‘My life is ruined,’ local finasteride patient laments to Takie Dela
May 3, 2025
Dear Friends:
In an act of détente that we hope world leaders will someday emulate, Russia has joined Britain, Canada, Spain, and the US in promoting PFS awareness ahead of the European Medicine Agency’s forthcoming verdict vis-à-vis finasteride’s fate.
On Tuesday, the independent news portal Takie Dela published its nation’s first-ever investigation into the condition, headlined “How Men Live up to Social Expectations” (English translation here). It begins:
A common trigger for men who are dissatisfied with their appearance is alopecia. Most Russian men face complete or partial hair loss… What’s more, surveys show that Russia is among the top 20 countries with the highest prevalence of male alopecia… According to media reports, in Russia, more and more young people, including teenagers, are turning to doctors to treat their hair loss.
Cries from behind the Iron Curtain
The 2,200-word report by Alexey Semenov, which references last month’s FDA safety alert regarding compounded topical finasteride products, features interviews with two Russian PFS patients, Vasily and Dmitry, who first contacted the PFS Foundation for help in 2017 and 2025, respectively.
Vasily was prescribed finasteride 15 years ago, at age 26, by a hair-transplant surgeon. Six months into treatment, he was beset by genital shrinkage and sexual dysfunction.
“Instead of sperm, there was some kind of white foam, and my testicles appeared to be deflated,” he tells Takie Dela. “It was the rudest of awakenings.”
Like countless PFS patients before him, Vasily consulted with numerous doctors, but they didn’t turn up any abnormalities. They simply advised him to wait six months. After doing so, however, he still hasn’t recovered.
“My reproductive system remains damaged. Naturally, I haven’t had any romantic relationships during these past 15 years, let alone started a family,” he says. “My life is ruined.”
Thirty-something septuagenarian
As is increasingly common these days, Dmitry began taking finasteride on the advice of a YouTube influencer who touted the drug as being a safe and effective hair-loss remedy. But just three days into treatment, Dmitry’s world was turned upside down.
“My genitals lost sensitivity. It was as if they were disconnected from my brain. My libido and sexual activity also decreased. Instead of a 30-year-old guy, I began to feel like a 70-year-old grandfather,” he tells Takie Dela, whose monthly readership exceeds 300,000.
So Dmitry quit the drug. That was 18 months ago, and he has snapped back from some side effects, but not the one that mattered most: his penis remains numb and devoid of regular function.
“I’m single now and not particularly looking for a girlfriend, as I clearly understand that my current condition will seriously damage the quality of any romantic relationship,” he tells the news portal.
Telemeds taking more heat
Separately, Dmitry identified the YouTube blogger at whom he’ll be eternally furious. That would be Gleb Karpov, who appears to have zero medical credentials, and yet headlined his finasteride show, Say Goodbye to Baldness: A Complete Scientific Guide.
“He quite convincingly talked about the alleged uselessness of dihydrotestosterone in adulthood; that supposedly this form of testosterone is needed only during puberty and can be easily blocked,” Dmity tells us.
“I’ll never again take any medication on the advice of people without a medical education.”
Adding insult to injury, Dmitry was able to buy finasteride—a prescription drug—at a brick-and-mortar pharmacy, despite having no prescription. “Outrageous negligence,” he calls it.
Глобальное упомянуть (Global shout-out)
Interviewed as well for the investigation is PFS Foundation President Philip Recchia, who notes that, according to the World Health Organization, at least 22,270 men worldwide have suffered adverse reactions to finasteride.
And among the more than 3,300 PFS patients who’ve contacted the foundation directly, 25 are known to have committed suicide.
“There were men who took finasteride for years without any side effects, but one day they developed PFS,” Recchia also tells Takie Dela.
Indeed, since the foundation’s establishment in 2012, at least 15 men have reported long periods of symptom-free finasteride use, followed by the sudden onslaught of adverse reactions that persisted indefinitely.
That appears to jive with Persistent erectile dysfunction in men exposed to the 5α-reductase inhibitors, finasteride, or dutasteride, a 2017 study conducted at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, which showed that men who take finasteride for 205 days or more are 4.9 times more likely to develop persistent erectile dysfunction (PED) than men who take it for fewer than 205 days.
“The magnitude of risk of PED associated with longer duration of finasteride exposure was greater than all other risk factors and was independent of age,” wrote lead researcher Steven M. Belknap, MD, then an assistant professor of dermatology at Feinberg.
According to Google Analytics, the PFS Foundation’s Russian edition has aggregated more than 32,000 unique readers since its launch in May 2020.
Finasteride was originally developed by Merck & Co., Inc., and first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1993 as Proscar (5 mg, for enlarged prostate), and again in 1997, as Propecia (1 mg, for hair loss).
In June 2021, Merck spun off its Organon subsidiary as an independent public company (NYSE: OGN). Founded in the Netherlands in 1923, Organon bills itself as a “global health care company dedicated to making a world of difference for women, their families and the communities they care for.”
Among the Merck products Organon acquired in the deal were Proscar and Propecia. To report adverse events for either finasteride product, call the Organon Service Center at (844)674-3200, or email Service_Center@Organon.com.
Anyone living in the US who suffers from PFS should also report his or her symptoms to the US FDA. Anyone living outside the US who suffers from PFS should report his or her symptoms to the US FDA as well as to his or her local DRA, as directed on our Report Your Side Effects page.
If you or a loved one are suffering from PFS, and feeling depressed or unstable, please don’t hesitate to contact the PFS Foundation as soon as possible via our Patient Support hotline: social@pfsfoundation.org
Thank you.