RECOMMENDED READING

 To Quit or Not to Quit
Vice editor wrestles with tossing finasteride aside after 13 years of persistent pain
May 1, 2018

Vice Digital Network, the youth-media powerhouse that boasts 135 million monthly visitors worldwide and is known for its extreme investigative reporting, last week published a PFS story.
In it, a 27-year-old PFS patient recalls quitting Propecia due to feeling “foggy and tired.”
 
“After a week, I experienced what’s known to post-finasteride syndrome sufferers as ‘the crash,’” Martin (not his real name) tells Vice.

"Imagine your worst hangover combined with complete loss of sexual function, depression, and suicidal ideation for every single second of your life," he adds.

The story also cites last year’s PFS Foundation-sponsored statistical analysis conducted at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, noting that “One study of 11,909 men on finasteride found 167 of them ( 1.4 percent ) developed persistent problems getting or maintaining an erection.”
 
Ditto the World Health Organization’s VigiBase database of adverse drug reaction reports, which “attributes finasteride in 55 cases [of suicide] internationally.”
Additionally, PFS Foundation CEO Dr. John Santmann is quoted as saying, “Of the more than 1,000 PFS patients who’ve contacted our foundation desperately seeking seeking support, 12 felt that suicide was the only escape from the horrors of this condition, and ultimately took their own lives.”

All of which, depressing as it may be, helps further boost PFS awareness on the heels of other major media reports around the world, from France 3 News to Die Zeit to Newsweek .
 
But Vice is unique in that it marks the first time ever the writer of such a report is himself afflicted by persistent finasteride side effects. 

That writer would be 31-year-old Julian Morgans, editor of Vice Australia, whose first-person feature is headlined I Need to Quit Hair Loss Drugs Before They Kill Me .
 
In it, he says, "I’ve been on finasteride for 13 years, which has seemingly made my eyes yellow and created a mystery pain in my groin. Several doctors and an array of tests have declared the pain ‘unknown,’ but it flares up 20 minutes after every dose and lasts a few hours, before fading until the next one. The doctors suspect it’s the finasteride.”
Thus, he continues, “I resolved to get off finasteride, so I started looking around for drugs that would stop DHT from binding with my hair, while hopefully, maybe, leaving the rest of me unaffected. This proved to be a fruitless search.”

We thank Julian for going public with his adverse reactions to finasteride. And we look forward to the day when every PFS patient on earth feels comfortable doing the same.

Meanwhile, we encourage you to connect with Julian via his Twitter page .
 
We also ask that all PFS patients who have not yet reported their symptoms to the FDA’s MedWatch program do so as directed here . Those living outside the US should also access the WHO’s Collaborating Centre for International Drug Monitoring list of pharmacovigilance agencies and report to their respective health agency.
 
Finally, if you or a loved one are suffering from PFS, and feeling depressed or unstable, please don’t hesitate to contact us as soon as possible via our Patient Support hotline: social@pfsfoundation.org . Any PFS patient or family member of a PFS patient who would like to connect with other PFS patients should download the PFS Patient Support form , complete it and email it back to PFS Patient Support hotline.
 
Thank you.
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