Georgiaboy

I was reading a couple of postings regarding use of men's vitamin supplements, in particular, saw palmetto. The postings were quite old and the topic closed, so I thought I would share my experience.

In sum, I believe that saw palmetto inhibited erections, and basically "shrunk" (temporarily) my penis.

My experience was buying multi-vitamins, different brands, where there are about five different pills in a plastic pack. The vitamins are designed to be taken once a day-- one pack per day. What I realized eventually, was that my inexplicable inability to obtain a normal, in my case "very solid" erection was a side effect from saw palmetto, one of the supplements in one of the pills within the daily pack. I also had the issue of my penis feeling similar to taking a cold shower (guys know what I am referring to) where my penis felt smaller or shrunken than its usual state.

To put this story in perspective, years before, my GP gave me a prescription for finasteride (generic), for hair loss. I ended up cease taking the finasteride because of exactly the same symptoms described above. When I came to actually realize that I was having the same issue on the vitamins as with finasteride, I did a little research and learned that the finasteride and saw palmetto are chemically similar (or have similar chemical effects). When I stopped taking the pill the contained the saw palmetto, my symptoms disappeared.

I discussed this issue with my friend who swears by saw palmetto and he does not have this side effect. However, when I was reading the other posts about saw palmetto (you can freely search on this board), the posters generally conjectured that saw palmetto was too weak to cause this type of side effect. I can state with a high degree of confidence that saw palmetto caused these symptoms. I challenge the obvious: if the saw palmetto is strong enough to affect the prostate, then why is it too weak to affect the penile organ?

I just wanted to provide this information, since it was not clear to me from the vitamin company that my VITAMINS could be causing erectile issues. Now, I just avoid the vitamins that contain saw palmetto.

This posting is not meant to be critical of saw palmetto. It is intended to provide insight where it is really needed, to those people who are negatively affected by the ingredients in their multi vitamins. Particularly since, most of the major branded "men's" multi vitamins do contain saw palmetto. I hope this information is helpful to others.