For me it was mostly just a major psychological stressor because it happened at a young age. I felt like an old man at 20 years old.
HN user
bladley
Hi - there is no official diagnosis for "PFS". I have it in the sense that I have penile tissue scarring confirmed by medical imaging, with a urologist's opinion that finasteride was the likely cause. Yes, tadalafil does often help in my case, but the reduction in function is permanent and I doubt I will ever be my pre-finasteride self again.
No food is specifically obesity inducing
This is false. Of course certain foods are metabolized in ways that are more likely to lead to obesity than others.
Robert Lustig talks about this quite a bit. The data shows widespread obesity in modern times is a direct result of all the added sugars in the standard American diet.
The Diabetes Code is a great book about reversing diabetes through dietary intervention. The author discusses exactly what you're saying here: surprisingly few doctors know how effective a low-carb diet is at treating and curing type 2 diabetes.
Maybe related: Morning and Evening Blue-Enriched Light Exposure Alters Metabolic Function in Normal Weight Adults
I think this would be a fair argument if the possibility of persistent side effects were acknowledged and clearly communicated. Right now, if you go to get a prescription for finasteride and ask your doctor whether you might have side effects that last years after discontinuing the drug, they will almost certainly say, no, that's not possible.
My problem is that I get too much sleep and it's very difficult for me to wake up if there's no meeting scheduled that morning for my flexible remote job or if there's no social pressure to get up. I'll happily sleep 12-14 hours if you let me. I've been this way since I was a teenager, and I'm 25 now.
I know this sounds like I'm complaining about a luxury, and lack of sleep is definitely worse, but it's always made me feel like I'm wasting my days sleeping and missing out on life to a degree.