Former U.S. Army Sergeant’s Life Destroyed by Finasteride

“When I wake up in the morning and I look down at my fiancée, the girl that I fell in love with, and she’s looking back at me, and I can see the smile on her face, and I can see the love in her eyes, and the excitement she has to see me… and to not feel anything back, it’s just horrific. I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel that love. I don’t feel emotions. I don’t feel that excitement. I have nothing but just blunted emotions… and how is that fair to her? I ask myself that every single day.”

This was part of my video testimony three years ago when I first went public about my experience with finasteride on my channel, Moral Medicine. I’m now in my early 30s, and that reality still hasn’t changed.

Before all of this, I had everything going for me. I was college educated with a dual major in Safety Management and Criminal Justice. I built a career in construction safety, working on high-profile projects that required me to be sharp, articulate, and mentally present at all times. I served as a non-commissioned officer in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and held an active security clearance. I invested in real estate, started a business, was into ballroom dancing (where I met my now wife), and stayed disciplined in fitness and bodybuilding for years. I was an avid reader, often reading books on leadership and becoming a better communicator. I thrived on personal development. I had no prior health issues. I was driven, focused, and moving forward in life. I loved life.

In January 2021, after months of research, I made the decision to take finasteride for mild hair thinning. I had completed a quick intake with the telehealth company Hims months earlier and received the drug shortly after. Everything I found at the time told me it was safe. The main side effects of concern were sexual dysfunction and potentially depression, but the narrative was consistent: most people tolerate it well, and any side effects go away after stopping. I felt confident in that decision.

Within the first couple of weeks after starting, I began noticing subtle changes. Brain fog and speech issues started to show up, but they were easy to brush off. I attributed it to stress, a new job, or general anxiety. Over the next few months, those symptoms became more frequent, but I still didn’t connect them to the medication.

Then in June 2021, everything changed overnight. I woke up one morning and felt like something in my brain had shut off. There was a massive cognitive shift. I couldn’t think clearly, and I felt disconnected from everything around me. Everything felt foggy. That same day, I had to give a presentation for work that I had done countless times before. Information I knew inside and out was suddenly gone. I couldn’t recall it. I couldn’t speak properly. My words wouldn’t come out the way they used to. They were slurred and forced.

That moment never reversed.

Over the next six months, I went through extensive medical testing to try and figure out what was happening to me, while still continuing to take finasteride. I saw multiple neurologists and had MRIs, EEGs, EMGs, and bloodwork done. Everything came back normal. Because nothing showed up, I was told it had to be psychological. Despite listing finasteride as a medication I was currently taking on my medical paperwork, it was never brought up by my doctors as a point of concern. Meanwhile, my condition continued to decline. I still hadn’t connected my symptoms to the medication because I was never told that these kinds of debilitating neurological issues could happen.

During this time, my body also developed severe muscle twitching. Everything on me twitched: my hands, feet, arms, stomach, face, jaw, and back. I started to develop brain zaps, which feel like sudden electrical shocks in the back of the head. I couldn’t feel emotions or a connection to anything. My speech was so slurred that I couldn’t enunciate even simple words or form a proper sentence. This was all compounded by intense brain fog. Even reading simple text on a screen became difficult. I could no longer process information properly, either visually or verbally.

After 15 months of taking finasteride and dealing with these debilitating neurological issues, I finally did a deep dive into the drug and learned through several online forums that others were dealing with severe health issues after taking it. I couldn’t believe it. I had never heard of this happening before from this drug. I immediately stopped taking it, hoping things would return to normal. They didn’t. Instead, I experienced what many refer to as a crash. I lost 15 to 20 pounds in a matter of weeks. My muscle composition changed. My muscles began to sag and lost density. My skin became loose and stretchy. Doctors tried to attribute it to genetic conditions I never had, despite years of knowing my own body.

More physical symptoms followed. I lost the ability to sweat. My joints hurt constantly. I developed even more severe muscle twitching and cramps throughout my body. My face changed, developing lipoatrophy, a receding jawline, and a smaller body frame. I lost collagen, and my body became pale and lost its normal appearance. My eyes began to droop. My voice became noticeably higher pitched. I developed Peyronie’s disease and low libido. I also started dealing with GI issues that I had never experienced before. My shirts fit looser, even after I gained the weight back. The brain zaps continued. Sleep became almost nonexistent, often limited to a couple of hours a night. My hair began to rapidly shed, losing more density than ever before.

I never would have thought any of this was possible. How could my body and mind change so drastically and so quickly from a simple hair loss medication? How did I develop a myriad of different physical and sexual symptoms only after stopping? How could I not have been warned? How has this gone on for 30 years since the drug has been on the market?

The neurological symptoms have been the most debilitating. I deal with constant brain fog, difficulty retaining information, and an inability to focus the way I used to. Speaking is still difficult. I still slur and jumble my words. I lose track of my thoughts mid-sentence. It feels like I’m trying to operate through a fog that never lifts. I also began experiencing severe suicidal ideation after stopping—something I had never dealt with before in my life.

The anhedonia continues intensely. I cannot feel emotions anymore. Love, anger, sadness, joy, and happiness are all absent. I can’t connect with friends or family. I can’t feel comfort from physical touch. I know who I was before this. I remember how I felt, how I thought, and how I interacted with people. I just can’t access that anymore. It feels like my personality has been stripped away, like my soul has been erased. At this point, life feels more like survival than living.

From the outside, everything can look normal. I still work. I still appear to function. Internally, everything is different. That’s why this is often referred to as a silent condition.

I’m a shell of my former self. My speaking and presentation skills have eroded. My body has changed in ways that make me unrecognizable. I’ve prematurely aged and lost my youthful glow. My brain fog is equivalent to a TBI, robbing me of my personality. My ability to feel emotions is gone. My body that I worked so hard for through years of bodybuilding isn’t the same. I struggle to get a pump in the gym. My skin is still loose. My face is still gaunt and lifeless. I still struggle to communicate. I still rarely sleep. It’s been four years, and very little has improved.

One of the hardest parts of this experience has been the response from the medical system. I’ve gone to some of the best doctors available, including Johns Hopkins. I’ve been told repeatedly that finasteride did not cause this. I’ve had doctors dismiss it outright and even push back when I suggested the connection. Many don’t even acknowledge my symptoms. That leaves you in a position where something is clearly wrong, but no one is willing to acknowledge it. That’s where people lose hope.

There are others who have gone through this and reached a breaking point. These were not weak individuals. These were people who had successful lives, families, and futures. They sustained this harm and then were not taken seriously. People have lost their lives to suicide due to the debilitating symptoms and medical gaslighting. They lose hope and the will to live.

While it appears that most people take finasteride and are fine, I suspect this is more common than people realize. I believe people are dealing with some of these debilitating side effects and can’t figure out why, because the medical system does not acknowledge that finasteride can cause these issues. At the same time, it does appear to be a subset of people who experience severe and persistent effects, and that reality cannot be ignored.

I had no reason to speak out about this. I was a private person, and I had everything going for me. I don’t benefit from sharing this. I just want my life back, and I want justice for the many lives destroyed by this drug.

At some point, I realized staying silent wasn’t helping anyone. That’s what led me to create Moral Medicine. On Moral Medicine, I’ve interviewed numerous patients suffering from the devastating effects of finasteride, SSRIs, Accutane, and similar medications. I’ve interviewed medical professionals, researchers, doctors, and advocates, including Dr. Josef Witt-Doering, Dr. Doug Bremner, Dr. Mayer Brezis, Kim Witczak, Joanna Moncrieff, and others. I’ve also spoken with parents who have lost their children to these medications on the channel, completely blindsided by a system that never warned them. Over the past three years, the channel has grown and has received features and shoutouts in GQ Magazine, The Daily Mail, and the New York Post. The Wall Street Journal has also covered my story, highlighting the ease of access to this medication and the severity of the symptoms I developed.

What started as my personal experience turned into a platform where others could share theirs. Whether their permanent symptoms were caused by finasteride, SSRIs, Accutane, or similar compounds, the patterns became clear: different drugs, similar outcomes. People dealing with life-altering symptoms, often dismissed, with very few answers.

Awareness has started to grow, but there is still a long way to go. Research is beginning to explore potential biological mechanisms, including gene expression changes and androgen receptor involvement. There are indications that something measurable is happening, but most of this work is still being driven by patients.

That is why awareness matters. That is why people need to speak up.

Anyone dealing with this should not feel alone or embarrassed. You took something that was prescribed, something presented as safe, and something went severely wrong. That is not your fault.

What matters now is continuing to push for answers. More research is needed. Doctors need to listen. This condition needs to be acknowledged.

This is real, and with how mainstream these medications have become in recent years—through aggressive marketing, social media influencers pushing them, and telehealth companies selling them with ease—this issue is not going away. It’s only growing.