He Became Depressed and His Sex Drive Disappeared. What Was the Cause?

This write-up appeared in the November 2020 problem of Explore magazine as “Further than the Blues.” Subscribe for a lot more stories like these.


Reggie, a thirty-year-previous pharmaceutical salesman, appeared in my business office a single afternoon to comply with up on his cholesterol stages and other schedule bloodwork. Though the exams had been all typical, I recognized he appeared to be in a little bit of a funk, for absence of a a lot more scientific expression. Ordinarily an upbeat and favourable human being, he appeared to be down in the dumps. When I requested if just about anything was heading on at household or at work, he mentioned almost everything was good. Nevertheless, he couldn’t deny that he did not really feel like himself.

“It’s hard to explain,” he told me. “Everything is good, and I ought to really feel good, but I never. My marriage is good, my kids are executing very well in faculty, and I have dollars in the lender.” However, Reggie told me that occasionally he got baffled for no purpose and he felt weary all the time. As well as, his muscles and joints ached. “It all came on out of nowhere a several weeks back and I just cannot look to shake it,” he continued. “At very first, I believed I experienced the flu, but I never.”

I straight away believed he may perhaps have thyroid problems. The thyroid gland, positioned in the neck, generates a hormone acknowledged as thyroxine, which has a profound effect on a person’s in general metabolic amount. When the thyroid gland generates also tiny thyroxine — a problem acknowledged as hypothyroidism — people normally explain a identical set of indications. Assured that I experienced nailed the diagnosis, I ordered blood exams to examine his thyroid. A several times later on, the outcomes came back again, and I was stunned to see they had been completely typical. Scratching my head, I requested Reggie to return to my clinic for a lot more exams.

He told me his indications experienced not enhanced. He’d experienced an episode of what he identified as “brain fog” on an significant conference simply call for work, carried out improperly and been deeply humiliated. I requested about any other indications he hadn’t stated before. He told me that “nothing was fun any longer.” Flicks and Television demonstrates that he liked now bored him, and music that he normally liked listening to sounded grating to his ears.

When individuals never practical experience pleasure, it is acknowledged as anhedonia — normally a signal of depression. But Reggie insisted he did not really feel unfortunate in the regular sense of the phrase. “I never really feel unfortunate or depressed,” he told me. “I just never really feel just about anything at all.” Finally, in hushed tones, Reggie mentioned he was possessing difficulties receiving and sustaining erections, a thing he experienced under no circumstances skilled before. “I really feel like an 80-year-previous guy in a thirty-year-previous overall body,” he lamented.

Improvements in temper and intercourse drive can occasionally suggest a neurologic trouble. But Reggie’s neurologic test was typical. To be safe and sound, I ordered a CT scan of his mind it was also completely typical. 1 evening, I was alone in my business office and imagining about possible facet results. I went as a result of his list of prescription drugs, a single by a single, and observed very little worrisome right up until I recognized a thing: A several months back, Reggie experienced started out having finasteride.

Hormones: Handy and Hazardous

Finasteride is a five-alpha reductase inhibitor these types of drugs can impact the way hormones are processed and reworked by our bodies. The male intercourse hormone testosterone aids gentlemen develop muscle mass and have a healthy intercourse drive, but it also generates hair reduction in genetically inclined folks. Finasteride blocks the conversion of testosterone to its a lot more strong cousin, dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Substantial stages of DHT can result in hair reduction, so drugs that halt that hormone’s production can assist fight it.

Finasteride was very first promoted around 20 a long time back as a cure for urinary indications in gentlemen with enlarged prostate glands. Considering that then, the drug has also identified use as a cure for male sample baldness. Lots of gentlemen who are shedding their hair can sluggish — or even reverse — the system by having a significantly lessen dose of finasteride than is employed to take care of an enlarged prostate.

Reggie experienced received his finasteride from an on line pharmacy just after he’d recognized his hair was slipping out and grew to become anxious about his visual appearance. Considering that having the drug, his hair reduction experienced largely stopped. In addition, he told me that he was absolutely starting to see some new hair expansion — a welcome sight.

But finasteride, though really successful, is also a controversial drug. Not lengthy just after it was launched commercially, some buyers started to complain of a myriad of indications not not like Reggie’s. People could develop neurologic, sexual, emotional and musculoskeletal indications that, unusually, occasionally persisted for months or even a long time just after stopping the drug. When indications continue on even just after stopping finasteride, people are referred to as possessing write-up-finasteride syndrome, or PFS.

The truth that the most typical facet results from the drug are sexual — and that these could be lengthy-long lasting — has frightened lots of people off from even striving it to take care of hair reduction. The healthcare literature on finasteride is also significantly from crystal clear some scientific studies of finasteride have documented these facet results, but others have not. As well as, people who have fantastic outcomes on finasteride swear by it in on line hair reduction forums, though individuals who really feel it has harmed them deride it as poison on individuals similar web pages.

Most gentlemen who just take finasteride have no facet results at all. And individuals who do develop problems normally see them solve just after stopping the drug. Nevertheless, some who just take finasteride do practical experience lengthy-long lasting facet results. In element, this may perhaps have a thing to do with nervousness about employing the drug in the very first position: If you read through on line that a drug can assist regrow hair but can also result in impotence, you may perhaps be a lot more possible to subjectively really feel like you’re possessing a sexual facet effect.

Irrespective, the indications Reggie was describing to me sounded like they could be attributed to the adverse facet results of finasteride.

A Hard Selection

I reviewed all of this with Reggie at his up coming pay a visit to. He appeared skeptical. I then suggested he halt having his finasteride. He straight away refused. “No way,” he angrily told me. “Forget about it. Viewing all of that hair in my arms when I shampooed each early morning was the worst. It was all I could think about for the rest of the working day. I’ve missing so significantly hair in the previous year, and now I’m at last starting to get it back again.”

I recognized where by he was coming from. I experienced skilled a lot more than a tiny hair reduction myself and knew how upsetting it could be. Nevertheless, I was anxious about him. I suggested he think on it, read through about finasteride’s facet results and PFS, and see me in a week. He agreed, but he left my business office that working day a lot more upset than when he arrived.

Reggie returned the pursuing week. He experienced finished a great deal of research about finasteride, even heading so significantly as joining an on line information board to discuss his indications. “I have to confess,” he mentioned, “a great deal of individuals other guys on the information board sounded just like me.” With a sigh, he told me he would try out stopping his finasteride for a though.

Two weeks later on, Reggie came back again to see me. His temper was far better, he experienced a lot more energy, his aches experienced light, and his libido was returning, nevertheless admittedly not as immediately as he would have liked. It appeared the finasteride was the culprit. Nevertheless anxious about balding, Reggie experienced started out having minoxidil, the other Food and drug administration-authorised cure for hair reduction. It was not as potent of a hair reduction drug as finasteride, but at the very least it was a thing. Weighing the professionals and disadvantages of finasteride, he made the decision he experienced a lot more to reduce by having the drug than he stood to obtain — even on top rated of his head.


Douglas G. Adler is a gastroenterologist and professor at the College of Utah School of Medicine. The scenarios described in Very important Indications are genuine, but names and sure information have been improved.

Maria J. Danford

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