Safe to say finasteride isn't to blame?

[Fundi]

I'm 22, and was taking between 0.1mg and 0.5mg of finasteride for two months.

-After a month I became very paranoid about sides, one thing I did notice was that my erections, although just as hard, don't quite feel as intense when I 'tensed' it, compared to a year ago. I had absolutely no other sides (minor or otherwise) except possibly a slight increase (maybe mental) in libido and less shedding of hair.


-This concerned me slightly, but I wasn't sure if this 'problem' was already there before I started finasteride, in which case maybe just related to aging (It's not a major problem, I could still easily have sex etc. and would have never noticed had I not been paranoid about sides and taking so much notice)

-So anyway, I've been off the finasteride for 2 weeks now, with no change. (My Doctor said 2 weeks should be sufficient to see) Considering my low dosage and short time I was on it and not even sure if it was like that before I even took my first dose, would you say it's safe to say finasteride isn't to blame? In which case it's safe to resume? Or should I give it more time? (But risk that down the line it maybe clear finasteride was never to blame...at the expense of my hair)


I would appreciate any replies (Except from those with hidden agenders).

 

[Whoop]

I had kind of the same situation.

I'm 20 y/o and started using Propecia (so the 1mg finasteride tablets) also. I did a lot of selfstudy on the side effects too, so I knew what could happen to me.

I was very excited the day I took my first pill. I think I was way too excited. Just after one hour of taking the pill I knew for sure my legs were all tinteling, my face was swollen and I had a sick energy boost like I just took a kilo of sugar. That day I fell asleep and the morning after I didnt have my morning wood.

So I was all like 'Sheesh fuk this poison', 'I'm allergic to it', whatever. I tilted. So I stopped taking it, even without considering the fact that all these effects were impossible to get within 1 hour and just with 1 pill.

Then after getting on a forum, people telling me I was just psychotic and because of the excitement that day I think it all was just in the head. I started taking .25mg a day then, just to see what would happen. After quartering a pill I always thought 'this thing is so damn small, it can't do me any harm'. It looked a lot less scary.

All was fine then. I was experiencing a shed on the side and back areas of my head (the hair that normally doesnt get affected by DHT), but it didnt bother me at all. The hair felt healthier also.

Then a sudden strike. I noticed I didnt have a morning wood for a couple of days and I wasnt able to maintain erections. I was thinking just ignoring it, as sides tend to go away after some months of using it. But then the Swedish FDA approved permanent ED as a possible side effect... Don't wanna gamble with that part of me, so I stopped using it.

After two weeks off all was still the same and I got very worried. But I was also too focussed on getting an erection, which could be the problem too. Also the stories I read about permanent damage made me freak out some days.

I think it was a month later (after a few days of taking a big rest as I was all stressed out about the propecia stuff) when I got my morning wood back and my normal erections would soon follow. I'm back to normal again now. Never touching finasteride ever again though.

So what I wanna say is that it's possible that you are also too much focussing on getting an erection and stuff. Try not to think about it, and you'll probably do fine. Permanent damage is very are, but you can really trick your mind into having it.

Sorry for the long post, but good luck!

 

[Fundi]

Thanks for the reply.

There definately is a physical change to a year ago, which isn't in my head. What I'm not sure about is whether things were like that before I even took my first dose...I know it's natural for erections to deteriorate with age (As it is to feel horny less frequently than you did, at say 14)...and it's not a big change.

I'd hate to quit finasteride for good if I don't have to, but at the same time don't want to damage myself.

Would you suggest giving it longer than two weeks to see if it was finasteride related? I have no problem getting erections or with my libido. Or giving my low dosage should things have returned to normal in two weeks if it was the finasteride?

 

[Whoop]

I don't know if the issues should have been gone within two weeks, they weren't for me. I had to wait 4 weeks or so.

But then again, I don't know for sure if i had to wait 4 weeks because of my fukked up mind or because of finasteride.

I know one thing for sure and that is that I won't use finasteride again because I'm quickly affected by sides. Because I know what finasteride can possibly do, I don't wanna recommend it to anyone anymore either. So I'll just say that if I were you I'd quit finasteride. But I know for sure that a bigger part of this community will say you to continue using it.

At the end it's your call. But I think the best thing you can do is at least wait for things to be normal again.

 

[Fundi]

Thanks

I think I will give it a bit longer. However, I could be waiting forever, if, like I 70% suspect, this 'side' was infact aleady there before I started finasteride.

I've got some spironolactone and nizoral to lower the effect on my hair while I try and find the answer to this....

 

[decro435]

Look , Finasteride lowers DHT. The male sex hormone. You are suffering weak erections. Hmmm coincidence?

I'm 19 , I've been using finasteride and I have weak erections and a host of other side effects. You'll get the guys here telling you it's in your head and to continue finasteride until it wears off. Then you'll get the guys over at propeciahelp.com to tell you to get off it immediately or you'll be stuck with a floppy sausage and tits.

The guys at propeciahelp.com think the guys here are crazy for taking this "poison" and in fact ,hate any hair related issue arising in their forum. The guys here hate people who complain of "brain fog" etc because they themselves have never dealt with it and can't understand how it could occur. The fact is everyone reacts differently. Nobody on either forum seems to understand this. You are going to have to experiment yourself. Personally , I'm stuck between both taking it and staying away from it. It's a tough decision because I want my hair so bad. What guy doesn't want his penis though?

Also , just to warn you spironolactone does have side effects for certain people. This includes chest pains and trouble breathing. I only noticed this when lying in bed. I thought it was in my head an ignored it. Stumbled across the same symptoms on propeciahelp.com. Weirdddddd... Just watch out because chest pains are never good.



Peruvian Pineapple Penis.

 

[Fundi]

Yeh well I think I will give it longer before coming to a decision...a month or so. - I'm not sure I'd describe it as a 'weak erection'...in that weak to me would mean softer and floppy, which it isn't.

Of course my penis is more important.

btw, I've never had any chest pains or anything from spironolactone, even if I apply it 3 times a day.

 

[Bryan]

Some guys occasionally claim that they can see alleged "side effects" from finasteride very quickly, like within an hour or two (much like the poster "Whoop" talked about earlier in this thread). If that's the case for anybody reading this, then the obvious thing to do would be to try a placebo-controlled experiment on yourself. Take either the real drug or a placebo on several different occasions, and see if you can tell which is which. That's a good way to test if you really ARE having these so-called "side effects".

 

[barcafan]

after a few months of use. I started getting serious mental side effects.

 

[Jm0311]

after a few months of use. I started getting serious mental side effects.

lol..........how so?

 

[litcII]

Some guys occasionally claim that they can see alleged "side effects" from finasteride very quickly, like within an hour or two (much like the poster "Whoop" talked about earlier in this thread). If that's the case for anybody reading this, then the obvious thing to do would be to try a placebo-controlled experiment on yourself. Take either the real drug or a placebo on several different occasions, and see if you can tell which is which. That's a good way to test if you really ARE having these so-called "side effects".

Its not a placebo if you know which one is which though, so for this to work, you'd have to get someone to randomly give you one, but make sure he/she remembers which is the finasteride and which is the placebo

 

[Bryan]

Its not a placebo if you know which one is which though, so for this to work, you'd have to get someone to randomly give you one, but make sure he/she remembers which is the finasteride and which is the placebo

That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about. I've talked about this method so many times on hairloss sites, I didn't think I had to spell-out all the details of how you set up the experiment.

But yes, you get a friend to determine which are the placebos and which are the active drugs, and record that information in a safe place that you can't see. After the test is complete, the two of you "break the code" and see how well you were able to judge whether each treatment was a placebo, or the active drug.

 

[ghg]

Some guys occasionally claim that they can see alleged "side effects" from finasteride very quickly, like within an hour or two (much like the poster "Whoop" talked about earlier in this thread). If that's the case for anybody reading this, then the obvious thing to do would be to try a placebo-controlled experiment on yourself. Take either the real drug or a placebo on several different occasions, and see if you can tell which is which. That's a good way to test if you really ARE having these so-called "side effects".

I don't know about you other guys who have suffered of side-effects, but it f*****g pisses me right off when someone who hasn't gotten side-effects hints that I'm imagining mine. It's like saying "are you sure you're not imagining that you don't have legs" to a guy in a wheelchair.

 

[Bryan]

I don't know about you other guys who have suffered of side-effects, but it f****ing pisses me right off when someone who hasn't gotten side-effects hints that I'm imagining mine. It's like saying "are you sure you're not imagining that you don't have legs" to a guy in a wheelchair.

So does that mean that you're going to stay pissed-off and NOT bother to do the test on yourself? :smack:

I find it very amusing that some people are so insulted by the simple idea that they _may_ be having such a placebo reaction to a drug. You can bet your bottom-dollar that if I personally were having such a controversial reaction to finasteride, I would IMMEDIATELY put it to the test in the way I described previously. Having a placebo reaction (if that's what it actually turns out to be) isn't something to be ashamed of, it's just a normal part of the Human Experience. It happens in the best of families! :innocent:

A few years ago one of my sisters was visiting me, and we got to discussing the activated-charcoal water filter I had on my kitchen faucet. She told me how good it was, and how she could supposedly taste the difference in filtered and un-filtered water. I had serious doubts about that, so I decided to put her to the test! While she was out of the room, I lined up several glasses on the kitchen counter, half of them filled with filtered water, the other half with un-filtered water. I labeled each one "a", "b", "c", "d", etc. and wrote the contents on a hidden piece of paper, so we wouldn't get the glasses confused. Then I told her to tell me which glass had filtered water, and which didn't.

She carefully tasted the water in each one, going back and forth several times. She finally admitted that she couldn't do it! She _thought_ she had detected a clear difference before in the taste, but she was WRONG. It took a simple test to finally get her to believe that she had been having what was essentially a simple and natural placebo reaction to the water coming out of the filter.

 

[ghg]

I tested myself on finasteride for 1.5 years, and have been off of it for about 15 months. The side-effects still haven't vanished. Maybe they have eased off a bit, but it's really hard to say. Weak erections that are hard to maintain, no morning wood, liquid sperm in very small quantity, no nocturnal erections, dripping urine (everyone gets dripping urine after peeing but this is something else... like a spoonful sometimes). My prostate is clearly pretty fucked up. Pretty damn bad for placebo-effects...

 

[Mew]

I find it very amusing that some people are so insulted by the simple idea that they _may_ be having such a placebo reaction to a drug. You can bet your bottom-dollar that if I personally were having such a controversial reaction to finasteride, I would IMMEDIATELY put it to the test in the way I described previously.

Bryan,

Although I certainly admire your knowledge and contributions to the hairloss field, considering the fact you yourself have not taken -- and refuse to take -- Finasteride... you obviously have your reasons for avoiding internal 5AR inhibition.

Thus, if you have NOT taken the drug, you really do not have any real-life experience to base your opinion on when it comes to the potential side effects of inhibiting 5AR.

Might I suggest YOU try it and see what happens? Otherwise, not sure how you can sit there and downplay the effects of the drug, wether they be "placebo" or not.

It's almost insulting to those who have taken the medication to hear such things from someone who has not (and thus has no 1st-hand experience to backup their claims that "such and such couldn't happen").

No offence of course, but I'm sure you can understand where I and others are coming from.

 

[barcafan]

after a few months of use. I started getting serious mental side effects.

lol..........how so?

Depression, brainfog, low interest in sex. Also started growing titays. Definitely wasnt in my head though because i felt great in the first few months and a couple of weeks after i stopped.

 

[barcafan]

I don't know about you other guys who have suffered of side-effects, but it f****ing pisses me right off when someone who hasn't gotten side-effects hints that I'm imagining mine. It's like saying "are you sure you're not imagining that you don't have legs" to a guy in a wheelchair.

So does that mean that you're going to stay pissed-off and NOT bother to do the test on yourself? :smack:

I find it very amusing that some people are so insulted by the simple idea that they _may_ be having such a placebo reaction to a drug. You can bet your bottom-dollar that if I personally were having such a controversial reaction to finasteride, I would IMMEDIATELY put it to the test in the way I described previously. Having a placebo reaction (if that's what it actually turns out to be) isn't something to be ashamed of, it's just a normal part of the Human Experience. It happens in the best of families! :innocent:

A few years ago one of my sisters was visiting me, and we got to discussing the activated-charcoal water filter I had on my kitchen faucet. She told me how good it was, and how she could supposedly taste the difference in filtered and un-filtered water. I had serious doubts about that, so I decided to put her to the test! While she was out of the room, I lined up several glasses on the kitchen counter, half of them filled with filtered water, the other half with un-filtered water. I labeled each one "a", "b", "c", "d", etc. and wrote the contents on a hidden piece of paper, so we wouldn't get the glasses confused. Then I told her to tell me which glass had filtered water, and which didn't.

She carefully tasted the water in each one, going back and forth several times. She finally admitted that she couldn't do it! She _thought_ she had detected a clear difference before in the taste, but she was WRONG. It took a simple test to finally get her to believe that she had been having what was essentially a simple and natural placebo reaction to the water coming out of the filter.

Well i got side effects that i never even HEARD of or knew they existed until i went on the finasteride. the only sides i was really aware of were watery sperm and a lower libido or something. I got much more serious ones than that, and after looking around i realized it was indeed the finasteride.

I agree it can be placebo if all of that stuff is already in your head when you start taking the drug, but if you're going in ignorant and you come out wrecked, then there's something wrong.

 

[Quantum Cat]

Bryan's right, the placebo effect can be VERY powerful. It's been known to cure people of serious illnesses like cancer.

 

[Fundi]

I know this change is definite, and not in my head.

Still not sure if it's finasteride induced though or whether it was there prior to me starting.

-I can say though that the change is minor enough that, had I not read about finasteride side effects, I would never have noticed it. (But it still would have been there).