Matt's story: topical dutasteride

Matt expected his sexual symptoms to ease once he stopped topical dutasteride. Instead, he says, they got steadily worse over the next five months.

If your symptoms got worse after you stopped finasteride or dutasteride, his account may sound familiar.

His symptoms began while he was still using dutasteride.

Eight months of topical dutasteride

Matt is 40 and from Texas. He used topical dutasteride for about eight months, and says sexual symptoms began near the end of that time.

What Matt describes

• Severe genital numbness. He estimates that he has lost 85 to 90% of sensation.
• Erectile dysfunction.
• Muted orgasms, and wider changes in sexual function.
• Uncertainty, and fear about what the future may hold.

He ends with a simple message: he wishes he had never taken the medicine.

Moral Medicine says some people report persistent symptoms after stopping finasteride or dutasteride, and that these accounts are often discussed under the term Post-Finasteride Syndrome (PFS). It adds that the mechanisms are unclear, and that there is currently no reliable way to predict who may develop persistent symptoms. Moral Medicine notes that many people use these medicines without apparent long-term problems.

Thank you to Matt for telling this story. This video was published by Moral Medicine, who have also filmed more than ninety full-length interviews.

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