Testicular pain after quitting finasteride
- Thread starter pegasus2
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 948
First off, you should always taper. Never go cold turkey. Hormones take time to re-adjust. You go cold turkey you throw everything out of whack for awhile, and its going to take awhile for equilibrium to be reached again. You've been inhibiting a male hormone for awhile now, and you suddenly opened the floodgates again. There are a ton of feedback loops and inter-connected mechanisms in the hormone system that are going to be swinging like a pendulum now for awhile.
Testicle ache in situations like this is always the result of signals to the testicles to change what they're doing. Either increase or decrease production of testosterone, etc. In other words, its common, and expected, since you're messing with your hormones. I have experienced it when I have started Androgel, as my boys were being signaled by the pituitary to slow down production of testosterone.
This is very likely what's happening with you. Since you are no longer blocking the binding of testosterone with 5alpha reductase in the bloodstream, you have an excess of testosterone floating around, and your pituitary is signaling them to stop production. This will reverse as the blood levels of testosterone decrease, and they signal your testicles to begin production again.
Also - counting hairs is a really inaccurate way to gauge anything. You could lose 25 hairs in the shower one day, and 275 hairs while you're riding a roller coaster at a theme park. 3 months later you could lose 200 hairs in the shower and lose only 25 while sitting at your desk at work that whole day. That day you'll think your world is caving in, but you actually lost fewer hairs than roller coaster day.
Testicle ache in situations like this is always the result of signals to the testicles to change what they're doing. Either increase or decrease production of testosterone, etc. In other words, its common, and expected, since you're messing with your hormones. I have experienced it when I have started Androgel, as my boys were being signaled by the pituitary to slow down production of testosterone.
This is very likely what's happening with you. Since you are no longer blocking the binding of testosterone with 5alpha reductase in the bloodstream, you have an excess of testosterone floating around, and your pituitary is signaling them to stop production. This will reverse as the blood levels of testosterone decrease, and they signal your testicles to begin production again.
Also - counting hairs is a really inaccurate way to gauge anything. You could lose 25 hairs in the shower one day, and 275 hairs while you're riding a roller coaster at a theme park. 3 months later you could lose 200 hairs in the shower and lose only 25 while sitting at your desk at work that whole day. That day you'll think your world is caving in, but you actually lost fewer hairs than roller coaster day.
- Reaction score
- 4
I developed testicular pain after being on Finasteride for close to 7 years. I don't know why it suddenly began after so long but the doctors/urologist couldn't find anything wrong down there. My primary care doctor diagnosed me with chronic epididymitis but anti-inflammatories and antibiotics did nothing. My urologist said he sometimes sees it in guys in their 30's and he doesn't have an explanation for it, but that it would eventually go away. After about a 1.5-2 years, it finally did, with intermittent pain that would come and go. That was a miserable period for me. Now that I'm more informed, I think the culprit was likely the finasteride.
If you have health insurance, I would have them check the boys out to make sure nothing else is going on. If nothing is, then you'll just have to make the choice whether the pain is worth keeping your hair. I highly doubt you'll experience the same pain I did for so long.
If you have health insurance, I would have them check the boys out to make sure nothing else is going on. If nothing is, then you'll just have to make the choice whether the pain is worth keeping your hair. I highly doubt you'll experience the same pain I did for so long.