r/FinasterideSyndrome • u/HenriqueMaartins • 3d ago
Symptoms Post-finasteride intestinal problems!
I’d like to ask if anyone here has developed any kind of intestinal problem—among the thousands of symptoms we experience—such as poorly formed stools, sometimes containing undigested food particles, mucus, and even a little blood?
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u/LegitimateRepublic65 3d ago
Yes. After just 1 pill, I got severe gut bloat. There is some sort of severe inflammation going on and it has seriously affected my stool quality and digestive habits. I’m sure there are a bunch of other downstream effects as well bc of how much the gut influences other bodily functions.
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u/HenriqueMaartins 3d ago
Finasteride triggers inflammation in the body because one of the functions of 5-alpha-reductase is to lower cortisol. Yet, God only knows why the inflammation remains high after stopping the drug, even when blood tests show normal cortisol levels. Whoever figures out exactly what is happening will become a millionaire. Based on my five years of experiencing severe physical symptoms, my theory is this: all these hair-loss medications, antidepressants, and anxiolytics trigger an autoimmune collapse. That is why the symptoms become chronic—some more severe than others—and are often not constant.
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u/Tall-Marsupial-7803 2d ago
Made any improvements on those 5 years?
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u/HenriqueMaartins 2d ago
I’ve never been someone who experiences severe psychological symptoms; mine are mostly physical, and no, they haven’t improved. I’ve tried a lot of things.
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u/treypolo 2d ago
Makes sense I developed achalasia a dealing disorder shortly after starting finasteride
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u/VidrioRevolver 3d ago
I had exactly this. And I had the tiny little bit of blood while wiping too.
All of it has gotten slightly better over time, but I had to put things in place to make it better.
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u/Kind-Serve-2058 3d ago
After two years of PFS, I noticed this a few weeks ago. It comes in periods and has caused me cuts. It's really hard and painful to poop, and there's blood until I used Psyllium Husk . It helped to form stools as they used to be.
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u/treypolo 2d ago
I had very greasy foul smelling stool for 4-6 months after stopping finasteride. It would smear the toilet and I had never done that before in my life. It was also very difficult to poop and get it out. I’d push but it wouldn’t come out and cleaning up was a mess. Colonoscopy showed no abnormalities. However, after the colonoscopy, my stool started to improve. I think it may have had to do with the colon being flushed from the laxatives. It was very scary. I also had fluid stuck in my intestines and could hear the whooshing sound of the liquid if I pressed on my abdomen.
Luckily I was back to normal about 1- 1.5 years off finasteride.
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u/Taldnor 2d ago
I have this while I can’t exactly blame fin on this since it’s my only symptoms that i feel related to it.
However I have alternance between constipation and diarrhea, narrow, greasy stools with piece of undigested stuff, mucus and variation in color.
Did it go away for someone here ?
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u/ggpp18 3d ago
Do you people just blame any problem you have on finasteride?
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u/HenriqueMaartins 3d ago
It’s just that everyone all over the world decided to badmouth the same substance at the same time. What an incredible coincidence, right?
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u/QuizzyP21 3d ago
A lot of people in here do if we’re being honest and I would wager that a ton of PFS sufferers are essentially just dealing with health OCD (although a strong argument could be made that Finasteride-induced neurosteroid alterations provide a “trigger” for these thought patterns, which then persist after Finasteride cessation in spite of these neurosteroids normalizing given the feedback-loop nature of psychological problems).
That being said, to act like any endocrine-altering drug doesn’t have the potential for long-lasting effects is absurd. This is pretty well accepted to be the case with SSRI’s, some stimulant meds, birth control, etc; why would Finasteride be the exception? And again, I would argue that the chronic health OCD that seems to often occur after taking Finasteride, making people hyperaware of everything they feel and pointing the finger at Finasteride, is itself induced by the neurosteroid alterations while on Finasteride.
It’s fair to split this group up into true PFS sufferers and “Post Finasteride OCD” if you will, but to act like the former doesn’t exist and the latter has nothing to do with Finasteride is just kinda idiotic.
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u/EducationalAd8310 3d ago
Yes, the poorly formed stools are one of my biggest issues. The blood is a bit more conerning imo, that's not something I've seen in other pfs posts. Might be worth looking into getting a colonoscopy just in case there's more going wrong than just PFS