Post Finasteride Syndrome (PFS)

I was hoping you could answer my question. How many of your patients who are on finasteride have experienced permanent side effects (PFS)? I am not on fin, but am seriously considering it, except the possibility of permanent side effects are obviously not reassuring. Thanks for your time.

My group has probably written over 10,000 prescriptions for finasteride since it came on the market. I had no cases of PFS during that timeframe. I had one patient who called me 2 hours after his first dose while driving in heavy traffic and told me he was impotent. I told him to immediately stop taking the medication because I knew he would have problems with it. Driving in traffic and impotent? mmm. He refused to stop the finasteride and eventually claimed he had PFS. He was an anomaly because I always tell my patients who develop sexual side effects who can’t make them go away by cutting the dose in half, to stop the medications. Of course, this man refused to stop the medications even though I told him to do so and he ended up getting the renewed prescription for finasteride from someone else, not me. I firmly believe that the key to not getting PFS is to stop finasteride as soon as you get the first sign of sexual dysfunction. I am sure that this statement will cause considerable comments from others who read this post.