Propecia Prohibiting Me to Tolerate and Recover from Exercise?

Dr. Rassman,

I have some concerns regarding the side effects of Propecia. Along with the severe sexual side effects, I truly believe that the drug also had a profound effect on my ability to tolerate and recover from aerobic exercise. I’m sure the majority of your patients do not participate in daily vigorous exercise as I do ( > 1 hr per day) so any decrease in athletic performance may be more difficult for the average user to detect, but have you had ANY reports from patients or perhaps heard something second hand from a colleague regarding the drug and its effects on exercise?

The Merck study is an absolute joke, and I wish more in depth research were done so physicians could fully understand what they are prescribing to their patients. To me, the claim that less than 2% of men taking the drug experience side effects is absurd, but of course my only sources of information are my own experiences and what I read on the internet. Any professional, informed opinions you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Do you realize that there are millions of men taking finasteride? Let’s look at the 2% number — for every person that claims they have a side effect, there are 98 that have none. If you’re satisfied, you don’t necessarily go to every web forum to share your enthusiasm and excitement. If you’ve been wronged, you’ll make sure everyone damn well knows it. So I’d put a little more credence in the Merck studies, rather than Internet forums full of unsubstantiated claims. Then again, you seem to have strong opinions and are not open to new thoughts. I hope that assumption is wrong, and I meant that as no slight to you.

My 35 year old son takes Propecia daily and is an exercise nut. He runs marathons and just came in 5th in his age group in a mini-triathlon. He has never reported the things that you are talking about nor any of the side effects of Propecia. Of course I realize that not everyone will react exactly the same on the medication, but this is the story I get from most of my patients. Granted, a few do have sexual side effects — both increased and decreased libido, decreased ejaculate, and some older men have loss of libido — but this is in line with the 2% number. It really is very few of the patients I see (and I do see a lot of patients on this medication). I don’t recall having any patients tell me about having problems recovering from exercise due to taking Propecia. Bottom line, if this drug is not for you, then stop taking it — no one is forcing you to use it. Certainly, if I was convinced that every problem I had was related to a daily pill, I’d stop taking the pill.