do i have gynecomastia? please help

[FTWP]

ive been on propecia for almost 2 months. i was real scared of any side effects before i started. it took me wll over a year to finally work up my courage and take the first pill. the first month i took .25 mg. the start of the second month i went to .5 anxious to get some results quicker. saturday i noticed my left breast was a tad bigger than usual- just toward the armpit it seemed to be a little fleshier. and if i touch the muscle it is a bit sensitive. i wasnt feeling it on my right breast till today. same thing-the muscle is a bit sensetive and a little fattier. not much though. it might be my imagination or im worrying too much. theres only a tiny part of the muscle that feels sensitive and the rest is fine. my nipple size is the same and my chest doesnt really look too much different compared to when i started the drug but what do you think i should do? should i give up on this pill? i havent had any other side effects yet. please need help! was really wishing to post in the success stories but instead im here. need some support

 

[Wuffer]

To be perfectly honest, it sounds like you are picking a known symptom that is particularly frightening to you, and focusing on it. It's easy to trick yourself into believing something that isn't really there. You've never had a reason to poke and prod at your breast tissue before, so you might start noticing something that's been there the whole time.

Gyno resulting from 1mg finasteride use is quite rare. One hair transplant doctor said it occurs in roughly 1 in 500 of his thousands of patients.

My advice to you is to take good pictures of your chest, and compare on a weekly basis to those pictures. You say your tissue is tender, but I’m willing to bet that tenderness is caused by your obsessive poking and prodding.

Gyno from finasteride can't be mistaken; it's very obvious, usually quite painful and something you would probably have opted to see your doctor about instead of posting here.

FYI, this is what Finasteride induced gyno looks like:

http://www.ijtrichology.com/viewimage.a ... 930_f1.jpg

 

[FTWP]

thanks a lot for your advice and support. i feel a little better now, haha. Man, hair loss sucks. its completely taken over my life, i want SO much want to keep my hair. but theres a lot of good people on this site. i hope your right. i mean its true i have been poking at them constantly since saturday and going to the bathroom at work 50 times a day and observing them in the mirror. they don't look like that pic in the link you sent. i did take one pic of my chest before i started treatment but its just one, of the front - no side pics. its hard to compare. so yeah i will take better pics and see if anything changes for a week or so. thanks man.

 

[fml]

You are not alone OP. Here is my recent worry thread: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=66493
Might be some info of interest to you in there.


Wuffer, good point about the poking/prodding. I bruised my chest with the constant checking. Its easy to do and you dont realize youre doing it.

With that pic you posted, is it possible that one could be heading for that state, but wont look anything like that because you are still at the developing stages? Im sure neither OP or I think we are like that pic. We are worried that we are on our way to it though!

Interesting statistic you give from that doctor. Doesnt that contradict the Merck trials? I cant remember but I thought it was more like 0.7% chance. Maybe we are getting into sample size issues though.

 

[Wuffer]

I admit I went through the same thing

I was obsessed about it for a time as well, and I was poking constantly, going into the washroom at work to look at my chest, looking at different angles and positions. Eventually I realized I was letting my obsession take over my life, and I told myself no matter what, I wouldn't do it at all for a straight week.. I wouldn't even look at myself bare chested in the mirror! I also took a couple weeks away from the forums and the obsession finally went away. If I feel like I’m starting to get back into that mindset, about any symptom, I always nip it in the bud and it alleviates.

I've been on finasteride for 6 months now; thanks to some exercise and now being at a good weight, my chest is even smaller than when I started. Gyno is no longer a worry at all for me.

Obviously a lot of guys get depressed about their hair, and their final hope is to take finasteride. Unfortunately, our minds always want to f*ck us over for some reason, so for us more obsessive guys (most of us probably) we focus on certain self-defeating thoughts that eventually manifest in very real ways. In some cases such as mine, full blown OCD (checking and re-checking). It's the minds way of dealing with the stress and worry. I think it's why a lot of guys don't do well on finasteride. Obviously some do actually experience real symptoms, but I’m willing to bet that most go through a similar situation as I described (whether it be sexual sides, gyno, brain fog, etc).

Anyway, obviously you won't wake up one day with man boobs like that. It probably takes a couple weeks or months for that to happen. If you just compare to your pictures, you will be able to catch it early if it were to happen.

The gyno statistics are from the 5mg finasteride. Also keep in mind that most people using 5mg finasteride are older men, who are already predisposed to gyno. I don't think I’ve ever seen gyno reported in trials from 1mg finasteride in young men, but it was reported to the FDA and merck post marketing. I'm not sure what the real stats are for 1mg, but I’m willing to go with Dr. Rassman's estimates at 1 in 500.

I would also say that guys that are overweight or have borderline high estrogen levels are going to be the ones to get it. Most young guys of average weight will have normal estrogen levels. finasteride raises estrogen slightly, but for the vast majority, it doesn't cause problems.

 

[FTWP]

thanks dude. ill try my best to not think about it too much. hows it going with you being on finasteride 6 months. did your hair loss stop or slow down. if so at what point did that happen?

...hey fml. your chest size looks perfectly normal. and doesnt the ENTIRE nipple gets puffed in gynecomastia cases? so you might be ok.

 

[Wuffer]

I've had really good success with finasteride. I'm very thankful i'm a good responder and tolerate it well. Here is a link to my success story:

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=64824

I noticed results very quickly, after around 2 months. At 6 months my crown is almost completely recovered, so i'm very happy with what it's done for me. It's definitely not a perfect treatment, but it's the best we've got at the moment, and i'm quite thankful that its an available option for treating hair loss right now.

 

[harolddwell28]

You give me a lot of knowledge on this guys. Hope you can tell me the nearest clinic

 

[FTWP]

To all who maybe wondering where im at: after giving it a week to see if the problem persisted i have decided to quit propecia. i kept on feeling slight pains in both breasts. they looked a little bigger so i gave it up thinking if i didnt stop it might get worse. since i have stopped, all the pain i have felt has completely gone away which im really happy about. i think they even went back to normal size as well...but that parts hard to tell because i was kind of unsure about the size difference to begin with. i do think that the pain was caused by the drug so im glad i stopped. i'd really hate to look like bob from fight club. now i need an alternative...fun. can't wait to begin an endless search.

 

[Rawtashk]

Did you get sides from .25mg? Maybe go back to that and see if you can still slow down your hairloss or maintain something.

There are other options, but sadly they are not yet FDA approved, which means that you have to mix up your own batch of them and hope that you did it right. Personally, I'm waiting on FDA approval so that I know what I'm buying is real, and mixed correctly.

 

[Nuli]

Did you get sides from .25mg? Maybe go back to that and see if you can still slow down your hairloss or maintain something.

There are other options, but sadly they are not yet FDA approved, which means that you have to mix up your own batch of them and hope that you did it right. Personally, I'm waiting on FDA approval so that I know what I'm buying is real, and mixed correctly.

Are you talking about RU? RU wont be FDA approved for quite some time if ever.

 

[Rawtashk]

Mostly RU and CB, and I know it'll be a while...which is why I still stick with finasteride.