My experience with finasteride

[MinorSixth]

I started taking finasteride in june, at first proscar cut into 4 pieces every other day. I had no obvious sides except pain in the testicles which eventually went away. After a month if I recall correctly I started taking 1/8 proscar every day. In about two weeks I basically lost my sex drive completely. I stop taking finasteride for around 10 days. I recover fully and start taking finasteride again, this time 1/8 proscar every other day. Doing fine for months, around April I noticed lowered libido so I stopped taking finasteride for a week, then took some again. Then I stopped and maybe after a pause took some finasteride again, maybe not - in any case it was pretty much a cold turkey.

In a 10 days I recover - with testicular pain similar to when I first started finasteride. I notice my body odor getting stronger. I also get a dimple on my left temple. However after some days I notice my scrotum would sometimes go up, like before puberty. And sometimes it would go back down. It was like there was some kind of battle going on in my testicles. At some point I notice inability to get aroused - I panic when I read the stories about Post Finasteride Syndrome since it seemed something similar was happening to me. I was unable to sleep at that night. Next day however I have these sudden urges of horniness - clearly my libido isn't dead yet. I also had spontaneous erections - which I did NOT have before finasteride as an adult. It's almost as if I've returned to early puberty. My hair is also super dry, while it used to be very greasy before finasteride.

Now here is the interesting part, the mental effects: I've had very elevated mood for the past months. I feel extremely confident, optimistic, ambitious... I'm constantly coming up with grandiose visions and ideas. At first I attributed this to certain events in my life but before I used to feel frequent fatigue, brain fog, apathy, dullness of emotions and sensations, which were pretty much unrelated to external world. Now I've had mostly great mood, with some rare, sudden moments of despair that come out of nowhere and also go quickly away. This is of course ironic since this is exactly the opposite of what guys with post finasteride syndrome usually complain about. Last night I slept normally but now I'm awake at 4:34 without feeling sleepy in the slightest. This time the lack of sleepiness cannot be blamed on the panic reaction. I'm feeling very calm since I was most worried about the mental effects of post finasteride syndrome and that definately doesn't seem to be happening to me. While my hormones seem to be messed up I don't think I became eunuch either.

[ChrisM]

I started taking finasteride in june, at first proscar cut into 4 pieces every other day. I had no obvious sides except pain in the testicles which eventually went away. After a month if I recall correctly I started taking 1/8 proscar every day. In about two weeks I basically lost my sex drive completely. I stop taking finasteride for around 10 days. I recover fully and start taking finasteride again, this time 1/8 proscar every other day. Doing fine for months, around April I noticed lowered libido so I stopped taking finasteride for a week, then took some again. Then I stopped and maybe after a pause took some finasteride again, maybe not - in any case it was pretty much a cold turkey.

In a 10 days I recover - with testicular pain similar to when I first started finasteride. I notice my body odor getting stronger. I also get a dimple on my left temple. However after some days I notice my scrotum would sometimes go up, like before puberty. And sometimes it would go back down. It was like there was some kind of battle going on in my testicles. At some point I notice inability to get aroused - I panic when I read the stories about Post Finasteride Syndrome since it seemed something similar was happening to me. I was unable to sleep at that night. Next day however I have these sudden urges of horniness - clearly my libido isn't dead yet. I also had spontaneous erections - which I did NOT have before finasteride as an adult. It's almost as if I've returned to early puberty. My hair is also super dry, while it used to be very greasy before finasteride.

Now here is the interesting part, the mental effects: I've had very elevated mood for the past months. I feel extremely confident, optimistic, ambitious... I'm constantly coming up with grandiose visions and ideas. At first I attributed this to certain events in my life but before I used to feel frequent fatigue, brain fog, apathy, dullness of emotions and sensations, which were pretty much unrelated to external world. Now I've had mostly great mood, with some rare, sudden moments of despair that come out of nowhere and also go quickly away. This is of course ironic since this is exactly the opposite of what guys with post finasteride syndrome usually complain about. Last night I slept normally but now I'm awake at 4:34 without feeling sleepy in the slightest. This time the lack of sleepiness cannot be blamed on the panic reaction. I'm feeling very calm since I was most worried about the mental effects of post finasteride syndrome and that definately doesn't seem to be happening to me. While my hormones seem to be messed up I don't think I became eunuch either.

So if I understand you correctly you took Finasteride off and on and manifested these symptoms and then decided to go cold turkey off the drug and now your status is your mood is improved, your sleep mode was messed up but now has improved with clarity of thinking and concentration and your libido has returned along with erections both spontaneous and the aroused type. Well it seems from that you fall in the category of male that Finasteride is rather nasty and unpleasant for and you made the right call in discontinuing its use.

However going cold turkey from any drug you are taking on the regular is the WORST thing you can do for future reference.. it can worsen symptoms or cause an increase in side effects you should wean and ease yourself off of the drug taking less of it over time cutting the pill itself or taking less in a week gradually until you take none at all. That way the drug cycles its way out of your system cleanly and without any problems.

Because your system has become dependent on the drug over months and months of elapsed time,

[MinorSixth]

I clearly fall into the type of men who are very sensitive to the drug. But I have to disagree about the nastyness. The mental effects, if they truly are thanks to finasteride, were just too awesome. The stupid thing was going off cold turkey. I had heard about the importance of tapering off but I was impatient for the side effects to go away, and when they went away it just felt too counter-intuitive to take the drug at that point. I learned the importance of that advice the hard way.... I should have switched to once per week or something.

My libido isn't exactly back to normal,it goes away, comes back, goes away... We'll see what happens.

[bRodger]

Very good medicine with in 4 months of taking this drug my hair fall almost stopped completely. My hairs are now really thick, decent hair regrowth in crown area.