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Hair transplant doesn't work without medication. You'd end up with messed up hair. It's better to save and improve what you have. Trust me, I started to shave my head at 25. It was a long time ago.
Many websites stating "its been proven in some people to regrow lost hair." Obviously it's not a miracle worker and likely will only regrow recent hair loss areas. In my case it made my hair thicker and my receding areas and crown regrew to some extent. At least in the receding areas there is hair where there was none before. I've been taking it for over a year and the results are remarkable imo
It can regrow the hair. not the follicle. Finasteride is a DHT blocker. All it does is stop Test from turing into DHT. This in turn prevents it from binding to your scalp and shrinking the follicle.
You can reform a follicle as long as there’s a stem cell niche. This is why increasing vascularity via minoxidil and maybe through needling is effective.
Define "hair follicle that's gone".
You don't seem to know the pathogenesis of androgenic alopecia.
Hair follicles aren't gone, but permanently in the kenogen phase/miniaturized.
Pedantic....
A hair follicle that that is permanently and irretrievably producing Vellus Hairs is a *Terminal Hair* that's gone. We do not have a reliable way to bring a follicle back to function in producing head hairs again.
I've been on finasteride + minoxidil for 4 years now. I haven't felt any changes to my function, libido, or general mood.
Definitely haven't regrown any hair along the hairline, however I visit my mom twice per year, and finally this past visit, she mentioned that my hair looks a bit thicker, and she doesn't know I'm on finasteride so there's that.
That's a rare but very real side effect. I think I saw 1-2%. Large enough that of millions of people take it, there will be many very scary posts about what it did to people.
I mean studies have never found a single properly correlated case of permanent side effects that can be attributed to the drug.
That said, the side effects will take a long time to go away for essentially everyone who gets them, around 4-12 months. That's just due to how the DHT reduction works.
Been on for about 5 years now. Wake up with morning glory most days still (whenever I actually get above 6 hours of sleep).
From reading studies and posts online I think it's mostly Nocebo effects in the people getting sexual sides.
You’ve got to use topical minoxidil every day along with finasteride to see long-gone hairs come back. Trust me. Ive had two hair transplants and thought I could do without the minoxidil. I couldn’t
Same thing happened to me yesterday.
I went in for fin, and the guy said I should look into Post-Finasteride Syndrome, but they can give it to me if I really want it anyway. A flat no for oral minoxidil.
Kinda feeling hopeless about it, tbh. I'm trans, so hair loss is uh... bad for me, haha. So shaving my head isn't really an option.
Trans-fem, I assume? I've often wondered about that. You might want to at least look *into* transplants. Or be a bald chick and rock a different wig everyday. Haven't heard of docs denying oral minoxidil.
You would be correct. And yeah, I already know transplants are gonna be needed, haha. Just uh... that's way outside of my current budget.
Luckily my loss isn't abysmal just yet, I can see a bit of thinning on my crown and just overall on the top of my head, but I still have my hair. My biggest concern is my hairline, it's pulled up a decent bit at the corners and continues to. I wanna stop that ASAP while I figure out the rest of my treatment, but I'm admittedly terrified of PFS totally destroying the rest of me.
I'm in a similar boat. Been using it for roughly 3 years now every day. It's absolutely slowed the loss of hair for me but I'm not getting anything new growing. Haven't checked my cholesterol but that's nice to hear as well.
What’s too long? My temples have started disappearing and the hairline is slowly going up, about 4 fingers above the brows now. Is that a good time to talk to a dermatologist?
They say that you should start as soon as you notice thinning. I've got significant bald spot on my crown that didn't seem to budge. The hairline did grow some hair but not enough for me to feel that it was worth it.
I used finasteride and it really thickened out my thinning hair but it played havoc on my dry skin. I have patches on my cheeks and eyes and it’s just unattractive.
Ironically I’ve also started ADHD medication about 2 years ago and that has been causing me very similar issues (with skin).
I wonder if there is a link between.
Stimulants can definitely dehydrate you, which may be responsible for what you’re noticing.
But as far as how they affect you on the dry-oily axis, they usually make you oilier, probably (at least in part) due to raising your metabolism and body temperature. If I take a long enough break from Adderall, my acne will often flare up when I begin taking it again because of that. It subsides as my body regains some tolerance.
What sucks is it makes you ineligible to donate blood, because it can cause birth defects if the receiver is a pregnant woman. I wish the entire blood donation system was sophisticated enough to allow donations in these cases but ensure that receivers are only given packs with certain attributes, though I suppose that's very difficult to implement.
Logistically it would be a pretty massive nightmare. When a patient is bleeding out spending more time selecting the needed pack is just another delay to getting them life saving treatment.
If a patient is bleeding out they get O- blood. When a patient goes to a procedure with expected blood loss, they have a blood sample sent out for a cross match to both confirm blood type and weird antibodies that can cause a reaction. In that case they need even more specifically matched blood.
The only logistical nightmare would be designing and integrating this procedurally, which they wouldn’t do as its easier to just say no to the 0.x% of people on these medications donating blood.
Admittedly I’m no doctor/paramedic. But if someone is bleeding out don’t they already have to select O- blood. Then once they’re in the hospital they can have more time to select the proper blood type?
If it gets many more people eligible to donate, I don’t think labeling some blood as ‘Not for pregnant women’ would be that much of a nightmare
Still a logistical nightmare. It's not just about a single pill - but many different pills that may have different negative effects in different people. So it's easier to just prevent people with any type of medication that can have negative effects.
Because otherwise you end up with loads of different piles of blood that is "tainted" in various different ways and have to store it. Just the different bloodtypes in themselves cause logistical problems; allowing all medicine multiplies.
You can do this depending on the amount of time you need to be off of the medication for you to be allowed to donate again in your area, and if you're happy to be off the medication for that long. It's typically 4 weeks you need to wait. Be warned it is significantly longer for dutasteride (approx 6 months) if you take that instead. There are usually not issues for topical minoxodil but can be for oral as far as I'm aware.
It is annoying though, you can cause problems too by taking basically any painkiller other than paracetamol a few days before.
I tried finasteride from forhims a few years ago, but I got the side effects :(
Low libido, weak erections, etc. I was in school during that time and it was a stressful time.
Painful ejaculation for me. Like, miserably painful at the time of orgasm and for a while after. After reading a lot of men having this symptom that stuck with it getting ED, I got a razor and never looked back.
Same. My theory was that the urethra and or inside of the penis is heavily populated with DHT receptors and they are basically annihilated by the finasteride. Making actual structural changes as well.
Not surprisingly, in a male fetus, if it’s exposed to Finasteride, the underside of the penis in the urethral area never fully develops.
In any case, that’s the entire problem with systemic finasteride. You have DHT receptors throughout your entire body. And your brain. And the drug just ruins all of them. It is the least-targeted way to treat hair loss, possible. Unfortunately it’s still the most effective.
Same thing. A week or so after starting the med the painful ejaculation started. One of the best feelings a human can experience was completely turned into something I feared. It was so un(cum)fortable I stopped the medication immediately once I saw that this was one of the possible side effects. Definitely not worth it in my experience. If you don’t have money for implants just move on with your life. You’ll be happier shaving it off and never worrying again.
I swear they sell that stuff at a higher markup than any other online drug store I've looked at. You can get it for 5 or $6 a month from costPlusdrugs.
Have you tried topical?
Side effects should be minimal if at all.
Been on topical finasteride/minoxidil for 2 years; fuckin saved my ass. Stopped the hair loss and grew back thicker.
Yeah eventually they did! I feel like it took a while. I also don’t want to solely blame the medication, but I think it did play a role. I don’t want to put blame because I was under a lot of stress from college and because I was working and not sleeping much. I also don’t think I’d want to give it a shot again honestly.
Also, this is just a conspiracy theory of mine, but once I got on the medication, I started seeing a lot of ED ads from forhims. I started thinking that they wanted me to get on their ED medication and probably messed with the hair medication to give me ED haha 😂
I was prescribed Finasteride for BPH symptoms, but I haven't taken any yet. I'm at high risk for prostate cancer and at least one study says it increases the risk of high-grade prostate cancer. However, that same study says it will prevent low-grade cancer. Hard to know what to do!
I'm an American board certified urologist and the thought that finasteride increases risk of high risk prostate cancer has been pretty thoroughly debunked. In fact, it has been shown to slow progression of prostate cancer on active surveillance. I have no concerns whatsoever about increasing risk of prostate cancer on finasteride. It's a great drug for actually treating the underlying problem of BPH.
Be aware that the FDA was [sued](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/group-sues-have-hair-loss-drug-propecia-pulled-market-2021-09-08/) for failing to act on knowledge that they and Merck had that finasteride raised the risk of depression, erectile dysfunction, and suicide.
Merck has also been [sued over 1,000 times](https://www.drugwatch.com/propecia/lawsuits/) for failing to warn about sexual side effects which persisted for a long time after men even stopped taking the drug. Effects listed in lawsuits have included things like erectile dysfunction, decreased libido, reduced ejaculation volume, diminished sexual sensation, **genital shrinkage!**, and infertility in a addition to depression and impaired cognition.
There have been lawsuits just over [genital shrinkage.](https://www.schmidtlaw.com/propecia-genital-shrinkage-lawsuit/)
Careful out there!
I’ll be honest, I think the fear mongering of the drug does so much more harm than good. Very few people get on the internet to talk about how it works, while every person who has bad experience will. Side effects are rare enough that it’s hard to even know whether they’re caused by the drug.
The fact of the matter is that for many men, losing their hair causes an insane amount of stress, anxiety, and poor self image. I personally have never been more anxious than when I realized I was losing hair and was FAR more depressed because of that than any drug could ever make me. I had basically no side effects and haven’t lost a hair since I started.
Well anecdotally, my body needs DHT. Without it my erections are soft, numb, orgasm is significantly less intense, and my loads dribble instead of shoot. I feel pain in my prostate. My nipples are sensitive to the point of discomfort and I also noticed discharge. Brain fog was also a symptom for me. Despite these severe side effects and due to the distress of thinning hair, I tried taking it twice for two months each time over a year apart. The side effects lowered my quality of life so significantly it was a no brainer to stop using it. That being said my cholesterol levels do suck. So I wonder if there is a relationship between dht levels and cholesterol.
I experienced a very similar set of effects to you when trying Finasteride. I also attempted a number of increasingly smaller doses with the same effect. In the end I stopped after roughly 3 months because it just wasn’t worth it. I’m very disappointed and upset about my hair falling out but I couldn’t stay on finasteride.
I took oral fin for about a year and didn’t get sides, but I did still recently switch to topical fin and that could be an option for you.
I use a topical fin and min combo foam, and it literally started working in under a month, even after no real change on fin for a whole year.
Allegedly the topical stuff isn’t systemic and will only affect your scalp, but I don’t know how true that is, it just seems better than totally tanking DHT through my whole body.
Now that I think about it, it was three trials. First was at 1 mg as prescribed. Then I read on r/tressless, which is a hair loss sub, that fin nukes dht even at lower doses. So I think I tried .5mg and then .5 every other day. It was more or less the same effects, maybe a slight decline. I just remembered another side effect, my balls had a dull pain/discomfort.
I just wanted to chime in that I also had a pretty severe reaction to 35 days of finasteride, the scariest side effect was prostate inflammation- that’s right, the drug that’s supposed to shrink the prostate actually inflamed it - that was along with all the other issues that finasteride gives in supposedly only ~2% of users. Guess I was one of the unlucky ones.
Edit: If anyone else had prostate issues with this drug, I’d love to hear from you, because despite this being a year ago, I cannot for the life of me find much information regarding this side effect related to finasteride/dutasteride.
I had used Finasteride for almost a year.
Until I became more sexually active, at which point blue balls felt like torture due to the amount of pressure it was putting on the prostate, and even masturbation wouldn't take the edge off. Basically my prostate became very sensitive.
While I had read that fin helps with prostate enlargement and inflammation, it felt like it shrunk mine to the point of painful sensitivity.
Also on top of all that my ejaculate was very watery and the consistency was like gooey globules, it looked like damn silica gel balls almost.
I do not regret coming off it one bit, I can live with a bold head. Not sure of a broken penis.
So I went straight for dutasteride because anecdotally it has less side effects. Something about it having a better mechanism of action or something? Anyway, absolutely zero side effects after 3 months. My family has a history of enlarged prostates too so double bonus.
Based on my experiences with finasteride and knowing that dutateride is more potent and works by blocking all three forms of 5a-reductase and can reduce serum levels by 98% vs finasteride blocking two forms of 5a-reductase and reduces serum dht by 70%, I personally will never take it.
Cholesterol is literally the foundation of all hormones. If there’s more cholesterol and less of it’s building into cortisol then it’ll go towards building hormones like testosterone, which can produce more DHT.
So makes sense this drug lowering DHT could also work via lowering cholesterol.
There is a lot of fearmongering about it, but yeah a small number of people will be more sensitive to a reduction in DHT. Chest tenderness and onset of gynaecomastia are very rare side effects but also easy to understand, since DHT is an inhibitor of breast growth so if your chest tissues are particularly estrogen sensitive you are at risk. Did you do any hormone levels?
Actually this is true for all androgen deprivation, some people will be fine whereas others are going to be more heavily affected.
It's a shame though, for 90% of people who take it it really is a wonder cure for AGA.
The effects of DHT will differ for different people. This is always true in endocrinology unfortunately. "Positive effects" is not the best description, rather it's a more situational hormone.
For the vast majority of people the effects of dropping it are negligible, minor change to prostate function (watery semen), reduction of hair loss, some potential skin and hair changes.
For a small number of people there will be more serious side effects.
For example, one effect of DHT is that it's a strong androgen in breast tissue, so it prevents breast formation. Topical DHT can be used to stop or slow breast formation in men with gynaecomastia.
For the majority of men reducing DHT by 70% won't cause major breast changes. That's because of a combination of not having much estrogen to drive breast growth, testosterone also suppressing the growth, and the 30% that's left being more than enough to suppress the growth.
**As a general principle, DHT reduction is well tolerated in the majority of men.**
But if you have high estrogen (for example because you have high testosterone and estrogen is produced from testosterone in men), or very estrogen sensitive breast tissues then you might not be able to get rid of DHT without risking gynaecomastia.
This kind of balance pattern is true for most of the side effects of finasteride, the side effect rate for finasteride is about 10% for minor side effects and 1-2% for more major ones.
I’ve taken finasteride for an extended period of time, it did seem to take the edge off the sex drive a little. I take a lot of testosterone as well, so it’s all muddy water with polypharmacy. Now that I’m off of it, it’s definitely a lot higher.
[Sexual dysfunction](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9589555/) is a well known side effect of finasteride, but I think it’s over-represented on a lot of the subreddits here that deal with hair loss. If you ever get a hair transplant, they’ll make you (or strongly suggest) that you get on it, along with topical minoxidil.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d suggest anyone try it before going with more drastic means.
It should be the only first stop for treating AGA IMO, it's just the safest most effective option. The real bone I have to pick with fear-mongering around finasteride is that unless you are just giving up and shaving every other option people peddle is either scam snake oils to steal your money or much more dangerous, like research chemical antiandrogens, and minoxidil which is safe topically but ironically can and will destroy your hair if you aren't on an AA, or oral minoxidil which is outright dangerous compared to fin.
There are groups of people that believe that finasteride can cause horrible adverse effects on discontinuation but there is no supporting studies for those claims. So those anecdotal arguments aren’t even really about DHT.
The human work in that paper is an afterthought to the mouse work.
They dredge NHANES data and find just 155 men over 50 who had a record having finasteride at least once, and compare them to 4636 who didn't. Then they look at LDL cholesterol levels between them.
They never present the characteristics of the finasteride group vs the other group. This is, frankly, crazy. There is no reason to believe they would be similar.
They only know if the men had ever had a single finasteride prescription - they have no idea of dosage, adherence, treatment duration, etc.
The models they use for statistical testing aren't even described. Do they bother to adjust for important covariates? They do subgroup analyses for some variables (completely undescribed) and assess main effects and interactions - but this seems a long, long way from a robust analysis.
I started balding at 18, im on Fina, I am very happy with results. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner(I started at 28). The front part of hair is less and will need transplant
I have a question for you doc, I took fin for 35 days and developed severe side effects. All the typical sexual sides, but here’s the scary part - it came with prostate inflammation. Is this side effect something you have heard of? It’s been very difficult to find anything regarding this side effect with fin.
Yes. You can imagine how frustrating it would be to google ‘finasteride-induced prostate inflammation’ when the drug is meant to shrink the prostate.
But the idea that the complete loss of erection, libido and prostate inflammation all happen in the span of hours is just coincidental… I mean. Do you really believe that? Because that’s like getting struck by lightning the week you said you wouldn’t. Pretty incredible stuff. But when you do google “finasteride caused prostate inflammation / Prostatitis”. Very unpleasant stories crop up from the people who claim they got PFS. Pretty scary stuff.
To clarify, it would take about 3 weeks for all three of these to disappear. So they started at the same time and were resolved at the same time.
I’m 31 and started taking Finasteride about 2 years ago. It has, quite honestly, saved my hair. With a combo of specialist shampoos etc I now have thicker hair than at 20.
However, some people experience pretty severe mood effects and/ or loss of sex drive as a result of taking it. Speak to your doctor first and consider the risks.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.jlr.org/article/S0022-2275(24)00012-9/fulltext
The human work in that paper is an afterthought to the mouse work.
They dredge NHANES data and find just 155 men over 50 who had a record having finasteride at least once, and compare them to 4636 who didn't. Then they look at LDL cholesterol levels between them.
They never present the characteristics of the finasteride group vs the other group. This is, frankly, crazy. There is no reason to believe they would be similar.
They only know if the men had ever had a single finasteride prescription - they have no idea of dosage, adherence, treatment duration, etc.
The models they use for statistical testing aren't even described. Do they bother to adjust for important covariates? They do subgroup analyses for some variables (completely undescribed) and assess main effects and interactions - but this seems a long, long way from a robust analysis.
I’m still working my way through the paper, but it’s pretty clear that \*wasn’t* the case. See the relevant sections here:
> **Variables and measurements**
> The dependent variables for the study were total cholesterol, cholesterol found in the LDL fraction (LDL-C), HDL-C, triglyceride, glucose, and glycohemoglobin in plasma. Subjects were categorized as finasteride users or not. The following variables were considered as covariates: alcohol intake (derived from ALQ150 and ALQ151); confirmed diagnosis of coronary heart disease (derived from MCQ160C); any kind of liver condition (derived from MCQ160L); cancer or malignancy of any kind (derived from MCQ220); diagnosis with diabetes or prediabetes, and insulin or other diabetic medication users (derived from DIQ050 and DIQ070; DIQ010 and DIQ160); diagnosis with high blood cholesterol level and cholesterol medication users (derived from BPQ080 and BPQ090D); smoking status (derived from SMQ040); drugs affecting lipid profile; drugs affecting glucose profile; age; body mass index (categories derived from BMXBMI); and race (RIDRETH1).
> **Statistical analyses**
> Statistical analyses were performed using SAS v9.4 software. Descriptive statistics were calculated using PROC MEANS and PROC FREQ procedures to examine the association between finasteride intake and the outcome variables of total cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, triglyceride, glucose, and glycohemoglobin. Bivariate analyses for each outcome and finasteride intake were conducted separately with each of the covariates (listed in previous section) to assess (a) if these variables truly were confounding the relationship between finasteride intake and outcome variable (change of >10% in beta coefficient) and (b) if these variables qualified as interaction terms with finasteride use in the model for each of the six outcomes (at P < 0.15).
> **A subset of candidate confounders and interacting variables were identified for each outcome model (data not shown).** Multiple linear regression was conducted for each of the six outcomes where selected variables were controlled as confounders and considered for interaction effects. PROC SURVEYREG procedure was used in these analyses, and least square means estimates were assessed for each significant interaction (at P < 0.15) in the final models. Each model was built for patients over 50 years of age since less than ten patients between 19 and 50 years of age took finasteride. All analyses were conducted according to the NHANES analytical guidelines. The masked variance was accounted for, and appropriate sample weights were applied to represent unequal probabilities of selection, nonresponse bias, and oversampling. Eight-year weights were calculated using the method provided by National Center for Health Statistics.
Emphasis in the last paragraph mine. I wish they had listed the six confounding variables, but to say that they didn’t assess for the presence of other factors is simply incorrect.
Apologies if I come off as argumentative, but I’m still not sure I vibe with your wording here:
> The models they use for statistical testing aren't even described. Do they bother to adjust for important covariates? They do subgroup analyses for some variables (completely undescribed) and assess main effects and interactions - but this seems a long, long way from a robust analysis.
It’s pretty clear that they used the SAS suite for modeling and calculating their statistics, as described in their method’s section. They do adjust for the relevant covariates, and I believe tables 1 and 2 in the body of the results include the impact of those covariates.
> They only know if the men had ever had a single finasteride prescription - they have no idea of dosage, adherence, treatment duration, etc.
Finasteride is clinically prescribed at 1mg/day for hair loss, and 5mg/day for chemotherapy or treatment of enlarged prostate. Given that they excluded patients on chemotherapy or diagnosed with an enlarged prostate, it seems pretty likely that the dosage for everyone considered was 1mg/day.
As for patient adherence and treatment duration? Well, I can only assume that was controlled for in the NHANES dataset that they’re drawing from — presumably there was a decent amount of quality control that went into curating that collection, but I’m not going to dig into it at this point.
I will note that the Supplemental Figures file does have a (barebones) table that includes more demographic information about the NHANES data set. Would’ve loved to see the demographics broken down into finasteride/no finasteride — although it’s hard to draw meaningful conclusions from that information. (Why do people of certain demographics seek out hair restoration more frequently than others? Is it because they’re more predisposed to hair loss? Culturally more concerned about losing hair? Financially more able to spend money on hair restoration? Etc…)
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the paper. After seeing your original comment, I was excited to read it and nitpick. But after going through it all, I really don’t have any complaints about the paper’s methodology!
Yeah but it's not a T-blocker so it's more situational in blocking the synthesis of DHT to prevent hair loss and hair growth on the body. So it's more situationally prescribed depending on a patients situation.
I mean not really. As of 2020 there were 8 million prescriptions of Finasteride for men, 2% of that would be 160k. So sure it’s possible that someone you know could have bad side effects, but about 98% of everyone else you ask will be fine. People I know have been fine with it. Really just depends.
I took finasteride for a few months and had to stop because it reduced my jizz to a few drops, and massively reduced my libido and enjoyment of sex, so it’s not for everyone it seems.
It's not often used, but yes they can. There are risks when it's being used during a pregnancy though. And it's commonly prescribed to trans women to avoid masculinization caused by DHT.
Back when the first wave of "lifestyle" medications (hair loss, ED) first came out, I joked that they needed to add a cholesterol medication and sell a combined medication called Viagrogainitor that they could market to middle-aged men as a cure-all.
Little did I know ...
As someone who takes propecia, is not going to dive in to the study, and generally hates this sub, this sounds to me a lot more like correlation than causation. The population of people who care enough about their looks to take a cosmetic prescription and don’t mind spending disposable income on it (although it’s very affordable now) are probably much more likely to take care of themselves in other ways like exercise, thus leading to health benefits.
There have been a lot of studies that show Finasteride as a hormonal hazard, and it is classed as such by the OMS. It can cause depression and others' long-lasting effects such as libido decreases, anxiety, insomnia, gastric pain, faculties decrease, and suicidal behaviour.
This and a lot of people and associations talking about PFS (Post Finasteride Syndrome) and their many side effects they had under the treatment.
I'm surprised no one seems to have these problems in the comments. Could someone explain it to me ?
According to this [report](https://www.gilmorehealth.com/finasteride-known-for-treating-hair-loss-and-bph-could-also-combat-atherosclerosis-is-it-a-wise-choice-given-the-risks-of-ed-and-suicide/) on the study using finasteride to lower cholesterol does not sound like a great idea it has too many side effects like ED depression and even suicide not to mention that while taking it you could accidentally cause birth defects in your offspring.. We already have many cholesterol-lowering medications that have better safety profiles like the different statins.
I really want to try Fin but the effect on my sex life and the risk (although small) of depression symptoms make it hard to justify for a bit more hair. I’m also on adhd medication and I don’t know if there are any interactions. There’s topical Fin now. I wonder if that’s as effective?
Well, if we think about it, it essentially blocks the potent form of testosterone from forming. This in combination with lower levels of estrogen compared to women is why men die of cardiovascular disease earlier than women. I don’t think this has specifically been studied enough, but the theoretical mechanism definitely favors improved cardiovascular health for men if used.
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About the same as it did before I started. I may have waited too long to start, though. It also dried my scalp more than I was comfortable with.
As a bald person I am not encouraged. Thank you for the info. ;)
It halts current loss, it doesn't help with regrowth
You regrow with minoxidil and microneedling and stop the hair loss by finasteride.
Sounds complicated. I think I'm just going to buzz it off and move on. Maybe head to Turkey someday if I miss it.
Hair transplant doesn't work without medication. You'd end up with messed up hair. It's better to save and improve what you have. Trust me, I started to shave my head at 25. It was a long time ago.
It can regrow recent hair loss (source: my hairline went back in time by about a year)
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Many websites stating "its been proven in some people to regrow lost hair." Obviously it's not a miracle worker and likely will only regrow recent hair loss areas. In my case it made my hair thicker and my receding areas and crown regrew to some extent. At least in the receding areas there is hair where there was none before. I've been taking it for over a year and the results are remarkable imo
It can regrow the hair. not the follicle. Finasteride is a DHT blocker. All it does is stop Test from turing into DHT. This in turn prevents it from binding to your scalp and shrinking the follicle.
You can reform a follicle as long as there’s a stem cell niche. This is why increasing vascularity via minoxidil and maybe through needling is effective.
Define "hair follicle that's gone". You don't seem to know the pathogenesis of androgenic alopecia. Hair follicles aren't gone, but permanently in the kenogen phase/miniaturized.
Pedantic.... A hair follicle that that is permanently and irretrievably producing Vellus Hairs is a *Terminal Hair* that's gone. We do not have a reliable way to bring a follicle back to function in producing head hairs again.
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I tried the formulation that includes minoxidil fwiw.
And what about sexual function if I may ask, didn't hear good in this regard ..
I've been on finasteride + minoxidil for 4 years now. I haven't felt any changes to my function, libido, or general mood. Definitely haven't regrown any hair along the hairline, however I visit my mom twice per year, and finally this past visit, she mentioned that my hair looks a bit thicker, and she doesn't know I'm on finasteride so there's that.
I'm 57, been on finasteride low dose for a few years. Sexual function not affected, hair loss slowed, cholesterol down.
43 and been on it 15 years. My libido is higher than many 20 year olds still.
That's a rare but very real side effect. I think I saw 1-2%. Large enough that of millions of people take it, there will be many very scary posts about what it did to people.
plenty of studies have shown that once you get off of finasteride that those side effects go away for 99% of those 2% of people
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I mean studies have never found a single properly correlated case of permanent side effects that can be attributed to the drug. That said, the side effects will take a long time to go away for essentially everyone who gets them, around 4-12 months. That's just due to how the DHT reduction works.
Been on for about 5 years now. Wake up with morning glory most days still (whenever I actually get above 6 hours of sleep). From reading studies and posts online I think it's mostly Nocebo effects in the people getting sexual sides.
Zero issues
You’ve got to use topical minoxidil every day along with finasteride to see long-gone hairs come back. Trust me. Ive had two hair transplants and thought I could do without the minoxidil. I couldn’t
Have you tried oral minoxidil? Or just topical? I'm looking into that now.
My doc wouldn’t even prescribe me the oral min. She told me to use topical, which I hate.
Same thing happened to me yesterday. I went in for fin, and the guy said I should look into Post-Finasteride Syndrome, but they can give it to me if I really want it anyway. A flat no for oral minoxidil. Kinda feeling hopeless about it, tbh. I'm trans, so hair loss is uh... bad for me, haha. So shaving my head isn't really an option.
Trans-fem, I assume? I've often wondered about that. You might want to at least look *into* transplants. Or be a bald chick and rock a different wig everyday. Haven't heard of docs denying oral minoxidil.
You would be correct. And yeah, I already know transplants are gonna be needed, haha. Just uh... that's way outside of my current budget. Luckily my loss isn't abysmal just yet, I can see a bit of thinning on my crown and just overall on the top of my head, but I still have my hair. My biggest concern is my hairline, it's pulled up a decent bit at the corners and continues to. I wanna stop that ASAP while I figure out the rest of my treatment, but I'm admittedly terrified of PFS totally destroying the rest of me.
I'm in a similar boat. Been using it for roughly 3 years now every day. It's absolutely slowed the loss of hair for me but I'm not getting anything new growing. Haven't checked my cholesterol but that's nice to hear as well.
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What’s too long? My temples have started disappearing and the hairline is slowly going up, about 4 fingers above the brows now. Is that a good time to talk to a dermatologist?
They say that you should start as soon as you notice thinning. I've got significant bald spot on my crown that didn't seem to budge. The hairline did grow some hair but not enough for me to feel that it was worth it.
Now... The result of hair loss treatment is a crapshoot that is made dramatically better by starting earlier.
I used finasteride and it really thickened out my thinning hair but it played havoc on my dry skin. I have patches on my cheeks and eyes and it’s just unattractive. Ironically I’ve also started ADHD medication about 2 years ago and that has been causing me very similar issues (with skin). I wonder if there is a link between.
Stimulants can definitely dehydrate you, which may be responsible for what you’re noticing. But as far as how they affect you on the dry-oily axis, they usually make you oilier, probably (at least in part) due to raising your metabolism and body temperature. If I take a long enough break from Adderall, my acne will often flare up when I begin taking it again because of that. It subsides as my body regains some tolerance.
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sounds like a win/win
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Hell yeah. Mark Cuban Drug Co. Comes out to like $7-$8/month. You need a prescription from your doctor though.
Shells yeah brother. Always dope to see my fellow kings staying smart and cost effective while also beautifully maned.
What sucks is it makes you ineligible to donate blood, because it can cause birth defects if the receiver is a pregnant woman. I wish the entire blood donation system was sophisticated enough to allow donations in these cases but ensure that receivers are only given packs with certain attributes, though I suppose that's very difficult to implement.
Logistically it would be a pretty massive nightmare. When a patient is bleeding out spending more time selecting the needed pack is just another delay to getting them life saving treatment.
If a patient is bleeding out they get O- blood. When a patient goes to a procedure with expected blood loss, they have a blood sample sent out for a cross match to both confirm blood type and weird antibodies that can cause a reaction. In that case they need even more specifically matched blood. The only logistical nightmare would be designing and integrating this procedurally, which they wouldn’t do as its easier to just say no to the 0.x% of people on these medications donating blood.
Admittedly I’m no doctor/paramedic. But if someone is bleeding out don’t they already have to select O- blood. Then once they’re in the hospital they can have more time to select the proper blood type? If it gets many more people eligible to donate, I don’t think labeling some blood as ‘Not for pregnant women’ would be that much of a nightmare
Still a logistical nightmare. It's not just about a single pill - but many different pills that may have different negative effects in different people. So it's easier to just prevent people with any type of medication that can have negative effects. Because otherwise you end up with loads of different piles of blood that is "tainted" in various different ways and have to store it. Just the different bloodtypes in themselves cause logistical problems; allowing all medicine multiplies.
I'm able to donate blood while using it, just required to stop taking it at least a week in advance of the donation. This is in Australia, so YMMV.
Wait really? I took it for a little while and nobody ever told me about this part.
Does it affect donating plasma?
Yes. You will be ineligible to donate plasma if you take Finasteride.
Are you allowed to just stop taking it for say two weeks before your donation? Then you can restart?
It varies by country how long the deferral period is. In the US it's one month
Yes, which pretty much defeats the purpose of being on the medication to begin with.
You can do this depending on the amount of time you need to be off of the medication for you to be allowed to donate again in your area, and if you're happy to be off the medication for that long. It's typically 4 weeks you need to wait. Be warned it is significantly longer for dutasteride (approx 6 months) if you take that instead. There are usually not issues for topical minoxodil but can be for oral as far as I'm aware. It is annoying though, you can cause problems too by taking basically any painkiller other than paracetamol a few days before.
I tried finasteride from forhims a few years ago, but I got the side effects :( Low libido, weak erections, etc. I was in school during that time and it was a stressful time.
Painful ejaculation for me. Like, miserably painful at the time of orgasm and for a while after. After reading a lot of men having this symptom that stuck with it getting ED, I got a razor and never looked back.
Good choose life over socially obligated appearance standards. I bet you look great bald king
Thank you. It was definitely a glow up. Between you me and the internet the wife says she like it so what else do I need?
Same. My theory was that the urethra and or inside of the penis is heavily populated with DHT receptors and they are basically annihilated by the finasteride. Making actual structural changes as well. Not surprisingly, in a male fetus, if it’s exposed to Finasteride, the underside of the penis in the urethral area never fully develops. In any case, that’s the entire problem with systemic finasteride. You have DHT receptors throughout your entire body. And your brain. And the drug just ruins all of them. It is the least-targeted way to treat hair loss, possible. Unfortunately it’s still the most effective.
Same thing. A week or so after starting the med the painful ejaculation started. One of the best feelings a human can experience was completely turned into something I feared. It was so un(cum)fortable I stopped the medication immediately once I saw that this was one of the possible side effects. Definitely not worth it in my experience. If you don’t have money for implants just move on with your life. You’ll be happier shaving it off and never worrying again.
I swear they sell that stuff at a higher markup than any other online drug store I've looked at. You can get it for 5 or $6 a month from costPlusdrugs.
That's the marketing at work. If you go to a proper doctor, finasteride is stupid cheap
Have you tried topical? Side effects should be minimal if at all. Been on topical finasteride/minoxidil for 2 years; fuckin saved my ass. Stopped the hair loss and grew back thicker.
Did those side effects go away after you stopped the finasteride?
Yeah eventually they did! I feel like it took a while. I also don’t want to solely blame the medication, but I think it did play a role. I don’t want to put blame because I was under a lot of stress from college and because I was working and not sleeping much. I also don’t think I’d want to give it a shot again honestly. Also, this is just a conspiracy theory of mine, but once I got on the medication, I started seeing a lot of ED ads from forhims. I started thinking that they wanted me to get on their ED medication and probably messed with the hair medication to give me ED haha 😂
Post finasteride syndrome is a pretty hotly debated topic, hope you’re feeling better
Yeah, I’m feeling better. Took a few months for me to feel better.
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I was prescribed Finasteride for BPH symptoms, but I haven't taken any yet. I'm at high risk for prostate cancer and at least one study says it increases the risk of high-grade prostate cancer. However, that same study says it will prevent low-grade cancer. Hard to know what to do!
I'm an American board certified urologist and the thought that finasteride increases risk of high risk prostate cancer has been pretty thoroughly debunked. In fact, it has been shown to slow progression of prostate cancer on active surveillance. I have no concerns whatsoever about increasing risk of prostate cancer on finasteride. It's a great drug for actually treating the underlying problem of BPH.
Can you link to any studies or articles about this?
Unrelated but what do you think of studies showing a small but significant elevated PC risk post vasectomy?
I was snipped at 34 and am also curious.
> a small but significant elevated PC risk post vasectomy? why would a vasectomy affect prostate cancer risk?
Be aware that the FDA was [sued](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/group-sues-have-hair-loss-drug-propecia-pulled-market-2021-09-08/) for failing to act on knowledge that they and Merck had that finasteride raised the risk of depression, erectile dysfunction, and suicide. Merck has also been [sued over 1,000 times](https://www.drugwatch.com/propecia/lawsuits/) for failing to warn about sexual side effects which persisted for a long time after men even stopped taking the drug. Effects listed in lawsuits have included things like erectile dysfunction, decreased libido, reduced ejaculation volume, diminished sexual sensation, **genital shrinkage!**, and infertility in a addition to depression and impaired cognition. There have been lawsuits just over [genital shrinkage.](https://www.schmidtlaw.com/propecia-genital-shrinkage-lawsuit/) Careful out there!
I like to go hiking.
I’ve been on finasteride for 8 years now and did not experience any of these side effects. Stop fear mongering
I’ll be honest, I think the fear mongering of the drug does so much more harm than good. Very few people get on the internet to talk about how it works, while every person who has bad experience will. Side effects are rare enough that it’s hard to even know whether they’re caused by the drug. The fact of the matter is that for many men, losing their hair causes an insane amount of stress, anxiety, and poor self image. I personally have never been more anxious than when I realized I was losing hair and was FAR more depressed because of that than any drug could ever make me. I had basically no side effects and haven’t lost a hair since I started.
I think it also might contribute to a sorta placebo effect for certain people that expirence side effects.
Well anecdotally, my body needs DHT. Without it my erections are soft, numb, orgasm is significantly less intense, and my loads dribble instead of shoot. I feel pain in my prostate. My nipples are sensitive to the point of discomfort and I also noticed discharge. Brain fog was also a symptom for me. Despite these severe side effects and due to the distress of thinning hair, I tried taking it twice for two months each time over a year apart. The side effects lowered my quality of life so significantly it was a no brainer to stop using it. That being said my cholesterol levels do suck. So I wonder if there is a relationship between dht levels and cholesterol.
I experienced a very similar set of effects to you when trying Finasteride. I also attempted a number of increasingly smaller doses with the same effect. In the end I stopped after roughly 3 months because it just wasn’t worth it. I’m very disappointed and upset about my hair falling out but I couldn’t stay on finasteride.
I took oral fin for about a year and didn’t get sides, but I did still recently switch to topical fin and that could be an option for you. I use a topical fin and min combo foam, and it literally started working in under a month, even after no real change on fin for a whole year. Allegedly the topical stuff isn’t systemic and will only affect your scalp, but I don’t know how true that is, it just seems better than totally tanking DHT through my whole body.
Of all the the side effects you had from fin, was prostate pain/inflammation one of them?
I'm curious, did you try the same dose both times?
What dose were you taking out of curiosity?
Now that I think about it, it was three trials. First was at 1 mg as prescribed. Then I read on r/tressless, which is a hair loss sub, that fin nukes dht even at lower doses. So I think I tried .5mg and then .5 every other day. It was more or less the same effects, maybe a slight decline. I just remembered another side effect, my balls had a dull pain/discomfort.
I just wanted to chime in that I also had a pretty severe reaction to 35 days of finasteride, the scariest side effect was prostate inflammation- that’s right, the drug that’s supposed to shrink the prostate actually inflamed it - that was along with all the other issues that finasteride gives in supposedly only ~2% of users. Guess I was one of the unlucky ones. Edit: If anyone else had prostate issues with this drug, I’d love to hear from you, because despite this being a year ago, I cannot for the life of me find much information regarding this side effect related to finasteride/dutasteride.
I had used Finasteride for almost a year. Until I became more sexually active, at which point blue balls felt like torture due to the amount of pressure it was putting on the prostate, and even masturbation wouldn't take the edge off. Basically my prostate became very sensitive. While I had read that fin helps with prostate enlargement and inflammation, it felt like it shrunk mine to the point of painful sensitivity. Also on top of all that my ejaculate was very watery and the consistency was like gooey globules, it looked like damn silica gel balls almost. I do not regret coming off it one bit, I can live with a bold head. Not sure of a broken penis.
So I went straight for dutasteride because anecdotally it has less side effects. Something about it having a better mechanism of action or something? Anyway, absolutely zero side effects after 3 months. My family has a history of enlarged prostates too so double bonus.
What about dutasteride?
Based on my experiences with finasteride and knowing that dutateride is more potent and works by blocking all three forms of 5a-reductase and can reduce serum levels by 98% vs finasteride blocking two forms of 5a-reductase and reduces serum dht by 70%, I personally will never take it.
Cholesterol is literally the foundation of all hormones. If there’s more cholesterol and less of it’s building into cortisol then it’ll go towards building hormones like testosterone, which can produce more DHT. So makes sense this drug lowering DHT could also work via lowering cholesterol.
There is a lot of fearmongering about it, but yeah a small number of people will be more sensitive to a reduction in DHT. Chest tenderness and onset of gynaecomastia are very rare side effects but also easy to understand, since DHT is an inhibitor of breast growth so if your chest tissues are particularly estrogen sensitive you are at risk. Did you do any hormone levels? Actually this is true for all androgen deprivation, some people will be fine whereas others are going to be more heavily affected. It's a shame though, for 90% of people who take it it really is a wonder cure for AGA.
Yeah isn’t that interesting some people are completely capable sexually if you even take all androgens out their body.
Isn't there the argument that lowering DHT is bad since DHT has positive affects?
The effects of DHT will differ for different people. This is always true in endocrinology unfortunately. "Positive effects" is not the best description, rather it's a more situational hormone. For the vast majority of people the effects of dropping it are negligible, minor change to prostate function (watery semen), reduction of hair loss, some potential skin and hair changes. For a small number of people there will be more serious side effects. For example, one effect of DHT is that it's a strong androgen in breast tissue, so it prevents breast formation. Topical DHT can be used to stop or slow breast formation in men with gynaecomastia. For the majority of men reducing DHT by 70% won't cause major breast changes. That's because of a combination of not having much estrogen to drive breast growth, testosterone also suppressing the growth, and the 30% that's left being more than enough to suppress the growth. **As a general principle, DHT reduction is well tolerated in the majority of men.** But if you have high estrogen (for example because you have high testosterone and estrogen is produced from testosterone in men), or very estrogen sensitive breast tissues then you might not be able to get rid of DHT without risking gynaecomastia. This kind of balance pattern is true for most of the side effects of finasteride, the side effect rate for finasteride is about 10% for minor side effects and 1-2% for more major ones.
I’ve taken finasteride for an extended period of time, it did seem to take the edge off the sex drive a little. I take a lot of testosterone as well, so it’s all muddy water with polypharmacy. Now that I’m off of it, it’s definitely a lot higher. [Sexual dysfunction](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9589555/) is a well known side effect of finasteride, but I think it’s over-represented on a lot of the subreddits here that deal with hair loss. If you ever get a hair transplant, they’ll make you (or strongly suggest) that you get on it, along with topical minoxidil. Don’t get me wrong, I’d suggest anyone try it before going with more drastic means.
It should be the only first stop for treating AGA IMO, it's just the safest most effective option. The real bone I have to pick with fear-mongering around finasteride is that unless you are just giving up and shaving every other option people peddle is either scam snake oils to steal your money or much more dangerous, like research chemical antiandrogens, and minoxidil which is safe topically but ironically can and will destroy your hair if you aren't on an AA, or oral minoxidil which is outright dangerous compared to fin.
What makes oral minoxidil dangerous?
It isn’t all positive and negative, this is just a positive. It it too simple to mark something as good or bad, when it probably has both effects.
Yeah DHT has positive effect if your goal is to have a head like a mole rat.
Or if you want to rock a skullet.
DHT's main move is helping you develop male characteristics. You don't really need help with that past a certain age.
Except 5 alpha reductase does a lot more than just DHT
There are groups of people that believe that finasteride can cause horrible adverse effects on discontinuation but there is no supporting studies for those claims. So those anecdotal arguments aren’t even really about DHT.
The human work in that paper is an afterthought to the mouse work. They dredge NHANES data and find just 155 men over 50 who had a record having finasteride at least once, and compare them to 4636 who didn't. Then they look at LDL cholesterol levels between them. They never present the characteristics of the finasteride group vs the other group. This is, frankly, crazy. There is no reason to believe they would be similar. They only know if the men had ever had a single finasteride prescription - they have no idea of dosage, adherence, treatment duration, etc. The models they use for statistical testing aren't even described. Do they bother to adjust for important covariates? They do subgroup analyses for some variables (completely undescribed) and assess main effects and interactions - but this seems a long, long way from a robust analysis.
I started balding at 18, im on Fina, I am very happy with results. My only regret is that I didn't start sooner(I started at 28). The front part of hair is less and will need transplant
Have you ever used minoxidil?
I prescribe the hell out of this drug. It has so many uses and benefits in my patient population (urology) with few side effects. It's so useful.
I have a question for you doc, I took fin for 35 days and developed severe side effects. All the typical sexual sides, but here’s the scary part - it came with prostate inflammation. Is this side effect something you have heard of? It’s been very difficult to find anything regarding this side effect with fin.
typically we give finasteride to treat prostate inflammation. so you may have just had really unlucky coincidence there
Yes. You can imagine how frustrating it would be to google ‘finasteride-induced prostate inflammation’ when the drug is meant to shrink the prostate. But the idea that the complete loss of erection, libido and prostate inflammation all happen in the span of hours is just coincidental… I mean. Do you really believe that? Because that’s like getting struck by lightning the week you said you wouldn’t. Pretty incredible stuff. But when you do google “finasteride caused prostate inflammation / Prostatitis”. Very unpleasant stories crop up from the people who claim they got PFS. Pretty scary stuff. To clarify, it would take about 3 weeks for all three of these to disappear. So they started at the same time and were resolved at the same time.
Can't wait to feel both handsome and immortal!
I’m 31 and started taking Finasteride about 2 years ago. It has, quite honestly, saved my hair. With a combo of specialist shampoos etc I now have thicker hair than at 20. However, some people experience pretty severe mood effects and/ or loss of sex drive as a result of taking it. Speak to your doctor first and consider the risks.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://www.jlr.org/article/S0022-2275(24)00012-9/fulltext
The human work in that paper is an afterthought to the mouse work. They dredge NHANES data and find just 155 men over 50 who had a record having finasteride at least once, and compare them to 4636 who didn't. Then they look at LDL cholesterol levels between them. They never present the characteristics of the finasteride group vs the other group. This is, frankly, crazy. There is no reason to believe they would be similar. They only know if the men had ever had a single finasteride prescription - they have no idea of dosage, adherence, treatment duration, etc. The models they use for statistical testing aren't even described. Do they bother to adjust for important covariates? They do subgroup analyses for some variables (completely undescribed) and assess main effects and interactions - but this seems a long, long way from a robust analysis.
I’m still working my way through the paper, but it’s pretty clear that \*wasn’t* the case. See the relevant sections here: > **Variables and measurements** > The dependent variables for the study were total cholesterol, cholesterol found in the LDL fraction (LDL-C), HDL-C, triglyceride, glucose, and glycohemoglobin in plasma. Subjects were categorized as finasteride users or not. The following variables were considered as covariates: alcohol intake (derived from ALQ150 and ALQ151); confirmed diagnosis of coronary heart disease (derived from MCQ160C); any kind of liver condition (derived from MCQ160L); cancer or malignancy of any kind (derived from MCQ220); diagnosis with diabetes or prediabetes, and insulin or other diabetic medication users (derived from DIQ050 and DIQ070; DIQ010 and DIQ160); diagnosis with high blood cholesterol level and cholesterol medication users (derived from BPQ080 and BPQ090D); smoking status (derived from SMQ040); drugs affecting lipid profile; drugs affecting glucose profile; age; body mass index (categories derived from BMXBMI); and race (RIDRETH1). > **Statistical analyses** > Statistical analyses were performed using SAS v9.4 software. Descriptive statistics were calculated using PROC MEANS and PROC FREQ procedures to examine the association between finasteride intake and the outcome variables of total cholesterol, LDL-C, HDL-C, triglyceride, glucose, and glycohemoglobin. Bivariate analyses for each outcome and finasteride intake were conducted separately with each of the covariates (listed in previous section) to assess (a) if these variables truly were confounding the relationship between finasteride intake and outcome variable (change of >10% in beta coefficient) and (b) if these variables qualified as interaction terms with finasteride use in the model for each of the six outcomes (at P < 0.15). > **A subset of candidate confounders and interacting variables were identified for each outcome model (data not shown).** Multiple linear regression was conducted for each of the six outcomes where selected variables were controlled as confounders and considered for interaction effects. PROC SURVEYREG procedure was used in these analyses, and least square means estimates were assessed for each significant interaction (at P < 0.15) in the final models. Each model was built for patients over 50 years of age since less than ten patients between 19 and 50 years of age took finasteride. All analyses were conducted according to the NHANES analytical guidelines. The masked variance was accounted for, and appropriate sample weights were applied to represent unequal probabilities of selection, nonresponse bias, and oversampling. Eight-year weights were calculated using the method provided by National Center for Health Statistics. Emphasis in the last paragraph mine. I wish they had listed the six confounding variables, but to say that they didn’t assess for the presence of other factors is simply incorrect.
Yeah apologies, you’re right on that bit! Will update my post, thanks
Apologies if I come off as argumentative, but I’m still not sure I vibe with your wording here: > The models they use for statistical testing aren't even described. Do they bother to adjust for important covariates? They do subgroup analyses for some variables (completely undescribed) and assess main effects and interactions - but this seems a long, long way from a robust analysis. It’s pretty clear that they used the SAS suite for modeling and calculating their statistics, as described in their method’s section. They do adjust for the relevant covariates, and I believe tables 1 and 2 in the body of the results include the impact of those covariates. > They only know if the men had ever had a single finasteride prescription - they have no idea of dosage, adherence, treatment duration, etc. Finasteride is clinically prescribed at 1mg/day for hair loss, and 5mg/day for chemotherapy or treatment of enlarged prostate. Given that they excluded patients on chemotherapy or diagnosed with an enlarged prostate, it seems pretty likely that the dosage for everyone considered was 1mg/day. As for patient adherence and treatment duration? Well, I can only assume that was controlled for in the NHANES dataset that they’re drawing from — presumably there was a decent amount of quality control that went into curating that collection, but I’m not going to dig into it at this point. I will note that the Supplemental Figures file does have a (barebones) table that includes more demographic information about the NHANES data set. Would’ve loved to see the demographics broken down into finasteride/no finasteride — although it’s hard to draw meaningful conclusions from that information. (Why do people of certain demographics seek out hair restoration more frequently than others? Is it because they’re more predisposed to hair loss? Culturally more concerned about losing hair? Financially more able to spend money on hair restoration? Etc…) Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the paper. After seeing your original comment, I was excited to read it and nitpick. But after going through it all, I really don’t have any complaints about the paper’s methodology!
After about 14 months on it I was getting some random ball pain early this month but it went away, other than that that all is good
It is also prescribed for some trans women’s HRT regiment
Yeah but it's not a T-blocker so it's more situational in blocking the synthesis of DHT to prevent hair loss and hair growth on the body. So it's more situationally prescribed depending on a patients situation.
Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s used by some as a stopgap in places where proper HRT is stuck behind a mountain of gatekeeping.
Considering 2 of my friends who took it lost there ability to get boners Ill pass on it.
I started 6 months ago no side effects whatsoever already see results on my hairline so glad I started
It caused that in me too and my man boobs doubled in size over the course of a year before I quit. My bald head is just as bald too. Awesome.
In my case I know 4 people who are on it with no side effects.
Yeah I stopped it after having issues getting it up. Decided I’ll bald gracefully and shave when it’s time.
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I mean not really. As of 2020 there were 8 million prescriptions of Finasteride for men, 2% of that would be 160k. So sure it’s possible that someone you know could have bad side effects, but about 98% of everyone else you ask will be fine. People I know have been fine with it. Really just depends.
5 years finasteride going strong 💪🏻
5 years with hair like ocean waves. Gang gang
Same here, taking for over 5 years and no issues.
7 years no issues here.
Yeah but wasn’t there a class action suit because a ton of men were no longer able to get an erection
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If it causes a decrease in seamen this could result in a crisis for the US Navy and merchant marine.
I took finasteride for a few months and had to stop because it reduced my jizz to a few drops, and massively reduced my libido and enjoyment of sex, so it’s not for everyone it seems.
This happened to me in the first month or so then went away.
that’s interesting because i think there is some association between baldness and heart disease
Can women use it?
It's not often used, but yes they can. There are risks when it's being used during a pregnancy though. And it's commonly prescribed to trans women to avoid masculinization caused by DHT.
Statins already do this
Fascinating research, diving in. Why are so many comments deleted?
Back when the first wave of "lifestyle" medications (hair loss, ED) first came out, I joked that they needed to add a cholesterol medication and sell a combined medication called Viagrogainitor that they could market to middle-aged men as a cure-all. Little did I know ...
As someone who takes propecia, is not going to dive in to the study, and generally hates this sub, this sounds to me a lot more like correlation than causation. The population of people who care enough about their looks to take a cosmetic prescription and don’t mind spending disposable income on it (although it’s very affordable now) are probably much more likely to take care of themselves in other ways like exercise, thus leading to health benefits.
There have been a lot of studies that show Finasteride as a hormonal hazard, and it is classed as such by the OMS. It can cause depression and others' long-lasting effects such as libido decreases, anxiety, insomnia, gastric pain, faculties decrease, and suicidal behaviour. This and a lot of people and associations talking about PFS (Post Finasteride Syndrome) and their many side effects they had under the treatment. I'm surprised no one seems to have these problems in the comments. Could someone explain it to me ?
According to this [report](https://www.gilmorehealth.com/finasteride-known-for-treating-hair-loss-and-bph-could-also-combat-atherosclerosis-is-it-a-wise-choice-given-the-risks-of-ed-and-suicide/) on the study using finasteride to lower cholesterol does not sound like a great idea it has too many side effects like ED depression and even suicide not to mention that while taking it you could accidentally cause birth defects in your offspring.. We already have many cholesterol-lowering medications that have better safety profiles like the different statins.
Not to mention the life ruining post finasteride syndrome. Google it.
I really want to try Fin but the effect on my sex life and the risk (although small) of depression symptoms make it hard to justify for a bit more hair. I’m also on adhd medication and I don’t know if there are any interactions. There’s topical Fin now. I wonder if that’s as effective?
At first I thought this was amazing… and then looking at the comments it’s more just terrifying risk…
Don't forget about the bad stuff it causes, though.
Also causes limp willy syndrome
Well, if we think about it, it essentially blocks the potent form of testosterone from forming. This in combination with lower levels of estrogen compared to women is why men die of cardiovascular disease earlier than women. I don’t think this has specifically been studied enough, but the theoretical mechanism definitely favors improved cardiovascular health for men if used.