I'm done with finasteride - how long until I'm back to normal?

[Thickandthin]

*breathe in, breathe out* Yes, I think all my problems will be gone when I wake up tomorrow. Anxiety! That's it! The mind is so powerful, that it can make you loose morning erections, shrink your testicles, waste your muscles, make you loose body hair, make shaving a lot more convenient by slowing the growth of your beard so that you only need to shave once a week! It can even make you grow a nice pair of breasts!!! Obviously, all we need is a shrink! All this time, I thought the problem was physical.

Actually, I have more body/beard hair than ever before, and my beard grows annoyingly fast. No breast growth either. Testicles still the same size.

 

[Wuffer]

Hey Enden, my response was just aimed towards Thickandthin's situation, not anyone elses. He is simply experiencing some libido and minor erectile issues. It's quite apparent to me that this is likely to be caused by anxiety, since he himself stated several times that he was in a state of worry over the whole situation.

We all know how much worry about performance can affect things in the sack! Especially when you are with a woman where you are 'expected' to perform well, it can be a lot of pressure! Surely, we are all men and we have all been there. I doubt there is a single man in existance that hasn't had this problem.

Consider our friend in the sack with his girlfriend. He knows he's about to have sex, and I can guarantee he would be thinking something along the lines of "I hope I can perform tonight, I hope I don't go limp, what if finasteride has caused permanent ed, etc.". I can guarantee worrying about something like that will significantly affect his performance. Thoughts like that sure as hell affected mine.

This even affects things during solo activities. Again, your thoughts: "I hope this time it gets 100% hard, I need to be able to perform for the girlfriend". When you are stressed and worried, you don't get hard. You can sit there, whacking away at it for hours. You can scream at it, even point a gun at it and it's not going to cooperate!

Hopefully you can appreciate where i'm coming from here.

 

[Ende]

I'm not denying that anxiety can give you ED, because it's common. If it's a psychological problem, he'll have solid morning erections, and he'll not experience any problems when he's alone.

 

[Prop]

wuffer, sometimes i feel that u r paid from merk :whistle: joking


however reading about pfs stories, it seems to me that majority reports girth shrinkage respect a lenght loss, istn't it?

 

[Wuffer]

lol, I wish! Merck should be paying me for all the praise i'm spreading!

It might seem like I have a big woodie for Merck, but I don't. I've personally had a good experience with finasteride, but it's clear many others haven't. I do my best to help my balding brothers out, even if i've got a different opinion than you guys!

I think you need to be worried when your erect penis (at 100% fullness) is legitimately shorter than it was sometime before. Some guys claim they lost 2-3 inches after using finasteride. I honestly think that's BS, but I haven't seen pictures (and don't want to either!).. Either they aren't measuring properly, or they don't have a full erection. However, i've seen guys report Peyronie's disease from finasteride usage. I don't know enough about this condition to be able to comment on it..

Most guys' flacid penises change in size all the time. It expands and contracts; shrinks into you in cold water and dangles freely during warm weather. I don't think obsessing about this is productive. As long as things are normal when erect!

 

[Thickandthin]

Enden, I almost never had morning wood even as a teen. Long before I ever tried finasteride. I might have had it frequently at the height of puberty, around 15-16 years around. But by my late teens it was a rare occurrence.

I do sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with erections though.

 

[Wuffer]

Same here; I only had consistent morning erections during puberty, maybe up until I was 18 EVERY morning. But also back then, I would get boners that just popped up during the day for no reason, and would have to jerk off 5 times a day just to get to sleep. Hell, a crude drawing of some boobs on the bathroom stall door would give me a woodie!

I don't think the average adult over say the age of 22 has a sex drive like that any more. Men hit their peak of sexuality at 18, then it's down hill from there!

I think maybe some guys that go on finasteride at around the age of 18-20 and are on it for a long time (5+ years) don't exactly realize that. It's not realistic to come off the stuff at the age of 25-30 and expect your sex drive to be what it was back then.

I'm 29 and definitely noticed a decrease in my sex drive in the last 10 years. A lot of this can probably be attributed to a few too many drugs and booze, but a lot of it is simply from getting old. However, I still feel I have very normal functionality for my age.

Growing old sucks!

 

[Ende]

I always had strong morning erections before I began treatment with finasteride. I think I was 21 years old at that time. Spontaneous erections were normal as well.

 

[Mens Rea]

I never monitored my morning erections whatsoever. I should have but i guess it was something i never paid any attention to. My sexual function was more than fine, it was 110%.

I think it was that hubris that got me. I probably had less and less morning erections as time went on with finasteride but i didn't even realise.


Thickandthin, how are you doing anyway, buddy?

 

[Mens Rea]

Seems like my erections are ok. I was with my girl again last night and while we didn't have a chance to have sex, I was worried the entire time because I didn't feel like I was hard enough while fooling around. But once again, I was able to get an erection at 85-90% "capacity" by myself this morning. So I believe that issue is due to performance anxiety.

Libido is still slightly lowered, but my main problem is my flaccid size. I used to be a shower instead of a grower. But now I've barely got anything to speak of down there. Is that a sign of high estrogen? I also occasionally have watery semen--like maybe once a week. What does that mean?

Ok.

First, i say relax. Do all the right things. Exercise. I'm sure there is an element of anxiety there. Everyone is different.

I know from personal experience that my anxiety was simply related to how my body was physically responding. Sometimes it would be good sometimes it would be bad.

No amount of anxiety would have stopped my throbbing erections two years ago. This is the point Wuffer seems to miss. Many guys, myself included, had almost unsuppressable sex drive and spontaneous erections. No matter how stressed or how much anxiety i had my sexual function would almost have been uncompromisable.

85-90% as compared to your old self?

Question: Have you lost that "urge"? You know, the feeling after fore-play where you have that adrenaline/testosterone rush....where you're reallllly horny? That's the one thing i've lost.

 

[Prop]

I think you need to be worried when your erect penis (at 100% fullness) is legitimately shorter than it was sometime before. Some guys claim they lost 2-3 inches after using finasteride. I honestly think that's BS, but I haven't seen pictures

in my experience i didn't noticed any lenght shortening but girth loss

i never measured my penis, so i can't provide a objective comparation, but in the past, when i had my erect dick in the hand, my fingers weren't able to touch the thumb. Now they do

so, or my dick get smaller or my hand bigger ....

I do my best to help my balding brothers out, even if i've got a different opinion than you guys!

that's a good thing, but in this forum area the people is more worried about recovering sides than fight baldness (i suppose)

however is important to show signs rather than symptoms for make the PFS more understandable to the people

Right now we have only blood tests and spermiograms to show

 

[slurms mackenzie]

I never monitored my morning erections whatsoever. I should have but i guess it was something i never paid any attention to. My sexual function was more than fine, it was 110%.

I think it was that hubris that got me. I probably had less and less morning erections as time went on with finasteride but i didn't even realise.

Thats exactly what happened to me, I liken the effects of Propecia on the libido to a frog being boiled (bear with me)

if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death

my libido was that frog that was slowly heated (something i never ever thought i'd type).

I only realised that it was the finasteride causing it, many months after stopping finasteride ( i never quit because of sides, because i didn't suspect any i just got lazy).

 

[Prop]

You know, the feeling after fore-play where you have that adrenaline/testosterone rush....where you're reallllly horny? That's the one thing i've lost.

oh yes, me too.
summer is coming, in the past i got horny just sunbathing ...

but step by step i will regain my old self
(i hope)

 

[Mens Rea]

if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death

Awesome, i might steal that.

my libido was that frog that was slowly heated (something i never ever thought i'd type).

Same. I remember thinking to myself how was ED even possible. I always thought "when you get horny, you get an erection....how could this not happen?". The concept of loss of libido or worse, ED, was something i genuinely was even unable to contemplate.

That is what annoys me reading about some guys with psychological ED issues. I was the blind opposite. I ignored phsycial signs until i could no longer do it...i literally didn't realise until the changes were unmistakable. I was the anti-anxiety guy. But you cant fight your body.

 

[Thickandthin]

Well, my girl (I guess girlfriend now) just left to go to work. And from Friday night around 1:00 a.m. until noon or so today, we had sex seven times. So....I think I'm gonna be okay, haha. And I had actually masturbated twice already as an experiment on Friday as I wasn't anticipating her coming over. Obviously I wasn't rock hard every single time, but I was able to perform satisfactorily, haha.

I think my problem has been 90% psychological and perhaps 10% physical. There is no denying that while I was on finasteride my erections were occasionally weaker. And I might still have some residual effects. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't happy as hell with the way the last two days turned out

And that confidence is definitely going to help me going forward. PFS can kiss my ***

 

[Wuffer]

Glad to hear you are feeling better man!

Wow, even at my peak at 18 I wasn't able to go 7 times. I went twice this morning and my woodie felt like it was going to fall off! It's safe to say there's nothing to worry about.

 

[Thickandthin]

Well, the 7 times was over a 36 hour period. The scary thing is she later told me (only half jokingly) that she was really worried about dating me because of the extremely lackluster sex we had our first time.

And in other news, she is now officially my girlfriend. It's been a good week

 

[garrynw4]

help my seamen is watery after 6months of finasteride :shakehead:

 

[slurms mackenzie]

That would suggest a little bit to much estrogen, but more importantly if you're happy with your libido and little gary's up to the job, i'd maybe look to see if there's any estrogenic foods in your diet you can cut back on.

ie soy.

 

[TheGrayMan2001]

help my seamen is watery after 6months of finasteride :shakehead:

Reduce doseage. I've been on .25 mg since early March (I took 1.5 month break after 1.25 mg of fincar for 8 months cause I ran out) and found all my sides were gone but my scalp itch disappeared and I seem to be maintaining my hair still. Also, morning wood has stuck around.