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  1. #1
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    Default The ups and downs with taking finasteride

    I’m a 26 y/o male taking finasteride 18 months. 0.625g grams proscar per day.
    The past 18 months have been at times challenging. There were a lot of ups and downs but now thankfully after all this time i can say that i'm thankful i took it. I wanted to write about it in case anyone else might relate to my experience and it might give some perspective.
    Some of the negatives I experienced were:
    • Increased shedding
    • Temporary testicular pain
    • Less temporary testicular pain
    • Psychological suffering caused by all of the above
    After all the horror stories you hear about finasteride it seems harder to imagine that someone would stick with a drug if it’s causing testicle pain but at this stage now I can say that I’m just about pain free and have maintained the hair that I’ve had since the start and have even grew a small bit back in (not very cosmetically noticeable).

    I noticed that I had been thinning out on the crown and receding at the temples a bit before I made the choice to start taking finasteride. I was way too obsessed with the thought of going bald and found it hard to think about anything else. I would almost groan as I looked at the amount of hairs that were ending up in the shower in the morning and would be dreading looking in the mirror or drying my hair in case I made more fall out. I was 24 at the time and wasn’t happy that my hair was falling out so early. I wanted it to last for longer because it was very important to my image.

    When I started taking finasteride I would count the amount of hairs that would fall out in the shower and when I was brushing my hair afterwards. These were estimations. At times it would fluctuate and sometimes go over 200 hairs per shower… which when you see that the average person can lose up to 100 hairs per day it was a concern. At I could have taken out an almost infinite amount if I continued brushing… they would just keep coming…every time I ran my hands through my hair there would easily be another 5… This began to cause me a lot of anxiety. One of the best outcomes about taking finasteride is that I don’t worry about this anymore and it has been such a weight off my shoulders.

    After 2 weeks I began to feel quite a sharp pain in both my testicles which of course was very worrying. It continued this way for about a week before subsiding a bit (but for the next 3 months it was on and off). If you look at most of the forms they seem to say STOP IMMEDIATELY if you feel these symptoms but my hair was too important to me and I continued. Without seeing a doctor. After this time the pain receded and only after Christmas did it come back all of a sudden. This time is was in one testicle and was much more intense. It would cause my testicle to swell up and become very painful to walk. I began to wear tighter underwear so that it could not move around so much and bang off my leg. This helped a bit. However the psychological pain that came along with this was much much greater. It was so bad that I stopped taking the drug and lo and behold after a few days the pain stopped. It seemed obvious to me at the time that this was cause and effect, this was the drug causing the problem. However looking back on it now I think it was purely controlled by my own anxiety and my impression that the aggressor drug was no longer acting on my system. This alone caused the symptoms to subside ( I think). It was also a devastating thought because I thought that, yep, this drug is not for me and I will lose my hair or use other less effective methods.
    However, I went back on the drug on a lower dose. (0.625g per day). I thought that I’d try and find a balance or see whether my system could tolerate a lower dose. I kept this regime for until now. The pain seemed to be back again but came in waves, good days and bad days. However more importantly I began to notice a strong correlation between stress and my pain. When I had tough days at work or had other things stressing me the pain would be worse. When I was relaxing the pain became better. One day I was resting on the sofa when suddenly inside my pelvic floor I noticed something which felt like a tight muscle spasiming and subsequently relaxing. A little bit later I noticed that the pain in my testicle had temporarily gone. It was a nice discovery and made me think about the connection between tight muscles and the pain that was in my testicles.
    One year later I can very much see that this is in fact the case. The pain in my testicles is caused by my anxious mind which is keeping tight some of the muscles in my pelvic floor. When I massage these muscles (mostly trigger point therapy) or practice relaxation techniques my pain subsides… it seems to be very random sometimes about how much the pain subsides and how effective the techniques are at times but overall it makes me feel less pain… but it took time for the overall pain situation to diminish. Now I can say I am mostly pain free (right now completely no pain), but that I do have the potential for the pain to come back if I’m stressed. It is a huge relief to know that the pain is caused by my own stress levels and not by the drug.

    The main conclusion I would get from my experience is that the human mind is extremely powerful in creating placebo effects which make you think that the drug might not be for you. (at times also I would have pains in my chest and think it was the start of growing breasts but I can assure you this has not happened). It’s very hard to determine at times whether something is real or placebo… I could only suggest that people don’t think the worst when something does go wrong on finasteride and know that the facts show that the drug really is quite safe and it could be placebo causing the bad effects.

    Now I’m in a very happy place regarding the almost disappearance of the symptoms and the hair which has become a bit thicker and definitely stopped receding.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Artista's Avatar
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    Default

    Hello Coffeeandtea!

    So, how are you doing today?
    Being that you are now 26 years old, are you able to be a bit more calm about anything
    in your life?

  3. #3
    Junior Member
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    Default

    Hello,

    Today, I'm extreemly happy to be looking back at the experience and seeing that it all worked out for the better... At times when i was going through bad days of pain I thought that i would glady pay a large amount of money to end the suffering and for everything to work out as expected.

    Anxiety in general is not such an easy thing to do away with but this is certainly a huge load off my mind and one less thing I find myself worried about.

    I definately did want to recount the experience though as I found when i searched online that the majority of posts were negative with regards to drugs such as finasteride (which no doubt added to my anxiety) and i think the positive stories are definately in the minority. I had an experience where I did get sides but spending enough time thinking about it I realised that it wasn't due to the drug but rather something else.

  4. #4
    Senior Member Artista's Avatar
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    Good to hear back from you Coffeeandtea! Cheers!

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