Propecia and Peyronie's Disease

[Wuffer]

Just to start out with here, I don’t want anything to be misconstrued; I personally do believe finasteride CAN cause persistent symptoms, including Peyronie’s. I have not reached this conclusion on any substantial amount of data, but purely on anecdotal reports. This is a personal conclusion I have reached, and does not fit in with my objective, scientific-minded interpretation of the data. This might not make sense to you, but maybe it does.

You are correct; lower Testosterone levels could contribute to the development of Peyronie’s disease. However, Finasteride is not known to reduce Testosterone levels. Quite the opposite; it is known to raise T to some degree. People have claimed Finasteride lowered their T levels, but I have yet to see any data that supports this. I think you may be confused that people suffer from symptoms that mimic low T levels (hypogonadism) but their T levels are often well within normal ranges. Even for those outside normal ranges, there are rarely baseline results to actually compare them with. Additional factors such as lifestyle changes may also affect T levels quite significantly. It is possible finasteride could cause some sort of physiological resistance to T, but again, I’ve not seen anything that supports these types of theories. Anecdotal reports, including but not limited to those on Propeciahelp cannot be used as accurate data. There are simply too many variables involved, most notably, lack of baseline values. This highlights the importance of getting full hormonal tests done BEFORE taking finasteride.

I don’t understand why you mention Merck taking down the Propecia website. This is actually quite a standard practice for any company undergoing lawsuits; remove, review and revise the marketing material to ensure nothing can be used against them. The website is back up right now, and aside from the layout, nothing has changed save the changes in side effects to reflect their product insert. I don’t find this the least bit strange or unexpected. It certainly doesn’t indicate Merck is admitting guilt.

The examiner webpage you link to simply consists of conspiracy theory-esque speculation and anecdotal reports. John Peige clearly has a strong bias against Finasteride and Merck, as he has over a dozen articles against Finasteride. Again, anecdotal reports, even in a large quantity, do not imply any sort of causation.

Finasteride does not currently have a black box warning, where did you get this information from?

 

[Erick.]

"correlation does not imply causation" ??? something tells me I could show you a bunch of studies and you'd still not find the evidence adequate. I'm not going to labor the point ad nauseam with you because it's quite clear you are (1) someone who has not suffered from any side effects of finasteride and (2) you don't believe that there is a connection.

What I believe is irrelevant, as is what you believe.

If you were able to provide a double blind placebo controlled study that showed higher incidence of Peyronie's Disease for men using Finasteride then that would go a long way to supporting your claims, but such a study does not exist.

The fact that you started using Finasteride then developed Peyronie's Disease some time later means absolutely nothing. From what I can tell, the usual cause of the condition is physical injury to the penis.

 

[ghg]

Have this and it isn't fun. My penis was slightly curved before finasteride, but now it's curved A LOT, especially when erect. It bends down and left.

And no, no physical injury to penis.

 

[Prop]

for how long did u take propecia?

 

[ghg]

for how long did u take propecia?

I've been on for 2 periods, first 1.5 yrs and then like 4 months. I was too desperate to keep my hair so I just ignored all the sides.

 

[Prop]

i was stupid to believe blindly to my dermatologist, he never told me about possibility of persistent sides

however pfs studies are ongoing, soon we will see something

 

[james1980]

Ok. I'm quite new to this whole forum thing, but after taking Finasteride for 6 months I started to notice pain upon getting an erection - it almost felt like a bruising just located towards the head of my penis, and if I flexed my penis the pain would increase. It certainly wan't unbearable by any means, but very distracting, and it was almost a relief to ejaculate just so the pain would go away. I shortly after noticed a small lump on the inside of my penis and a hard, fibrous like clump in the middle of my penis. Sometimes it's hard to know what's 'normal' in there as I for one have never felt my penis for any signs of lumps as intently as I did during this period. It was after having sex a couple of times in one evening that I noticed that I could VISIBLY see a large lump on one side of my penis, at this point I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Peyronies.

I was pretty mortified, I had never had any kind of impact to my penis and although I knew that it could just pop up spontaneously I wracked my brain to see if there was anything I had done or was doing that could have caused it, or if there was anything I could stop doing to make the condition better. It is at this point that I googled 'Finasteride' and 'Peyronies' and this is one of the first forums I came to. I immediately stopped taking Finsasteride (I was taking 1/4 of a pill each day), and in my mind the link is too strong to deny - I definitely attribute my condition to taking Finasteride.

I partly want to post this because I have had some luck with treating my Peyronies so far - upon initially trawling through this and other forums I became quite depressed about the whole situation. I didn't read a lot of success stories, and I felt pretty doomed to a sub standard or non-existant sex life, recurring erectile difficulties, and a slow disfiguration to my penis. But I guess if people do have success they tend not to be as active on these forums. I just want to put something out there that if I read I would feel like there is hope. To keep it short, this has been my story so far:

After quitting Finasteride (I just STOPPED taking the pills, I didn't lower the dosage or anything)
After a week I noticed that my erection didn't feel as strong as usual, and then a few days later I was unable to get an erection. I also had NO sexual drive. Like I didn't even think about sex, I would try to make myself watch p**rn and I felt nothing. Which is very unusual for me...
I don't know whether this was all psychosomatic, whether all my readings caused this effect or whether my insecurities about my condition played a factor, but regardless this was my experience. I imagined a life with my partner without being able to have sex, and was obviously a little depressed and freaked out.
A week and a half or so after I first noticed my inability to get an erection my erections started to come back again. The relief of knowing that I didn't have permanent loss of erections was pretty awesome. I know a week and a half doesn't sound long, but I really didn't know whether it was permanent or not...!
At this stage there was still the same pain upon getting an erection, and sometimes even a dull ache when I wasn't erect.

The first thing my doctor recommended when he diagnosed me was Vitamin E pills. On further research I noticed that this has been successful with a topical Vitamin E cream. I also read about kegel excercises and that these have been successful as they stimulate blood to that area. So pretty much immediately after diagnosis I began taking a Natural Vitamin E supplement (500 IU) I started taking 2 a day, using a topical Viatmin E oil (910 IU per gram) and massaging it into my penis in the morning and evening focussing on the lump and fibrous tissue followed by kegel exercises (30) after applying and also regularly doing the kegel exercises throughout the day. I also drink a lot of water and go to the gym 3-4 times week, doing a mixture of cardio and weights.

Improvement definitely wasn't immediate, but after several weeks I definitely noticed that the pain during my erection reduced, and I could notice the lump and fibrous mass reduce in size.

Now, after about 15 weeks of this treatment I have no pain during my erection, and the fibrous mass feels like it has almost gone and the lump has significantly reduced in size. My penis unerect initially looked quite bulbous on one side when I first was diagnosed, and now looks normal. I never really noticed that it looked any different erect anyway... although didn't study it too intently...

Anyway, in summary, I do believe Finasteride is pretty evil, and being 34 I really shouldn't have to deal with erectile issues so young. Hair loss can effect your self confidence, but the possible side effects from the alternative really aren't worth risking. And it is possible to heal yourself! Don't focus on the negatives, use the forums to learn about new ways to treat yourself and don't obsess! Stay as healthy as you can, look after yourself and I'm sure you'll improvement!

 

[Oscar66]

@james1980
I just quit finasteride about 3 weeks ago because I had changes to my penis.
They started after about 6 months where there seemed to be a ring around my head, like a wire ring restricting, and there was loss of size.
I reduced to half pills and that seemed to help, but the size of my head was still smaller.

Then in maybe November I noticed quite quickly that an area on the left side right under the head had a "dent", like the tissue was just missing. Painful erections. Some bending to the left.

f***.

So It's mild, and there is curvature, and it's painful. But it's scary. This is scary in that you are DOING PHYSICAL damage to your dick.

So I'm off the finasteride and my hairs have miniaturized and it sucks.

So after two years of finasteride I'm still balding, but now I have a broke dick. Lovely.

I'll try some routines you suggested. POSSIBLY if things improve I might get back on half a pill.