How the hell do you guys have the balls to take Finasteride?

[pick]

I get it. You are losing hair. Don't have the best head shape. Look ugly as hell if you go
bald. What once made you reasonably attractive or at least not outright ugly is now not the same.

But how do you really make up your mind to start taking Propecia?

Do you just try not to think about side effects? Or are you decided that hair is better than a little loss of libido as long you can "manage" the act? Are you decided that even if your pole doesn't wake up ever, you'd rather walk with a head full of hair?

I am a serious dilemma. One part of me says "lose hair, be sad, you will somehow manage to live an unsatisfied life, suck it up, you don't have to be happy". Another part of me looks at the millions of people who take Fin and says "take it. life is all about risk. the chances of dysfunction are rare anyway. if it does happen, just become a monk, your life is not interesting anyway."

Did you ever face such a thought process?

My dermatologist said she has been prescribing Fin for nearly 10 years and no one has had issues. But I don't think anyone with issues would have gone back to her to tell her, lol.

[RU58841]

Are you decided that even if your pole doesn't wake up ever, you'd rather walk with a head full of hair?

Basically what I told myself, yeah. lol

My dermatologist said she has been prescribing Fin for nearly 10 years and no one has had issues.

Same with mine, except he said he only had one patient who had problems and that the guy was older so maybe susceptible anyway. Although I did go back and tell him I have issues with it, so I wonder if that changed the way he consults new patients on the medication at all. Doubt it!

[burtandernie]

The amount of cases where someone takes fin and has irreversible permanent sides is just minuscule I mean not anyone in the offical studies. Not really anyone from most derms i have met or asked about. I dont doubt it can and has happened before but its kind of like worrying what to spend your lottery winnings on before you won - silly
That being said sexual sides might be more common, but quitting they would go away so the choice is always yours what your willing to accept. Permanent sides I could understand, but pretty unlikely

[Soonbald]

TBH..I rather die than go bald..but I get what you mean...people Think its totally safe to pop a hormone altering pill and block 70% of the hormone "DHT" these people are mostly Young and have no CLUE what they are really dealing with.. I myself took fin 3 times and I wont try it again..my body just dont want it..the longest I can take it is 1 month everytime.. I did try RU58841 high dose 400-500mg drained my scalp with it and even dermarolled..didnt work whatsoever..I also tried minoxidill for 4.5 months hair was slightly thinner no regrowth or maintence or "shedding" whatsoever..I dropped it and never had a shed..nothing works on me..and the one that could have worked on me "FIN" gives me side effects. FIN just gives me "one" pretty rare side effect..but a very serious side effect..didnt have any sexuall sides whatsoever from either FIN or RU.. not even mentall!

[Fortunate Son]

I don't think it's really about having the balls. I just approached it as a logical decision. Every research about finasteride points to side effects being uncommon and completely reversible. All this talk about Post-Finasteride Syndrome is not very impressive if you look at the data. How many millions of men have been taking finasteride 5mg daily for prostate issues since 1992? I'm not saying I put all of my faith into Merck's clinical trial data, but 24 years of people taking finasteride safely versus a couple hundred/thousand people who recently started claiming finasteride gave them permanent erectile dysfunction? Something that can be caused by anything, or something vague like 'brain fog' which is too subjective to really measure, and this all coming from guys who are dealing with hair loss, which has its effects on mental health? I'll take my chances.

I felt like it was common sense that the only way to decide if propecia is worth it is to try and see what it does to me, since there's no other way to tell. I took it for three weeks. I lost morning wood and spontaneous erections. I didn't miss the awkward-situation boners, but I could only get boners by stimulating myself. I still masturbated daily, once I even managed three times in one day, but my orgasms were less intense. After three weeks of this I decided I just didn't want sex or masturbation at 70% enjoyment. Wasn't worth it. I stopped taking it and after 6 days I was all back to normal. Sex feels amazing, just like it always did. Just like how the drug is supposed to work according to the studies.

So there's my thought process. I tried it, had side effects, decided it's not worth it for me, quit, back to normal.

[pick]

I don't think it's really about having the balls. I just approached it as a logical decision. Every research about finasteride points to side effects being uncommon and completely reversible. All this talk about Post-Finasteride Syndrome is not very impressive if you look at the data. How many millions of men have been taking finasteride 5mg daily for prostate issues since 1992? I'm not saying I put all of my faith into Merck's clinical trial data, but 24 years of people taking finasteride safely versus a couple hundred/thousand people who recently started claiming finasteride gave them permanent erectile dysfunction? Something that can be caused by anything, or something vague like 'brain fog' which is too subjective to really measure, and this all coming from guys who are dealing with hair loss, which has its effects on mental health? I'll take my chances.

I felt like it was common sense that the only way to decide if propecia is worth it is to try and see what it does to me, since there's no other way to tell. I took it for three weeks. I lost morning wood and spontaneous erections. I didn't miss the awkward-situation boners, but I could only get boners by stimulating myself. I still masturbated daily, once I even managed three times in one day, but my orgasms were less intense. After three weeks of this I decided I just didn't want sex or masturbation at 70% enjoyment. Wasn't worth it. I stopped taking it and after 6 days I was all back to normal. Sex feels amazing, just like it always did. Just like how the drug is supposed to work according to the studies.

So there's my thought process. I tried it, had side effects, decided it's not worth it for me, quit, back to normal.

But if it was temporary why not continue it? do you have a very active sex life?

[Ohthehair]

I've been reading a lot really and it seems that the sides come more often when people don't take the correct dosage. I mean, the more you take the stronger the sides, right? Rather than take Propecia it seems people buy generic Fin and take a much higher dose than Propecia. I could be wrong, just observations i've made from forum posts, for what it's worth.

[pkipling]

For me, I simply looked at the facts and made an educated decision based on what I believe to be the truth about the drug. I think the vast majority of men who take finasteride have no side effects, and given the existence of the "placebo" effect with any drug, I also don't believe that those that do report side effects can confidently say that they are definitely caused by the drug. With that information, I decided to give it a shot and see what happened. If I experienced side effects, I would stop taking it. The risk of permanent sides are so incredibly small that it wasn't even something I really considered.

I will add that after taking the drug for about a year, I was going through personal stuff (life/stress/love/etc.) and felt like my equipment wasn't working like it should be. As is the case with almost anyone taking Finasteride, my immediate thought was "It MUST be the medication. There's no other possibility." So I stopped taking it for a bit. Then after really examining my life and realizing that there were so many other factors that could've been contributing to my malfunction below the belt, I worked through my emotional stress, dealt withs some stuff, and things started working again. Then I started taking Finasteride again with zero issues. I honestly believe that what I suspected might be the result of the Finasteride was honestly nothing than my body's normal reaction to external stressors - but finasteride was the easy scapegoat.

And that's where I think most people who are afraid of taking the drug tend to be mistaken. They forget that it is extremely likely that a large number of these "reported side effects" can't even be fully attributed to the drug at all. The truth of the matter is that if you tell a man "If you take this drug, your penis might stop working" just the mere thought of that alone is enough to scare your penis into not working. This isn't an opinion. It's fact. It doesn't mean that side effects aren't real - but you have to look at the big picture and see what makes the most sense logically. And for me, that analysis lead me to (continue) taking Finasteride.

However, at the end of the day, I would never tell someone what decision they should make regarding this drug. It's a personal decision that everyone has to make on their own. Listen to your gut, follow your instincts, don't make a decision based primarily out of fear, and make sure you see the big picture when it comes to all the conflicting information that's out there. Then make the decision that you feel is best for you and your situation. That's all any of us can really do.

I am a patient advocate for Dr. Parsa Mohebi in Los Angeles, CA. My views/opinions are my own and don't necessarily reflect the opinions of Dr. Mohebi and his staff.

[pkipling]

Accidental double post that I can't seem to delete.... Hmmm.

[Fortunate Son]

But if it was temporary why not continue it? do you have a very active sex life?

The side effects are temporary but you taking the drug isn't. If you take it you have to keep taking it for it to work, otherwise what's the point. And I'm just not prepared to spend my twenties with a reduced sex drive. Just minoxidil is fine for now. I'm not sure how to really explain how it feels to wake up flaccid, walk around all day flaccid, and not feeling that really intense urgency for sex. I could stimulate myself and everything still worked fine, but it just didn't feel the same. I didn't want that.

[Restore]

I don't think it's really about having the balls. I just approached it as a logical decision. Every research about finasteride points to side effects being uncommon and completely reversible. All this talk about Post-Finasteride Syndrome is not very impressive if you look at the data. How many millions of men have been taking finasteride 5mg daily for prostate issues since 1992? I'm not saying I put all of my faith into Merck's clinical trial data, but 24 years of people taking finasteride safely versus a couple hundred/thousand people who recently started claiming finasteride gave them permanent erectile dysfunction? Something that can be caused by anything, or something vague like 'brain fog' which is too subjective to really measure, and this all coming from guys who are dealing with hair loss, which has its effects on mental health? I'll take my chances.

I felt like it was common sense that the only way to decide if propecia is worth it is to try and see what it does to me, since there's no other way to tell. I took it for three weeks. I lost morning wood and spontaneous erections. I didn't miss the awkward-situation boners, but I could only get boners by stimulating myself. I still masturbated daily, once I even managed three times in one day, but my orgasms were less intense. After three weeks of this I decided I just didn't want sex or masturbation at 70% enjoyment. Wasn't worth it. I stopped taking it and after 6 days I was all back to normal. Sex feels amazing, just like it always did. Just like how the drug is supposed to work according to the studies.

So there's my thought process. I tried it, had side effects, decided it's not worth it for me, quit, back to normal.

It's interesting how people are so trusting of clinical data when just a few years ago Vioxx was proven safe by clinical data and ended up killing 38,000 people. Merck owes 4.85 billion now for it...