{"id":110817,"date":"2025-10-29T19:02:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T19:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/110817\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T19:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T19:02:07","slug":"a-finasteride-nightmare-inside-the-dark-side-of-the-hair-loss-drug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/110817\/","title":{"rendered":"A Finasteride Nightmare: Inside the Dark Side of the Hair-Loss Drug"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marc Turner was on the up. It was the summer of 2019, and after a stint working in banking, he\u2019d got a full-time job tending to the parks in the city of Mississauga, just southwest of Toronto, exchanging the grey thrum of the office for day after day in nature\u2014planting flowers, mowing grass. The 34-year-old had just bought himself a place in the lakeside neighborhood of Port Credit, and had splashed out, filling his new place with a remote-controlled bed, two 65-inch TVs and some houseplants. In his free time, he\u2019d take long bike rides<\/a> with his best friend Chris, stopping to point out the local greenery he\u2019d tended to, like the blue spruce tree, sprouting in Lakefront Promenade. His mom, Denise, said she\u2019d never known Marc happier. And yet something was bothering him. His hair was falling out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a couple of years, Marc had been using Rogaine, a brand name for minoxidil, massaging one of the few clinically proven hair-loss medications into his scalp. He was meticulous about his appearance, clean-shaven<\/a> and neatly dressed<\/a>. And he took particular care of his hair<\/a>, which was dark and thick and always carefully styled. But by the summer of 2020, he was shedding, in his estimation, over 200 strands a day. Marc panicked. He went to his doctor and was prescribed finasteride. His doctor warned him of the drug\u2019s potential side effects, as Marc recounted in a blog post, but he was told that they should abate if treatment was stopped.<\/p>\n

Marc had also heard about something called Post-Finasteride Syndrome, or PFS\u2014a constellation of sexual<\/a>, physical and mental side effects that, according to the small number of finasteride users who describe experiencing them, stick around long after taking the drug. He figured that the risk was low. So, in September, he decided to take the medication anyway. At first, he felt waves of relief, as if he\u2019d outrun fate, cheated his own genetic lottery. But a few weeks in, something was off. Marc\u2019s mind felt foggy.<\/p>\n

A year earlier, in 2019, Canada began requiring finasteride manufacturers to include a warning about the risk of suicidal ideation on the product\u2019s packaging. Depression<\/a> was also among the potential side effects listed on the labels. But there was no mention of brain fog\u2014there wouldn\u2019t be, as it\u2019s not an official medical term. Marc stopped the medication, then tried it again on a lower dose. \u201cThat\u2019s when the horror story began,\u201d Denise told me.<\/p>\n

A week later, while watching a film with a friend, he had a panic attack. Holding onto his hairline no longer felt worth it, and he quit finasteride the next day. Marc\u2019s brain fog didn\u2019t stop. Nor did the panic attacks. His genitals shrank. They lost sensation. His joints cracked loudly when he moved. Ringing blared persistently in his ears. He was jittery, constantly on edge, unable to sleep. To Denise\u2019s knowledge, Marc wasn\u2019t taking any medications other than finasteride. \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on with my body,\u201d Denise says he told her. \u201cIt\u2019s like I\u2019m in a torture chamber and don\u2019t know what the next thing is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc Turner was on the up. It was the summer of 2019, and after a stint working in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[10699,41787,20677,38125,103,61,60,371,11514],"class_list":{"0":"post-110817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-digital_syndication","9":"tag-grooming","10":"tag-hair","11":"tag-haircare","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-medication","16":"tag-textbelowcenterfullbleed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}