What does it feel like to be on finasteride?

[AfroSamurai]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post, but...

I'll be 25 soon. I still have alot of hair on my head, but I feel it's definitely getting thinner. I'm thinking about getting on finasteride, but how is it really? Are the sides as bad as they say??

 

[Boomer01]

People react differently. The vast majority do not feel any difference, while a small portion feel sides like ball ache. I was very worried and tried many alternatives before making the plunge. I've been on it for 3 months now, feel no different, and feel stupid for not getting on finasteride sooner.

 

[Rawtashk]

You have a 98% chance of not having side effects.

Personally I had a bit of ball ache when I started at .5mg, then again when I upped it to 1.25mg. The 1.25mg might also have made me a bit more lethargic, but that could also be that I'm getting older, etc. Even if it is the cause, it's not that bad and it's worth it to have kept as much hair as I have

 

[Wuffer]

Just to clarify what Rawtashk said, you have roughly a 2% chance of experiencing one of three seuxal side effects: loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, and changes in ejaculate.

Incidence rates for transient side effects such as testicular ache are not clearly understood. However, it is very commonly, almost universally reported on this forum. I experienced myself, even though I did not have any other lasting sexual problems. You may experience this a few weeks after starting. It always goes away after a few days, so it's really nothing to worry about.

Personally, I experienced an increased sex drive a few weeks after starting. Following this, I experienced slightly lowered libido for a short period of time. After about a month, I returned to normal and haven't had any problems for over a year.

I think a pretty common side effect is smacking yourself in the forehead for not having started on the stuff sooner

 

[Erick.]

Feels great... I feel like I'm in control of my hair loss. The only side effect I've noticed is watery ejaculate which can be attributed to the drug's effects on my normal sized prostate gland.

25 is a good age to start treatment. Remember to give it at least 6 months to work before judging its effect on your hair, and don't worry if you experience an initial shed of telogen hairs - that means it's working.

 

[blunt]

Side effects of finasteride include impotence (1.1% to 18.5%), abnormal ejaculation (7.2%), decreased ejaculatory volume (0.9% to 2.8%), abnormal sexual function (2.5%), gynecomastia (2.2%), erectile dysfunction (1.3%), ejaculation disorder (1.2%) and testicular pain. According to the product package insert, resolution occurred in men who discontinued therapy with finasteride due to these side effects and in most men who continued therapy. The PPI also states that patients have reported persisting erectile dysfunction despite discontinuing the drug. In December 2010, Merck added depression as a side effect of finasteride

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finasteride

People like Wuffer make me sick. Take a look at the very first stat, telling people you have a 2% chance of a side effect when the information is clearly posted in tons of places.

600+ posts, spends day after day trolling these forums and he can't even get his facts straight.

Afro, for me personally I lasted on finasteride for two days. It knocked my sex drive out totally, it felt as though my penis wasn't even there anymore. The best way I could describe it would be numb. I suggest you look into the long term effects of the drug, I too am 25 years old. For some men who start taking the drug later in life the effects are less noticeable.

The more I looked into long term finasteride use the easier it was to choose my health over my appearance.

 

[Bob Chylan]

Side effects of finasteride include impotence (1.1% to 18.5%), abnormal ejaculation (7.2%), decreased ejaculatory volume (0.9% to 2.8%), abnormal sexual function (2.5%), gynecomastia (2.2%), erectile dysfunction (1.3%), ejaculation disorder (1.2%) and testicular pain. According to the product package insert, resolution occurred in men who discontinued therapy with finasteride due to these side effects and in most men who continued therapy. The PPI also states that patients have reported persisting erectile dysfunction despite discontinuing the drug. In December 2010, Merck added depression as a side effect of finasteride

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finasteride

People like Wuffer make me sick. Take a look at the very first stat, telling people you have a 2% chance of a side effect when the information is clearly posted in tons of places.

600+ posts, spends day after day trolling these forums and he can't even get his facts straight.

Afro, for me personally I lasted on finasteride for two days. It knocked my sex drive out totally, it felt as though my penis wasn't even there anymore. The best way I could describe it would be numb. I suggest you look into the long term effects of the drug, I too am 25 years old. For some men who start taking the drug later in life the effects are less noticeable.

The more I looked into long term finasteride use the easier it was to choose my health over my appearance.

do you have a reliable source for these numbers because wiki is far from that. Wuffer gave the number that merck gave after years of clinical studies. just saying you have a 1.1-18% chance of being impotent doesnt even make sense..which one is it?

the point is there are way more people out there that are to not get side effects. it doesnt ruin everyones lives or erections for that matter. maybe you have other problems causing ur boner issues

 

[blunt]

Side effects of finasteride include impotence (1.1% to 18.5%), abnormal ejaculation (7.2%), decreased ejaculatory volume (0.9% to 2.8%), abnormal sexual function (2.5%), gynecomastia (2.2%), erectile dysfunction (1.3%), ejaculation disorder (1.2%) and testicular pain. According to the product package insert, resolution occurred in men who discontinued therapy with finasteride due to these side effects and in most men who continued therapy. The PPI also states that patients have reported persisting erectile dysfunction despite discontinuing the drug. In December 2010, Merck added depression as a side effect of finasteride

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finasteride

People like Wuffer make me sick. Take a look at the very first stat, telling people you have a 2% chance of a side effect when the information is clearly posted in tons of places.

600+ posts, spends day after day trolling these forums and he can't even get his facts straight.

Afro, for me personally I lasted on finasteride for two days. It knocked my sex drive out totally, it felt as though my penis wasn't even there anymore. The best way I could describe it would be numb. I suggest you look into the long term effects of the drug, I too am 25 years old. For some men who start taking the drug later in life the effects are less noticeable.

The more I looked into long term finasteride use the easier it was to choose my health over my appearance.

do you have a reliable source for these numbers because wiki is far from that. Wuffer gave the number that merck gave after years of clinical studies. just saying you have a 1.1-18% chance of being impotent doesnt even make sense..which one is it?

the point is there are way more people out there that are to not get side effects. it doesnt ruin everyones lives or erections for that matter. maybe you have other problems causing ur boner issues

When I was given my drug info print out from the pharmacy what is posted on wiki was the same thing. It came with the medication it self. So once again if people like you were to do a little research you would find out what the truth is.

So you are trying to say a healthy 25 year old male who has never had any sort of problem medically or physically just suddenly developed erectile problems out of the blue? Get a clue, more and more studies are coming out proving this drug to be extremely dangerous.

Any time you experience a side effect of a drug, ball ache, ED, etc that is your body telling you something is wrong you should stop taking the medication. Not wait for your body to adapt to it and hope it doesn't harm to long term.

The only thing this drug has done is help people who have zero self confidence and feel that life without hair wouldn't be wroth it. When you talk to a lot of the younger males who took this drug long term the negative sides are a lot more common then not.

 

[Bob Chylan]

why are you under the impression you are the only one that has researched things before? And you don't know anyone on this forum so how can you claim people that are balding and want to attempt to keep their hair have zero self confidence...personal experience? did that come from your lack of being able to achieve an erection or your hair loss?

tons of medications can cause ED...as well as many other factors that have nothing to do with drugs. Melatonin can cause ED and that is a natural supplement that your body creates naturally..so what is your point?

Every drug has the potential for side effects, but it does not mean that its going to happen to everyone. There are all kinds of drugs from anti depressants to blood pressure medicine that may have a negative effect in the long run as well as other things such as processed food. So why are you singling out finasteride

 

[cuebald]

Side effects of finasteride include impotence (1.1% to 18.5%), abnormal ejaculation (7.2%), decreased ejaculatory volume (0.9% to 2.8%), abnormal sexual function (2.5%), gynecomastia (2.2%), erectile dysfunction (1.3%), ejaculation disorder (1.2%) and testicular pain. According to the product package insert, resolution occurred in men who discontinued therapy with finasteride due to these side effects and in most men who continued therapy. The PPI also states that patients have reported persisting erectile dysfunction despite discontinuing the drug. In December 2010, Merck added depression as a side effect of finasteride

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finasteride

People like Wuffer make me sick. Take a look at the very first stat, telling people you have a 2% chance of a side effect when the information is clearly posted in tons of places.

600+ posts, spends day after day trolling these forums and he can't even get his facts straight.

Afro, for me personally I lasted on finasteride for two days. It knocked my sex drive out totally, it felt as though my penis wasn't even there anymore. The best way I could describe it would be numb. I suggest you look into the long term effects of the drug, I too am 25 years old. For some men who start taking the drug later in life the effects are less noticeable.

The more I looked into long term finasteride use the easier it was to choose my health over my appearance.

:shakehead: :shakehead: :shakehead: :shakehead:

 

[blunt]

why are you under the impression you are the only one that has researched things before? And you don't know anyone on this forum so how can you claim people that are balding and want to attempt to keep their hair have zero self confidence...personal experience? did that come from your lack of being able to achieve an erection or your hair loss?

tons of medications can cause ED...as well as many other factors that have nothing to do with drugs. Melatonin can cause ED and that is a natural supplement that your body creates naturally..so what is your point?

Every drug has the potential for side effects, but it does not mean that its going to happen to everyone. There are all kinds of drugs from anti depressants to blood pressure medicine that may have a negative effect in the long run as well as other things such as processed food. So why are you singling out finasteride

You have to be one of the most unintelligent people I have ever come across in my life.

To your first point, clearly I must be one of the minority when the members of this board throw out false information left and right. You are correct I don't waste my life trolling hair loss forums, here is the kicker though. With social media I am in contact with 5400 people directly and millions indirectly, so when I reach out I have a much larger base of people who I know and can trust then a bunch of forum lurkers.

On to the next point, I in fact still have a full head of hair. I noticed a slight thinning from my temple, which honestly is not even noticeable by simply looking at me. I figured hey why take a chance, getting out in front and being proactive about it would be a good idea.

I like EVERYONE who decides to take finasteride did it for pure cosmetic reasons. At this point in life having finished university, I have obtained my own home, car, and have a very good job. I have a great girl friend, I am very active in spots and life in general. Confidence is the last thing I would ever have a problem with, sure I like having hair but even if I woke up tomorrow and it was all gone it wouldn't bug me. Hair is not the reason I am where I am today, my personality and hard work are.

Here is my favorite flaw to your above comment. Both waking up and falling asleep with an erection have NOTHING to do with confidence. Yet for the six week period I was soft in both instances. Never in my life has it happened pre finasteride or post recovery, and judging by the amount of threads on this board alone I am far from the minority. It was the drug that caused it 100% you can try and distract from it all you like but it doesn't change the facts.

No where did I say everyone suffers sides from finasteride, what I am saying is the majority even on this board down play sides they have. Fact is what you are doing to yourself with this medication will hurt you long term which I pointed out in my last post which you failed to acknowledge. More and more doctors are speaking out about the drug, more media outlets are covering the negative sides and warning people. If there really was only 2% of people having issues its not something you would see.

I for one am done posting on these boards, my story has been told in the other topic. Thankfully I was smart enough to stop unlike thousands of other who now face permanent damage.

 

[Wuffer]

So Blunt, you may or may not realize that Wikipedia is not a be-all end-all source for information. Many of the articles are managed by editors that do not have the time to check every source and read every study available to give a 100% accurate representation of the subject.

If you check the sources in the Finasteride article, you can see the data yourself. Most of the studies that resulted in unusually high side effect profiles were done on a very small number of men. Additionally, almost all studies that resulted in high side effects were done on men in their 60's who took the 5mg version of Finasteride (Proscar) for BPH. I’ve taken the time to look at many of these figures, but it seems you have not.

I don't understand what you find so distasteful about me relaying the findings in some of the largest and longest term studies done on 1mg Finasteride. In the FDA approval studies for Propecia, impotence, ED and changes in ejaculate were found to occur in about 2% of users. Do you want to argue that this is untrue? The data is all available. If you feel Merck somehow skewed the results of these studies, then that's an entirely different discussion.

In fact, I may actually be misrepresenting the drug a little bit. A very recent study done on over 3000 men for 3 years showed side effects occur in less than 1%:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21980923

And, again, in over 3000 men: "No specific safety problems associated with long-term use were observed".


Just as another example to try to illustrate things, let’s look at that 18.5% impotence figure. This figure came from a study where about 700 men took 5mg finasteride for BPH. What was overlooked however is the fact that out of another 700 men taking a placebo, 12.2% experiences impotence as well, so we are actually looking at a figure of about 6.3% when we subtract the placebo. Keep in mind again, this is still Proscar, and done on men with prostate problems. One final note, this study explicitly says: “The MTOPS Study was not specifically designed to make statistical comparisons between groups for reported adverse experiences.â€￾

It’s really easy to look at numbers on Wikipedia then draw an all-encompassing conclusion like you are doing. However, when you actually take the time to look at where the data came from, it paints a much more realistic picture.

So what exactly is it about me that makes you sick? Am I wrong in my interpretation that studies with the largest number of individuals and longest term yield the most powerful and relevant data? Is it simply because I’m not providing data that supports your negative view on the drug based on your personal experience?

Just to get things straight, you call us unintelligent trolls, tell us that we are wrong and all the studies done on the drug are complete inaccurate, then go on to use your PERSONAL experience with the drug as an data that supersedes everything else that currently exists? And you call us unintelligent?

 

[Wuffer]

Blunt, do you have a response to my post or anything further you would like to add?

I see you logged in yesterday but chose not to participate any further in this thread. I'm a bit intrigued by the fact that you came in here insulting me and others right off the bat, but then now you refuse to comment further now that I’ve added what I feel to be perfectly reasonable response to your accusations. If your intention was simply to troll, then let’s just leave it at that, but I was hoping we could discuss this further. I am interested in seeing a response, and in particular, hoping you would elaborate on why you feel my posts are so objectionable.

 

[Bob Chylan]

why are you under the impression you are the only one that has researched things before? And you don't know anyone on this forum so how can you claim people that are balding and want to attempt to keep their hair have zero self confidence...personal experience? did that come from your lack of being able to achieve an erection or your hair loss?

tons of medications can cause ED...as well as many other factors that have nothing to do with drugs. Melatonin can cause ED and that is a natural supplement that your body creates naturally..so what is your point?

Every drug has the potential for side effects, but it does not mean that its going to happen to everyone. There are all kinds of drugs from anti depressants to blood pressure medicine that may have a negative effect in the long run as well as other things such as processed food. So why are you singling out finasteride

You have to be one of the most unintelligent people I have ever come across in my life.

To your first point, clearly I must be one of the minority when the members of this board throw out false information left and right. You are correct I don't waste my life trolling hair loss forums, here is the kicker though. With social media I am in contact with 5400 people directly and millions indirectly, so when I reach out I have a much larger base of people who I know and can trust then a bunch of forum lurkers.

On to the next point, I in fact still have a full head of hair. I noticed a slight thinning from my temple, which honestly is not even noticeable by simply looking at me. I figured hey why take a chance, getting out in front and being proactive about it would be a good idea.

I like EVERYONE who decides to take finasteride did it for pure cosmetic reasons. At this point in life having finished university, I have obtained my own home, car, and have a very good job. I have a great girl friend, I am very active in spots and life in general. Confidence is the last thing I would ever have a problem with, sure I like having hair but even if I woke up tomorrow and it was all gone it wouldn't bug me. Hair is not the reason I am where I am today, my personality and hard work are.

Here is my favorite flaw to your above comment. Both waking up and falling asleep with an erection have NOTHING to do with confidence. Yet for the six week period I was soft in both instances. Never in my life has it happened pre finasteride or post recovery, and judging by the amount of threads on this board alone I am far from the minority. It was the drug that caused it 100% you can try and distract from it all you like but it doesn't change the facts.

No where did I say everyone suffers sides from finasteride, what I am saying is the majority even on this board down play sides they have. Fact is what you are doing to yourself with this medication will hurt you long term which I pointed out in my last post which you failed to acknowledge. More and more doctors are speaking out about the drug, more media outlets are covering the negative sides and warning people. If there really was only 2% of people having issues its not something you would see.

I for one am done posting on these boards, my story has been told in the other topic. Thankfully I was smart enough to stop unlike thousands of other who now face permanent damage.

I wont defend myself too much, because frankly i don't care. However I will ask who in their right mind would get on finasteride if they were not experiencing hairloss...youre in denial. And your attempt to prove to an internet community how "self confident" you are is weak...confident people do not feel the need to prove themselves to other people...especially an internet community

p.s. you dont have 5,400 facebook friends regardless of who you think you are... and unless you are kim kardashian or someone of that nature, please dont have the audacity to claim you are "indirectly" connected to millions. anyone with a computer and the internet can say that you ***

 

[Rawtashk]

Don't worry guys, Blunt is just another angry person who (sadly) happened to fall into the extreme minority of men who have adverse results to finasteride. No different than any other drug that's out there on the market. Hell, some people get horrible side effects from Aspirin or Penicillin.

For every 2 people that had bad sides, there are nearly 98 people that didn't have a problem, or just minor ones. These are facts that have been backed up by countless 3rd party studies.

Blunt, sorry bro. It sucks that you got the short end of the stick on this one, but it's no reason to campaign against finasteride. Did you know that there's a 1-in-77 chance that you'll die in a vehicle accident in your lifetime? My cousin died in a car wreck many years ago. My friend's girlfriend got run over and killed when she wiped out on her motorcycle.....but I'm not going around to all sorts of car forums telling people to stop driving.

Different situations, same principles.

 

[proscarred2]

I haven't read all these posts above thoroughly but just as a personal report I have experienced a nearly complete loss of libido. Good for you if you haven't. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. But, I really think the incidence rate is a lot higher than some are saying. There's reports on it everywhere, way more than the average drug, for sure.

I know this isn't helping to make any friends around here, but you just might feel different if it was happening to you. These problems aren't going away. Even after stopping for several months and it's pretty frightening.

 

[Rawtashk]

I understand why you would say "I feel like the incident rate is higher"...however, that is 100% conjecture.
I also am not sure why people on these forums would (and probably will) put more stock in someone saying "I feel like it's more than the studies say" than the actual studies themselves.

 

[Man in Space]

Being on finasteride and looking in the mirror and watching my hair grow back gives me morning wood on its own

 

[kc444]

18% is the percentage who experience it on Proscar. 2% of men experience ED on Propecia. My guess is that some of that difference is due to the dosage and some of it is because Proscar is only indicated for prostate issues which only affects older men, who are more susceptible to ED.

 

[Wuffer]

18% is the percentage who experience it on Proscar. 2% of men experience ED on Propecia. My guess is that some of that difference is due to the dosage and some of it is because Proscar is only indicated for prostate issues which only affects older men, who are more susceptible to ED.

Sorry but your numbers are off. There was a study that showed 18% of Proscar users experienced side effects, but the placebo group also showed 12%, so the number is actually closer to 6% when you subtract placebo. Proscar studies show side effect rates at around 4-6%, similar (but slightly higher) than Propecia. You are correct though, men with existing prostate problems and more advanced age are more likely to be susceptible to side effects. They may be more sensitive to the raise in estrogen levels than younger guys, but that's just conjecture.