JohnnyDrama
New Member
- Reaction score
- 0
I've read quite a bit of the posts on this forum and found them to be very helpful. I usually don't post anything on forums, but I think my personal experience with hair loss treatments was a huge eye opener and it's my hope that it can possibly prevent others from going through what I did. Obviously this is only my personal experience, but if I can help others feeling the same way then it'll be worth it. (skip to the third paragraph if you don't wan't to read this whole book...)
First off, I started losing my hair early on in high school...I took it pretty hard, and I started using Rogaine and Propecia around age 16-17. I don't recall exactly how long I took either, but when I was very consistent with the treatments I did see pretty noticeable results. Nevertheless, I would always fall off at some point and stop taking one of the treatments as often as I should, eventually not taking it at at all and my hair loss would continue as rapidly as it started. I never took propecia for more than a year, so I doubt I ever got the full results. At the time my family could barely afford it and my doctor didn't stress how important it is to use it long term. Rogaine, as most of you know, is an absolute pain. It makes your hair look ridiculous, it smells, and it's so hard to have a social life and use it as required. So I don't think I used it much longer than 6 months at any given time. Somewhere along the road I sorta just accepted losing my hair, and I let it be. I joined the Marines right out of high school, and half the guys I served with had their heads shaved...so I fit right in. I never liked the idea of taking a pill (propecia) everyday...so I was happy to be off it despite the fact that I was still losing my hair. Later on during a deployment I started taking propecia again, but I bought it from a Canadian Pharmacy (stupidest thing ever), so there is no way to be sure I was getting actual propecia or not. Either way I only took it for 9 months at the most, and then I got tired of taking a pill again. Anyways, mid-way through my enlistment I started shaving my head completely with a razor... was sick of clinging on to scraps and spending way too much time trying to make my thinning hair look as if it wasn't. I accepted it and moved on...until a few years later.
Last year I decided (for what reason I can't recall) that I wanted to start taking propecia again. I have been shaving my head and off all treatments for years, and it's really had no effect on me or my social life whatsoever. But I still have stubble on my head so I decided I wanted to save what little hair I have...I kinda' have the Jason Statham baldness going on. Not thin enough to to be completely bald...but not thick enough to grow out without looking ridiculous. So anyways, this time around I ordered Finpecia (generic propecia 1mg) from inhouse pharmacy. I heard good things about it on this site, so I figured I'd go for it. I still didn't feel good about taking a pill everyday again, especially from an online pharmacy...but we all want to save a buck...so that's what I did. It didn't take long after I started taking it for everything in my life to start falling apart. Basically a month. I stopped going out, I started sleeping all day long, I had no interest in women, I couldn't get myself to go to the gym for the life of me, I never ate, I lost 20lbs (mind you I had just gotten out of the Marines, I didn't have any weight to lose), I would cry for no reason at all, simply put...I was COMPLETELY DEPRESSED. I had just gone through a pretty bad breakup, so it never really dawned on me that it could have been the finpecia that was making me feel this way. Anyways, about four months into this misery I curiously googled "propecia and depression", low and behold I found many stories all too similar to mine, even some on this site. I had NEVER heard of propecia causing depression before that day, I googled it out of pure curiosity. Even one person stated that they never had dreams while on propecia...and then I thought to myself, when is the last time I had a dream? I couldn't recall...not a single dream. It's something so subtle that you don't even notice that it's gone. So another month or so after I read this I finally hit rock bottom. I had been depressed and even suicidal for months, and I couldn't think of any good reason to stay on that stupid pill. So I stopped. A month off the pill, I'm feeling damn near great. Best I've felt in over 7 months since I got on the pill. I'm back in the gym (my favorite hobby), I'm training for a marathon, I don't feel the need to sleep 16 hours a day, I've gained 10lbs, I'm eating food (crazy right?) I'm hanging out with friends, I can focus better, I'm dating as many women as I possibly can, and just straight up enjoying life! Oh yeah, and now I have dreams again...almost every single night. It's just crazy what this pill can do to you. I feel like it makes you less of a man. You know I was fortunate enough to not really have many sexual side effects, but my libido was definitely lower. I never had morning wood and my sex drive was a lot lower, man am I glad I got it back though...that's all I'm gonna' say. You know having this been the third time I've been on some form of finasteride I was curious why I haven't felt this way before when I took it many years ago. But I asked my parents, and they said I was a completely different person when I took propecia back in high school...I just don't remember it that well. They said I was kinda' zonked out, slept all the time and didn't really want to do anything. Crazy huh? Anyways, all I can say is if any of you reading feel the way I described above only while being on finasteride, do the smart thing. The way I look at it...being bald is just a fact of life, it's not a sickness, it's not a disease, it's like being short or pale. You just have to ACCEPT it. As long as there are still bald celebrities or ones with funny looking solutions (Jeremy Piven...cough), there really isn't anything all that useful out there. Not for long term anyways. Truth be told I took my hair loss really hard when I was in high school, and now that I'm bald I date hotter women than I ever did with hair. Not that it's all about looks, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't important to me or the opposite sex. My life was hell when I was on Finpecia, harder than anything in my life, harder than my deployments to Iraq...I was completely miserable. I even started paying to go to a counselor, and eventually got put on antidepressants. All for the first time in my life mind you. Then one day I get the bright idea to stop taking Finpecia...and sure enough every day is better than the last. And it's not the placebo effect, I had been on the same antidepressants 5 months along with finpecia with no luck whatsoever, then a month after stopping finpecia I'm back to my normal self. Now I just need to get off the antidepressants...I hate pills. It's crazy to think that I just may have been the cause of my own depression, obviously there is no clinical way to prove it...but I can't see any other factors that may have caused it. I wasted hundreds of dollars on that pill only to make myself depressed, it's a scary thought.
I think this post is long enough, but I hope I got my point across. I hope if anyone feels the same way I did that they read this and do the right thing. I wish I would have read this post by someone else when my depression started, because now I'll never get that 6 months of my life back. For those of you that propecia works for...I'm glad it does, I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy...except maybe Osama Bin Laden...maybe.
Accept what you can't change, and move on. That's what I'm doing and it feels great.
First off, I started losing my hair early on in high school...I took it pretty hard, and I started using Rogaine and Propecia around age 16-17. I don't recall exactly how long I took either, but when I was very consistent with the treatments I did see pretty noticeable results. Nevertheless, I would always fall off at some point and stop taking one of the treatments as often as I should, eventually not taking it at at all and my hair loss would continue as rapidly as it started. I never took propecia for more than a year, so I doubt I ever got the full results. At the time my family could barely afford it and my doctor didn't stress how important it is to use it long term. Rogaine, as most of you know, is an absolute pain. It makes your hair look ridiculous, it smells, and it's so hard to have a social life and use it as required. So I don't think I used it much longer than 6 months at any given time. Somewhere along the road I sorta just accepted losing my hair, and I let it be. I joined the Marines right out of high school, and half the guys I served with had their heads shaved...so I fit right in. I never liked the idea of taking a pill (propecia) everyday...so I was happy to be off it despite the fact that I was still losing my hair. Later on during a deployment I started taking propecia again, but I bought it from a Canadian Pharmacy (stupidest thing ever), so there is no way to be sure I was getting actual propecia or not. Either way I only took it for 9 months at the most, and then I got tired of taking a pill again. Anyways, mid-way through my enlistment I started shaving my head completely with a razor... was sick of clinging on to scraps and spending way too much time trying to make my thinning hair look as if it wasn't. I accepted it and moved on...until a few years later.
Last year I decided (for what reason I can't recall) that I wanted to start taking propecia again. I have been shaving my head and off all treatments for years, and it's really had no effect on me or my social life whatsoever. But I still have stubble on my head so I decided I wanted to save what little hair I have...I kinda' have the Jason Statham baldness going on. Not thin enough to to be completely bald...but not thick enough to grow out without looking ridiculous. So anyways, this time around I ordered Finpecia (generic propecia 1mg) from inhouse pharmacy. I heard good things about it on this site, so I figured I'd go for it. I still didn't feel good about taking a pill everyday again, especially from an online pharmacy...but we all want to save a buck...so that's what I did. It didn't take long after I started taking it for everything in my life to start falling apart. Basically a month. I stopped going out, I started sleeping all day long, I had no interest in women, I couldn't get myself to go to the gym for the life of me, I never ate, I lost 20lbs (mind you I had just gotten out of the Marines, I didn't have any weight to lose), I would cry for no reason at all, simply put...I was COMPLETELY DEPRESSED. I had just gone through a pretty bad breakup, so it never really dawned on me that it could have been the finpecia that was making me feel this way. Anyways, about four months into this misery I curiously googled "propecia and depression", low and behold I found many stories all too similar to mine, even some on this site. I had NEVER heard of propecia causing depression before that day, I googled it out of pure curiosity. Even one person stated that they never had dreams while on propecia...and then I thought to myself, when is the last time I had a dream? I couldn't recall...not a single dream. It's something so subtle that you don't even notice that it's gone. So another month or so after I read this I finally hit rock bottom. I had been depressed and even suicidal for months, and I couldn't think of any good reason to stay on that stupid pill. So I stopped. A month off the pill, I'm feeling damn near great. Best I've felt in over 7 months since I got on the pill. I'm back in the gym (my favorite hobby), I'm training for a marathon, I don't feel the need to sleep 16 hours a day, I've gained 10lbs, I'm eating food (crazy right?) I'm hanging out with friends, I can focus better, I'm dating as many women as I possibly can, and just straight up enjoying life! Oh yeah, and now I have dreams again...almost every single night. It's just crazy what this pill can do to you. I feel like it makes you less of a man. You know I was fortunate enough to not really have many sexual side effects, but my libido was definitely lower. I never had morning wood and my sex drive was a lot lower, man am I glad I got it back though...that's all I'm gonna' say. You know having this been the third time I've been on some form of finasteride I was curious why I haven't felt this way before when I took it many years ago. But I asked my parents, and they said I was a completely different person when I took propecia back in high school...I just don't remember it that well. They said I was kinda' zonked out, slept all the time and didn't really want to do anything. Crazy huh? Anyways, all I can say is if any of you reading feel the way I described above only while being on finasteride, do the smart thing. The way I look at it...being bald is just a fact of life, it's not a sickness, it's not a disease, it's like being short or pale. You just have to ACCEPT it. As long as there are still bald celebrities or ones with funny looking solutions (Jeremy Piven...cough), there really isn't anything all that useful out there. Not for long term anyways. Truth be told I took my hair loss really hard when I was in high school, and now that I'm bald I date hotter women than I ever did with hair. Not that it's all about looks, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't important to me or the opposite sex. My life was hell when I was on Finpecia, harder than anything in my life, harder than my deployments to Iraq...I was completely miserable. I even started paying to go to a counselor, and eventually got put on antidepressants. All for the first time in my life mind you. Then one day I get the bright idea to stop taking Finpecia...and sure enough every day is better than the last. And it's not the placebo effect, I had been on the same antidepressants 5 months along with finpecia with no luck whatsoever, then a month after stopping finpecia I'm back to my normal self. Now I just need to get off the antidepressants...I hate pills. It's crazy to think that I just may have been the cause of my own depression, obviously there is no clinical way to prove it...but I can't see any other factors that may have caused it. I wasted hundreds of dollars on that pill only to make myself depressed, it's a scary thought.
I think this post is long enough, but I hope I got my point across. I hope if anyone feels the same way I did that they read this and do the right thing. I wish I would have read this post by someone else when my depression started, because now I'll never get that 6 months of my life back. For those of you that propecia works for...I'm glad it does, I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy...except maybe Osama Bin Laden...maybe.
Accept what you can't change, and move on. That's what I'm doing and it feels great.
