Weaker erections since starting Propecia

Hi,

I’m 23 years old and taking Propecia/Finasterid to treat male pattern baldness for about 6 months and have encountered weaker and less erections than ever before. The other problem is that it’s harder for me to control ejaculation, i.e. it happens that I ejaculate quite early!

I still canget a hard on, but it’s not 100% hard sometimes.

Has anyone else under Finasterid encountered those problems? If yes, what did you do against them?

In the study made by MSD (the company behind Propecia) they recognized erection problems in a small percentage, and for most of those concerned, they disappeared as they continued the treatment.

What’s your view on those Propecia-related erection problems?

Will PE help me getting better erections under this circumstances? (I’ve only started it a few days ago)

I read L-Arginin helps, I tried it, and yes, it helps - thanks to it, I can have better erections. Nevertheless it’s not like before starting the drug.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Tyler

Tyler;

Apparently all users are not negatively affected. However, we get a significant number of men writing into the impotence board (many in their twenties) who develope ED as a result of Propecia use and a percentage of them are still having problems a year or more after they stop the drug.

My advice is to quit using it now, before you lose more function.

But more comments on the following issues would be appreciated:

1. Couldn’t it be that PE-typical exercices like jelqing, which are know to be overall beneficial to penis health in general and erection hardness in particular, compensate for the loss or erectile power?
I’m just starting PEing, so I can’t tell about improvements yet.

2. Might a reduction of the dose (I take 1,25mg a day, i.e. I break Proscar pills (5mg) in four) solve the problem, for instance lowering the dose to 0,5mg/d ?

I would be a bit embarrassed to stop Finasterid completly because, so far, I believe Finasterid has helped me to maintain my hair status, even though it hasn’t induced regrowth, but this result is still good enough to satisfy me because I still got a “full head of hair”.

I am not to sure about Propecia but I do know that Rogaine started out as a blood pressure medication and is therefore a vaso-dialator. This is a fancy term for relaxing your blood vessels to reduce the pressure inside. Check with your Doctor.

re: 1) The guys I’ve talked with about Propecia (finasterid) and ED say that for them it was progressive. First some erection failures, then more, then more. Some of these men ended up with hormonal imbalances and are still tinkering to get themselves back in balance.

It doesn’t make sense to me, you apparently being one of those who does get negative sexual fallout from Propecia, to try to keep ahead of the damage by doing PE to improve penile health.

re: 2) I’ve never used it and don’t know anything about dosage changes with it.

Maybe in your case a full head of hair is satisfaction enough that the sexual fallout is not important. Sounds a little like you are saying that in the last paragraph. Certainly that is your choice. If so, I’m afraid I don’t get it. If the object of a full head of hair is to attract sexual partners, what is the point if you are going to have trouble getting it up?

I’ve been on propecia for about 14 months now. No side effects to date. If anything it increased the volume of sperm when i ejaculate. I’ve started PE whilst on propecia and gained 0.675 in length over a period of 4 months. 0.1 in girth.

My story:

At age 19, I started to notice I was loosing my hair on the top sides (classic baldness pattern). I asked my dermatologist if there was something I could do and she put me on Propecia. I had a gf at the time and I noticed no difference. Me and this girl were together for about an other year after I started taking Propecia and I never noticed any changes in the erections/libido department. i was still horny as a donkey and hard as steel, I could get it up as often as I wanted and I had perfect control over my ejaculation (perfect meaning that I only came when I wanted no matter what she did to me). Then me and this girl broke up. In the next few months I had short terms relationships during which I never noticed any diminution in the erection department (other than those caused by anxiety).

After that, I’ve had no significant sexual encounters for two years. All that time I still was on Propecia. during those two years, I did notice that my libido seemed to have faded quite a bit but I told myself that it was because I have not had any girl in such a long time.

Than I met my actual gf. Everything was going all right, the girl was fun, very pretty…but I felt very little libido. More than that, my erections were not as powerful as before, I had no control at all on my ejaculation and my cock even shrunk from it’s past size. I told myself that it was because I had not been as consistent with my kegels routine during those two years of abstinence, so I started kegeling like crazy…with no results. And my situation got worst. I had no desire (I rarely wanted to have intercourse more than once or twice a week) and erections were getting weaker.

And one day it happened: I just couldn’t get it up. I had been with my gf for about 6 months at that time, and this episode of ED created a whole lot of problems in my couple. but at that time, I told myself it was only because I was tired, I have not been exercising enough, etc. And one month after, it happened again: I wanted to have sex with all my heart, I wanted to get inside her so bad but my cock was just weak and totally flaccid. Once again big problems came in my relationship.

I immediately stopped taking Propecia and went to a doctor to undergo blood tests. The doctor was really an ass in this story and he wasn’t very cooperative nor comprehensive. I told me I stopped Propecia and he said that, since my blood samples were alright, my condition should improve.

now it has been 5-6 months since I stopped Propecia. Results:
-I’m richer, 50 $ a month is not cheap.
-I don’t lose more hair than when I was on Propecia (I don’t think the medication was working quite well on me)
-My libido is up (I like to have sex everyday, rarely more than once a day, but still it is an improvement)
-My dick is also up! My woodies have been improving ever since I stopped the medication. Erection is always sufficient to allow vaginal penetration and it seems to get harder with every passing week.
-i have a much better control over my ejaculation
-THE BEST NEWS : yesterday, I got my first FULL erection (95-100%) in about three years. I think this mostly because I stopped Propecia and also because I restarted my old kegels routine.

My advice to you Tyler: stop taking this crap. I no longer mind about loosing my hair (anyway I don’t lose more than most of the guys that are my age). Even if I go bald, that’s not going to keep me from getting the girls want. I think that overall wellbeing and self confidence are the only things that are important to get the girls. having erection difficulties sure impaired my self confidence more than any kind of baldness could.

I agree… If you experience ED with propecia, best you get off it.

It’s interesting that the propecia problems written about here are occurring with younger males in their twenties. Could the impotence/ erection issues referenced here be age-associated?

Avocet8, on the impotence site that you reference do you find that most of the negative propecia side- effects are experienced by younger male visitors?

I’ve personally used propecia successfully since 1998 without any of the above mentioned problems and since I was in my mid-forties. Of course, if I had to choose between keeping my hair or remaining potent, I’d choose the latter.

Peforeal

Hell no, I would never trade my sexual power for ANYTHING, including keeping my hair. Like you said, what are (marginally better) looks (due to more hair) worth if you don’t have a hard dick to screw the gals you attract thanks to them.

I was just pointing out in this last paragraph, that my aim with Propecia isn’t to restore any hair, but just to keep those I have, since I still have enough of them. In my early state of hair loss, male pattern baldness isn’t an issue when it comes to attracting women. In fact in these days I attract more girls than ever before (don’t understand me wrong on this: I don’t get more girls BECAUSE of my receeding temples, but for other reasons like I’ve grown more mature etc and my receeding temples are not “recognized” as a turn off to most girls because they think a male hairline is just made like this, they’ve always been used to those looks).

@peforeal:
I also do think that younger people show more often adverse side effects of anti-androgen treatments like Finasterid, Spironolactone and so on. I hang around a hair loss forum and the reports there confirm this observation.

On the other side, many users on that forum of Fin, if they encounter sexual problems in the beginning of the treatment, report a degression of those problems as they continued it. This is what MSD write in their report on their 5-yr-Propecia study. However, it must be objected that around 40% of men examined in the trial discontinued their participation, maybe for sexual reasons or other negative side effects?

I really don’t know what to do: Of course sex is more important to hair, but I’d like to be able to keep my hair too. I’ll start by going to my physician to check if blood values (especially testosterone) are still ok.

Tyler22,

The reduction in dosage would have been my next suggestion. I have always only taken 1 mg/day using prescription propecia.

Peforeal

Tyler22,
I’d definitely reduce the dose. I believe taking .25 mg gives just about the same benefit as 1mg or higher for hairloss based on all the stuff I read on this at the hairlosshelp.com forums.

To get the dose to this level, you can dissolve your 5mg finasteride in drinkable alcohol such as vodka. If you used a Minoxidil bottle (60ml) and it’s dropper (1ml) for dosing. Fill it with vodka, and add three 5mg finasteride pills. That gives about 60 .25mg doses. If you want to take .5mg, just take two droppers full.

According to people in those forums, this works fine but I haven’t tried it myself. I cut my pills into 1/6ths, and haven’t seen any noticable unwanted side effects.

Guys

When I started about about 5 months ago I noticed a drop off in my sex drive which has seemed to corrected itself almost back to 100%. I did seem at first to lose my night wood and I wasn’t thinking about sex 100% of the time which was a good thing as far as getting things done, I was like George in that Seinfeld episode when he stops having sex and turns into a genius. But it seems to all have come back, I may try taking less like MDC is doing though.

I’ll lower my dose to 1mg (Proscar pill cut in 5) or to ~0,83mg (Proscar cut in 6).

I’ll also start with L-Arginin as a supplement regime, at a dose of at least 3mg a day, better 3mg twice a day. I’ve used it sometimes and I believe to have experienced some positive effect from it. But I think that if I begin to take it continiously, it may build up more effect over time. I use Arginin in pure powder form (because it’s pure and cheap) and unfortunately it tastes like shit dissolved in apple juice.

Maca is also known to help with errections but I’ve never tried it. Do you have any opinions on those supplements to help get better wood?

@Dino:
My problem isn’t a drop off in my sex drive. In fact I’ve got so much lust that I could have (and really have sometimes) sex (or masturbation) one to three time a day. The problem is more about soft errections or my dick needing more stimulation to build up (hard) errections (than before). I also rarely experience morning wood (which doesn’t come from any stimulation at all). In conclusion, generally speaking, my wood rarely becomes hard from itself, i.e. without physicial stimulation (or a girl getting really close).

Tyler

Are you over training your dick maybe it’s not the Proscar