Balding Blog

I began taking fin on December 1, so right now, still very early in the game. I’ve had sexual intercourse with my significant other later that week and I had difficulty keeping an erection. We decided to take a break from intercourse and try other things in the interim. In those encounters, I’ve had weaker than normal erections. On the contrary, when masturbating, I’ve had minimal difficulty obtaining and keeping my erection. Libido itself isn’t down, but I’m definitely having tons of performance anxiety. Is this normal? I’ve perused a bunch of articles and studies about taking fin, and knew of the side effects, and deep down inside, I feel I will be fine, but any type of professional advice would be appreciated. You seem to be knowledgeable and experienced with patients prescribed this medicine. Is this all common response, and if so, any tips on how to overcome?

Thanks in advance, if just for reading this.

It you can keep a strong erection when you masturbate, then the problem may be interpersonal between you and your partner or a placebo effect.

 

Erectile dysfunction might well be the “canary in a coal mine” of men’s health, indicating that men need to “metaphorically evacuate” before they develop life-threatening disorders, said Arie Parnham, MD, from the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, United Kingdom.

More than half of all men 40 to 70 years of age have experienced erectile dysfunction — defined in EAU guidelines as “an inability to attain or maintain an erection sufficient for sexual performance” — according to the Massachusetts Male Aging Study.

Many of these men have multiple comorbidities, the most prevalent of which is coronary artery disease, Parnham explained during his presentation at the European Association of Urology 2020 Congress.

The link between erectile dysfunction and coronary artery disease was first made by Italian researchers in a 2003 study of 300 men with acute chest pain and angiographically documented coronary artery disease. The prevalence of erectile dysfunction in the study cohort was 49%, and in 70% of those men, the onset occurred in the 40 months preceding their diagnosis of coronary artery disease.

Then, a 44% increase in the risk for cardiovascular events, a 62% increase in the risk for myocardial infraction, and a 25% increase in the risk for all-cause mortality were seen in a 2013 systemic review of 14 studies — a pool of 92,757 men with erectile dysfunction — with a mean follow-up of 6.1 years.

“Younger people were at higher risk” the systemic review showed, said Parnham, which “highlights the importance of screening in this group.”

Source: Medscape, Erectile Dysfunctin: A Urologic ‘Canary in a Coal Mine’ by Ingrid Hein, July 21, 2020

The study was released by the Britich Medical Journal which reported that the association of finasteride and Erectile Dysfunction when used for Benigh Proetatic Hypertrophy stated: “Our findings should be reassuring that the risk of erectile dysfunction is not higher for men who are prescribed finasteride or dutasteride for BPH or finasteride 1 mg for alopecia. Clinicians should be aware that the longer a man has BPH, the higher his risk for developing erectile dysfunction,” Katrina Wilcox Hagberg of the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program at Boston University School of Public Health, told Reuters Health by email.

The same was suggested in men who used the drug for hair loss, which they said “Similarly, in the cohort of men with alopecia (n=12,346), the risk of ED was not increased for users of finasteride compared with unexposed men with alopecia (IRR, 1.03; OR, 0.95).”.

What this says is that these drugs do not cause Erectile dysfunction. I am not sure that I believe this as some of the patients who I ahve treated have reported real one-on-one relationships between ED, libido and the drug finasteride, and when they stopped it, the symptoms always went away.

Here is the article which you can read for yourself. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/869443?nlid=109620_1001&src=WNL_mdplsfeat_161004_mscpedit_urol&uac=90007MX&spon=15&impID=1209180&faf=1

I have gone back on finasteride. My first go was 1.25 ED and after three weeks I got erectile dysfunction and numb penis. This time, I switched to 0.25mg EOD and again got side effects after 22 days but they disappeared about 13 days later. Now, i am about 7 weeks in and I have gotten erectile dysfunction again and it has persisted for 3 days. Is it normal to get sides and have them go away, then come back again? Do you think I should keep taking finasteride and see if the side effects go away? I know once I stop the side effects go away. I really want stay in finasteride but im afraid to have an erection that is only 70% full.

Sounds like you are not a candidate for this drug. Taking it long term increases the risk of it becoming a permanent side effect

In the first journal of the International Society for Sexual Medicine, an article appeared titled, “The Incidence, Prevalence, and Natural History of Erectile Dysfunction“. The article (from Department of Urology, St. James University Hospital, Leeds, UK) covered some important points worth sharing with our readers:

1. “The varying methodologies, definitions, and populations make comparison difficult, but in high-quality studies there is a consistent association with age, and analytical studies suggest an association with cardiovascular risk factors, depression, and lower urinary tract symptoms. There is emerging evidence of a link with smoking and obesity.”

2. “Remission was commoner in younger men, suggesting that in these men psychological and lifestyle factors might be the cause of temporary self-limiting ED.”

3. “These studies also suggest that lifestyle modifications might be helpful in the prevention and treatment of ED.”

Read the full study abstract here.

I’ve been reading this website for a while now, trying to gauge how long this would take. I had one Kenalog injection on 12/21/16. In late April, I noticed my hair was falling out everywhere. I had many side effects including 90+ day menstrual cycle, GI problems, skin thinning, male hair growth, swelling all over despite weight loss, and many more. Obviously, no doctors believed this could be the product of one injection, but I know it was.

Well, it’s January 19, 2018 and my hair has finally slowed way down. I’ve lost about 60% of my previous extremely thick and beautiful hair. The texture is slowly returning back to normal. I do have some new growth, but I suspect it’ll take a long time to come back in any meaningful way. To those who are going through the shedding right now and reading this, IT WILL STOP. It just takes a long, long time.

Thanks. It’s good for people to hear stories like yours.

This article is a classic article by two authors who have become authorities in the field for many years since the paper was written. The article has a 1997 date, but its value and its insights are helpful today.

https://www.jidonline.org/article/S0022-202X(15)42988-4/pdf

My wife and I and our 6-year-old and 3-year-old are experiencing all the same symptoms. We have owned our house for 8 years and we lived in it for 5 years before we moved out of state for 2 years. We left it the home fully furnished with a neighbor checking in for us every month. We are back living in our house for about a year, and we all started losing our hair 1 week ago. We all noticed that we started losing hair within one week of each other! What is going on? I can’t believe that no one person who has had this problem has not come back to update us! Does this just mean there is no hope for answers and a positive outcome?

There is clearly something that is causing this common problem, such as Black Mold growing in the house or toxic chemicals in the ground or air.

Speak with your doctor and ask to have someone from the department of health to look into it for you. There has to be a cause for this.