Hey all,
I have been reading this forum for a few months. I'm in my senior year of college and graduate in a matter of weeks. Anyways, my hairloss has gotten worse over the year, but especially during the past 6 months. I basically narrowed it down to 2 options of treatment that I thought would work for me. RU and finasteride. Given that RU is experimental, hard to get, etc. and finasteride is a lot safer, I went and got a prescription for finasteride. Unlike most, i actually got the 1mg pills.
I decided to start at .5 MG every other day (EOD). I took my first half pill on tuesday 4/19, then i took my second half pill on thursday 4/21. I began noticing sexual sides on friday, and by saturday they were worse. So, i chose not to take my half pill on saturday as scheduled and decided just to quit from that day forward.
the sexual side effects i began to notice on fri/sat (3 days after beginning finasteride) were:
Friday night (4/22) i had sex with my girlfriend of a few years. it scared my because there was a huge lack of sensation in my penis, and it was about 60-70% hard the whole time, at best. Orgasm wasn't as great either.
Sunday morning (4/24) had sex with her again, however it was the exact same case as friday night. after sex, i ended up getting home sunday around noon and masturbating. (same as sex, very low sensation and extremely difficult to maintain an erection. so in total i orgasmed twice on sunday.
Now, heres where the weird part comes in. Following that weekend where i had sex a few times and quit finasteride, i noticed a bunch of different sides.
the past 4-5 days since Sunday i have had these symptoms
So in total, its been exactly 7 days since i have taken my last finasteride pill. keep in mind i only took 2 .5mg doses of finasteride, so i took 1mg all together. Its been a week since my last finasteride pill, and i have NOT noticed ANY improvement. I think that me quitting thursday and then having orgasms and sex 3x over the next few days had led me to some type of "Crash". I believe this since i began to experience new and additional symptoms on sunday. which have lasted this entire week so far.
I have done tons of reading on this forum. and i realize that it takes 1-2 weeks for most people to recover from finasteride sides. But in other cases, people have recovered after a month or so. I am just scared and worried that I haven't seen any improvement in 1 week yet. This scares me because I've read that DHT levels return to normal in about a week. What about 5AR activity? how long does it take that to restore back to normal? I am worrisome because i took so little of finasteride... yet its been 1 week since my last pill and ive had no improvement.
Thanks in advance to anyone that replies to this! this is certainly a great community here on this forum. I would really appreciate some insight, advice, explanations, and perhaps stories of anyone else's experience.
*slight progress (maybe)* i had the ball ache while on finasteride, when i stopped, it was still there but got better. Now i dont think i have a ball ache anymore. Additionally, i had headaches since monday, and its thursday now and i think that those have subsided as well.
Thank you!
I have been reading this forum for a few months. I'm in my senior year of college and graduate in a matter of weeks. Anyways, my hairloss has gotten worse over the year, but especially during the past 6 months. I basically narrowed it down to 2 options of treatment that I thought would work for me. RU and finasteride. Given that RU is experimental, hard to get, etc. and finasteride is a lot safer, I went and got a prescription for finasteride. Unlike most, i actually got the 1mg pills.
I decided to start at .5 MG every other day (EOD). I took my first half pill on tuesday 4/19, then i took my second half pill on thursday 4/21. I began noticing sexual sides on friday, and by saturday they were worse. So, i chose not to take my half pill on saturday as scheduled and decided just to quit from that day forward.
the sexual side effects i began to notice on fri/sat (3 days after beginning finasteride) were:
- difficulty achieving and maintaining erections.
- Pretty significant loss of sensation and feeling in penis, numbness so to speak.
- *note* no effect on libido at this time. Actually, my first 2 days on finasteride i noticed an mild increase in libido
Friday night (4/22) i had sex with my girlfriend of a few years. it scared my because there was a huge lack of sensation in my penis, and it was about 60-70% hard the whole time, at best. Orgasm wasn't as great either.
Sunday morning (4/24) had sex with her again, however it was the exact same case as friday night. after sex, i ended up getting home sunday around noon and masturbating. (same as sex, very low sensation and extremely difficult to maintain an erection. so in total i orgasmed twice on sunday.
Now, heres where the weird part comes in. Following that weekend where i had sex a few times and quit finasteride, i noticed a bunch of different sides.
the past 4-5 days since Sunday i have had these symptoms
- difficulty achieving and maintaining erections.
- Pretty significant loss of sensation and feeling in penis, numbness.
- practically ZERO libido and interest in sex
- penile shrinkage, rubbery, etc.
- *multiple spider veins/varicole veins on my penis AND my testicles.* i put an asterisk here because i really would like to know what is causing these??? and are they harmful? and how to get them to go away. also what do these veins mean?
- testicles hanging very "loose" and hanging very low.
- brain fog, general lack of emotion and "zombie" like feelings. Feels like im super neutral overall.
- going to the gym and running USED to give me that good feeling (endorphin high) afterwards. However, i went to the gym a few times this week and feel kind of crappy after, it feels completely differnt. This is how i know something is wrong, perhaps hormonally?
- much more frequent urination. it seems like my bladder will get 1/4 full and then i will get the urge to empty it. then the process repeats itself
So in total, its been exactly 7 days since i have taken my last finasteride pill. keep in mind i only took 2 .5mg doses of finasteride, so i took 1mg all together. Its been a week since my last finasteride pill, and i have NOT noticed ANY improvement. I think that me quitting thursday and then having orgasms and sex 3x over the next few days had led me to some type of "Crash". I believe this since i began to experience new and additional symptoms on sunday. which have lasted this entire week so far.
I have done tons of reading on this forum. and i realize that it takes 1-2 weeks for most people to recover from finasteride sides. But in other cases, people have recovered after a month or so. I am just scared and worried that I haven't seen any improvement in 1 week yet. This scares me because I've read that DHT levels return to normal in about a week. What about 5AR activity? how long does it take that to restore back to normal? I am worrisome because i took so little of finasteride... yet its been 1 week since my last pill and ive had no improvement.
Thanks in advance to anyone that replies to this! this is certainly a great community here on this forum. I would really appreciate some insight, advice, explanations, and perhaps stories of anyone else's experience.
*slight progress (maybe)* i had the ball ache while on finasteride, when i stopped, it was still there but got better. Now i dont think i have a ball ache anymore. Additionally, i had headaches since monday, and its thursday now and i think that those have subsided as well.
Thank you!
