Torip

I am switching from Propecia to Proscar. I was wondering what is the best place to buy branded Proscar. Walmart quoted $180 where as CVS and Costco quoted $150. Is there any online drug store that sells branded Proscar for lesser price? I will have to pay for this out of my pocket.

I was using Propecia for nearly 6 months with good results. Recently I moved back to India and switched to Finpecia by Cipla. I know a lot of people used Finpecia with good results. But I am getting the side effect of brain fog which was not there at all with Propeica. I would like to switch back to Propecia or Proscar but I do not know who to get them here in India. Apparently Merck does not market them in India. Could someone please suggest me a way to get Propecia in India? The only means I can think of is to have someone in the US buy them for me and ship them to India. If someone had any experience getting Propecia in countries other than the US please share your experience. Thank you.

JohnnyDrama, I understand the rationale of this community in taking Dr. Nigam seriously. Anyone who is trying to come up with a new solution for hair loss should be encouraged. But that should not result in this community giving any credibility to his unverified claims. The main problems for me in trusting Dr. Nigam are 1) He is not a cell biologist or sth..He is a doctor. I do not see any of his credentials that convince me he can come up with a solution that highly involves cell biology. 2) As a general rule of thumb honesty level in Indians is considerably below that of westerners. It is usual in India that you cannot trust someone just based on his words. Indians fake a lot of things, for example many IT consultancy companies in the US. In my opinion he belongs to this category who is just faking it. 3) Why is he spending time on this forum, trying to convince us? Instead if he indeed has a solution he could make billions by patenting it and selling the technique. This aspect seems fishy to me.

In India surgeons who can do high quality hair transplants are rare. There are a lot of phonies who claim themselves to be the best with pretentious titles, awards and professional associations. In fact almost all of the doctors who are members of Association of Hair Restoration Surgeons of India are far below in quality compared to the other surgeons worldwide. Many of them do mini grafts with wide spacing between grafts but claim to be doing follicular unit HT. From the list other than Dr. Radha and Dr. Bhatti I do not see anyone being capable of doing a HT that you would not regret. Dr. A in Delhi seems to be doing high quality HTs. Instead of India one can choose Dr. Pathomvanich in Bangkok. Bangkok is not far and the doctor is not too expensive. 1) Vivek Nigam: In my opinion he is not a doctor to choose for HTs. I have not seen any good HT results from him. He can only be considered as a doctor who is claiming to be doing hair multiplication (no one has seen it other than his claims). 2) Venkataram Mysore: I think he falls far below in quality and skill compared to someone like Hasson and Wong or Rahal. Seems to be doing a lot of publicity stunts but no proven results. 3) Ashok Vardhan Reddy: Stay away from him by all means. I had my HT from him. He lied to me completely and did mini grafts which depresses me everyday. 3) Puli Ravinder Reddy: Performs HT over entire scalp with wide spacing between grafts. This is not a good way to do HTs. Besides, I cannot say the work is very refined. 4) Rajesh Rajput: Tall claims and poor quality of work. I have not seen good results from him at all. I do not have much knowledge of other doctors.

His results look real to me. But not quite sure whether he is promoting Scalpmed products. May be he just responded well to Fin and minoxidil.

I tried using Dr. Reddy's Finasteride about 3 years ago. But could not tolerate it at all due severe side effects, mainly brainfog. But recently I started using Propecia and no side effects at all. I lost a lot of hair over the past 3 years and I blame it on Dr. Reddy's poor quality medicines. Though it is a reputed company in India, I doubt its quality standards.

baldtoo, Being in your 20s I do not think you should worry about your future prostate issues. At this point there are no clues on whether you would have prostatic hyperplasia or prostate cancer. You getting bald has nothing to do with higher levels of DHT. It is just that your hair is sensitive to it. Do not worry about the problems you could possibly have in future, but worry about the problems you have now. I think you should start Propecia ASAP. There have been no proven risks of permanent impotence due to Propecia. But if you start having severe erectile dysfunctioning problems you could stop using it. I think you should give it a chance to work for you. There is a very high probability that it would work for you restoring your hair and making you happy. On the other hand the chances of permanent impotence are very very low.

Silverstreak, What brand of Finasteride are you taking? Generic or Merk propecia? If you are taking the generics, my advice is to switch to propecia or proscar. I was feeling like a zombie with the generics. But with propecia I feel normal.

Hey MyNameIsRich, Your experience with with Finasteride seems like mine. I tried taking Finax made by Dr. Reddy labs in India over the past 3 years. I tried in different doses like 0.5 mg every 3 days etc. I was having severe "brain fog" which I could not tolerate. But things changed completely when I started taking Propecia instead of Finax. I recently visited a HT doctor and he gave me a sample of Propecia. I tried it and there were no side affects at all. I have been on Propecia for the past 1.5 months, 1mg/day. No brain fog, not much depression (only for few hours after taking a pill), and not much sexual side affects. All this time I was thinking Finasteride is same every where. But does not seem so from my experience. I lost 3 precious years, loosing a lot more hair. I see that you are taking Finpecia, made by a company called Cipla in India. My advice is to switch to Propecia or Proscar. I doubt the quality standards in making Finpecia.

Hey Cant decide, I have never seen your pics other than frontal. How about posting more detailed pics to your website?

If someone is NW5 or higher what could HT give in the long run, without assistance from medications? Sparse hair in the front and mid scalp with a huge bald spot on the crown? IMHO, if donor hair is not abundant then shaving is a better option than to be left in a limbo by HTs.

HTs can add only little more coverage, not full head of hair. In my opinion, if you are NW5 or higher and cannot take Fin continuously then think hard before taking the HT route.

Apparently Chillboy was told that it would cost more for Dr. Madhu to do the transplant.

I have been following Chillboy's case. It is unacceptable that Dr. Madhu did not even touch his scalp. This amounts to absolute medical malpractice. I cannot imagine the suffering Chillboy had to endure with his bad scar. It is not fair that no one talks about his case and still Dr. Madhu is recommended as a quality surgeon in India. I could not find the thread discussing Chillboy's results. Probably removed by moderates in order to coverup for Dr. Madhu? I am not sure what action was taken on Dr. Madhu for not attending Chillboy's surgery. Imagine you going for a heart surgery and nurses performing the surgery without the docotor's presence. In a court of law, I assume, such negligence would result in cancelling of doctors license. But what is done here on this forum? When is enough is enough and do something about a doctor's recommendation?

The results posted by the doc look good. But, are there any results posted by patients at all? Personally, I would rely on the results posted by patients for judging a doctors quality. It has been only a couple of weeks since we started seeing results from Dr. Reddy. Should we wait for some more time and see more patient results, including gradual progress, for recommending him?

To be frank people would still notice there is a scar. I wish there is a perfect solution for strip scars.

Please take a look at the following CBS 60 minutes investigation on stem cell fraud, especially between 10-13mins. Just like Scott Pelley asks, Dr. Nigam, 1) What is your education in stem cells? 2) Have you published any results? There have not been any clinical trials, double blind studies. Without these offering it as a promising solution at a price tag does not sound appropriate. Dr. Nigam, if you are truly creating a stem cell therapy then you must start a clinical trial. Are you proceeding in that direction? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovPZkQYee8Y

Ok..But plagiarism is not considered "never to do" thing in India. India does not have high ethical standards. I am not sure whether his misdemeanor could be over looked with sternly making him aware of the required ethical standards. I guess it has been quite a few years since the incident. May be a reconciliation could be attempted.

India is large country with a lot of bald people. But there are only two doctors recommended here and both are from the same state, in south India. I believe definitely there are a lot of other good surgeons. Few more surgeons from north and middle India would be nice. Tejinder Bhatti fills the gap as he is from north India. At least one surgeon each in large cities like Delhi and Mumbai are needed. I would like Dr. A from Delhi recommended here. I do not understand, but even mentioning his name here is fully censored. From what I have seen he is the top surgeon in India. Besides good quality HTs he has done a lot of repair cases. I doubt Dr. Madhu and Dr. Radha performing any repairs. Do any of you really know why Dr. A is censored here? If the forum's primary purpose is to help fellow bald men why are we avoiding Dr. A?

The results are too good to be true. I would not trust such results unless they are posted by multiple patients instead of the doctor. I doubt the honesty in these claims. The results simply could have been from Finasteride especially due to better growth on the crown compared to mid scalp.

I do not believe in the neo graft machine. I think it is cumbersome to hold the tool precisely in the direction of hair due to its bulkiness. It requires using both hands and on top of that it has a tube connecting to it. This would make it hard to maneuver the tool there by increasing the chances of transection. In my opinion the tool should be made obsolete especially after the availability of the ARTAS FUE system.

I am sorry to say this, but the results are not good so far. Your doctor is lying in saying things are fine. Anything unusual happened post-op that would have effected growth? If not the problem may be with your doctor or your body physiology.

I have not seen a failed ARTAS FUE where as I have seen many failed manual FUEs.

Looks like ARTAS has better reliability with FUE than manual FUE.

Here is an article reporting first success with cloning human embryos. **outside link removed** (since the links are removed please google on BBC and TIME with cloning human stem cells) Though cloning in sheep was demonstrated back in 1996 it was not a success in humans until recently. The cloned embryos can be used for creating cells of the desired type, in this case hopefully cells required for hair generation. Currently embryonic like stem cells could be produced from skin cells. But I am not sure whether the recent actual embryonic stem cells are superior in generating hair. To me it seems that if an embryo is made to develop in to a fetus for sometime it would produce hair follicles. But wouldn't that be unethical? Any thoughts on how this recent discovery will impact hair multiplication research?