued from there on. It never bothered me that much until I was 21 and my hair loss was increasing. I tried some topical shampoos for like half a year and some other stuff that didn’t really work. Then I thought why not try finasteride? There were some good reviews about it, some negative telling about a decreasing libido. I thought I would give it a try,
It didn’t gave me any side effects (started about 4 months ago from now), and I didn’t notice any changes in my hair loss either. It all felt normal like every day. I use this drug every night, a quarter from a 5mg pill; 1,25mg. Because I didn’t noticed any decrease in libido I thought I was doing really good. I didn’t saw any improvement in my hair though, but no decrease either.
About 5-6 weeks ago I noticed I was a little nervous some times and had some panic attacks. Normally I’m a very optimistic person who doesn’t stress at all. But it wasn’t often, so whatever… I usually did a lot of sports; marathon running, soccer, fitness etc. the last few months the urge to do some kind of sport wasn’t there. Since the last 3 weeks I’m feeling bad, depressed. A few times I even thought about suicide, not actually doing it, just thinking about how and what suicide is. I thought by myself that it’s strange that I was thinking about suicide, why would I think about something like that? I have a beautiful life, good friends and family and a lovely girlfriend.
So the last 1,5 week I felt really fucking crap depressed. I usually really like to see my mother and dad, last 1,5 week I didn’t. Everything they said was irritating me, and I didn’t like anything they said. Also, I see my grandmother and grandfather a lot (over 3 times a week), which I always really enjoyed. The last 1,5 week I didn’t… I felt like a robot without any feelings. Waking up every morning at 6:30am, going to work, getting back at about 4:00pm, then watch some tv and go to sleep. I was really absent to my girlfriend, family and friends. And somehow it all didn’t bother me, I thought: well whatever, life goes on right? It’s probably normal I feel like this.
Today… I started to talk to my girlfriend about how I feel depressed and tired and all that. She said she noticed the same. We talked about it and I started to cry literally. But I didn’t know where it was coming from. It felt really good to talk about my depression with my girlfriend. I wished her goodnight and went to sleep. But before I go to sleep I always take my finasteride. Exactly at the moment I swallowed this pill, out of nothing it came to my mind: this drug is making me depressed and tired. Yes, that must be cause! It must be! I’m losing hair since 4 years and never fell depressed about anything in the last 22 years. Since the last 3 weeks I know how depression feels actually. I’m so damn sure this drug makes me feel depressed. There isn’t any other possibility that could me make this depressed. I never felt so bad in my whole life as the past few weeks.
The thing is, I never even thought about finasteride making me feel this shit. It really didn’'t came to my mind that this drug could harm me that much. But now I know for sure, this must be the cause.
It’s 11:45pm right now, I usually sleep at 10:30pm. I really had to share this… I hope the story isn’t written to vague/hazy. It feels like I just made a big discovery what is making me feel really bad.
Anyway… now I know what is the cause for my depression, I still need to quit it. I think I will half my amount of finasteride for the next 2 weeks, so my body gets used to it? After that I will completely stop with this drug. God it makes me so depressed. But, is there any other topical that can stop my hair loss? I don’t want to use any oral drug anymore, this one sucked that hard… So does anyone know a good topical remedy? If not, then I will just get bald. I rather be bald then feeling like I was the last few weeks. Seriously.
I really had to share this… I will report how I feel when I completely stopped with this drug, hope it will help. I took the last pill just 2 hours ago. Thank you for reading my story, I appreciate any feedback.
Patrick