Chirag's story: the crash in July 2024

Reassured, then back on the drug

Chirag is 28. Before finasteride he was healthy, fit and socially active, and focused on his career and his future.

He says he researched the medicine first. He spoke to friends who had taken it without problems, and watched doctors online who dismissed or played down Post-Finasteride Syndrome. That reassurance, he says, is part of why he started.

He developed sexual symptoms, stopped, and improved. Months later, thinking the problem might have been the dose, he restarted at a much lower one. He stopped again after his libido dropped and his morning erections went.

For several months he believed he was recovering. Then, in July 2024, he describes a crash: a sudden and severe worsening of his health. He compares the onset to being “hit by a bus”, while outwardly still looking like a healthy young man.

What Chirag describes

• Severe erectile dysfunction, including a period of near-complete impotence.
• Changes to his genitals, and the loss of morning erections.
• Significant loss of muscle and of physical strength.
• Severe pelvic pain that at times made sitting difficult.
• Extreme insomnia, including about ten days when he says he barely slept.
• Cracking in his knees, shoulders, jaw and spine, dry skin and unexplained rashes.
• Periods of improvement, then relapses and new symptoms.

He says several doctors did not believe his symptoms were connected to finasteride, and that even doctors who knew about the condition could offer little beyond treating the symptoms.

He closes the interview by asking other patients to keep speaking publicly, and to keep pushing for research and for recognition.

Thank you to Chirag for telling this story. This interview was recorded by Moral Medicine, who have filmed more than ninety of these conversations.

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