I'm feeling a bit off today. Nothing bad happened, and I'm not sad or depressed. No, nothing like that. I think I'm just tired from my dog waking me up every few hours last night, and feeling somewhat alarmed by a notice I stumbled upon regarding possible side effects for a new med I started taking.
While at my General Practitioner's office a few weeks ago, I casually, and humorously mentioned my escalating concern over my thinning hair. Clearly, since I bring it up every other line on this damn blog, it's been kind of bugging me. My Doc teased me, telling me that I'm crazy, and that my hair is fine. Without wanting to sound combative, I mentioned how my friends have even been noticing as of late, especially since that reprint of that ad campaign I was in a year ago. Man, a lot can change in a year. (My "foot in mouth" Canadian friend told me that I "looked a lot younger and had a ton more hair" in that pic. Awesome! Are the Canadians still our allies?)
This Doctor has been with me from the beginning of my transition. He has seen it all unfold, and was the one who made it all possible. Not only that, but he made it approachable and dissected all of the various details and concerns for me. He's great, and I feel indebted to him, plus I generally like the guy.
So, when I mentioned my disappointment over losing my hair after a little over 3 years of being on T, he took me seriously, and suggested a few options. One of the possibilities was a script for Finasteride (aka: Propecia), to take daily. I remembered hearing in the past that it might cancel out some of the more desirable effects of the testosterone that I wouldn't necessarily want to lose. The age old conundrum of the lesser of the evils.
But seeing the possible side effects for Finasteride listed so blatantly today was a bit terrifying. They are as follows:
- impotence (1.1% to 18.5%),
- abnormal ejaculation (7.2%),
- decreased ejaculatory volume (0.9% to 2.8%),
- abnormal sexual function (2.5%),
- gynecomastia (2.2%),
- erectile dysfunction (1.3%),
- ejaculation disorder (1.2%)
- testicular pain
- the potential risk of male breast cancer
Propecia (and other products containing finasteride) causes a rise in testosterone levels, because testosterone that would normally be converted into DHT remains testosterone. Persistently higher levels of testosterone in the body could have negative psychological effects, such as impulsivity, aggression, irritability and depression.What the fuck??? How scary is this shit? Dust from broken tablets can't be around pregnant women because it will cause genital birth defeats in male fetuses??? Are you fucking kidding me?
Some users, in an effort to save money, buy Proscar instead of Propecia, and split the Proscar pills to approximate the Propecia dosage. Doing so is considered unadvisable if women of pregnancy age are in the household; this is because finasteride, even in small concentrations, can cause birth defects in a developing male fetus. The birth defects involve the development of male genitalia (no such effects have been noted in developing female fetuses). On most product inserts, it will be mentioned that the dust or crumbs from broken Proscar tablets should be kept away from pregnant women.
Okay, the upswing is that my hair won't fall out as much, I might actual regain some of the already departed strands, and the med will even prevent problems with my prostate. Wait... The downsides are virtually everything else! Gynemastia ("man boobs") would seriously piss me off, after I paid like $8,000 to get that junk taken off the first time. (Sadly, as many less endowed friends kept asking if there could be a transplant arranged, as opposed to a plain old removal, since they were hoping to benefit from what I no longer needed...) The sexual side effects would be a bummer, but I'm single now, so it's not a deal breaker relationship-wise, at the moment. But the part about birth defects if pregnant women are near the tablets ~ that part is horrifying!
Not that I wanted to rush out and get pregnant, or hit up some women who are already preggers, but it's scary to think that I am ingesting something that is known to have those kinds of severe side effects. (((It makes me wonder about the underlying causes of transgenderism – if it is the result of some weird birth control pill my Mom had been on before she tried to get pregnant with me, or something weird like that...)))
Lately, I have been talking a lot about this desire to be able to have a family in the future. Knowingly sterilizing myself (albeit, temporarily) with the testosterone was challenging enough, fearing that I might fuck up my chances of having kids if I transitioned. (Meaning: I can't have my own kids biologically if I am on testosterone, and I am assuming that being trans might make adoption more difficult in certain parts of the country. So, I am pretty much dependent on having a child with a partner, which leaves me feeling really alone and vulnerable. Typically, I am the DIY kind of person. In this case, I can't DIM...)
There was something so liberating about taking T when I first started, knowing that I could stop at any point, and in the beginning, many of the changes brought on by the T would still be reversible. The deeper I get into my transition, and the less reversible many of these shifts in my physiology become, the more stuck and dependent I feel with regards to procreating. With the possibility that my brother (my only sibling) and sister-in-law might not have kids, it feels like there is this unspoken pressure on my shoulders to get down to business, and start this baby making to carry on our genes. So weird to think like that.
I think the fact that I turned 34 last week also has me unconsciously sizing up my life, and wondering what exactly I have done of worth since my last birthday, and what I have in the works. Being single with no prospectives on the horizon feels really strange, as I prematurely assumed that I'd be settled in by 24-25, and married with a few kids by my late 20s, early 30s.
It's so fucking odd that this little warning label for a preventative med for male pattern baldness threw me into this little muddled tizzy. It's always something, huh?
I think Propecia IS a side effect.
ReplyDeleteI recall belly-aching to a friend of mine, an anesthesiologist, about taking a med FOR its side effect, in my case, FOR drowsiness. Since I am writing this at 4:55 a.m. and still up from the night before, you can appreciate the need for it.
She said, "Duh. Propecia."
I believe it was originally a 'heart' med. She said she put more bearded women to sleep before heart operations than she cares to recall.