Finesteride, Proscar

[Gin0rm0usF0rehead]

So ive been reading many suggestions on this site for men with MPB to immediately get on finesteride.

 

I'm 33 now and have been very slowly losing hair just in the hairline region since I was 16. I'm a slow balder

 

In the past 3 years I have had 2 transplants totalling 1700 grafts and the coverage is excellent. You really cant tell I am losing hair unless you look super close up.

 

I have been avoiding finesteride because I dont like medicine in general, and the potential for permanent sexual side affects is too scary.

 

But I think I may bite the bullet and try finesteride because the hairloss will just get worse. I called the transplant doctor's office today and asked him to write me a prescription, and they said we can give you propecia. I replied can you give me Proscar instead because i've read online the pill can be cut up and it's much cheaper for the same thing. They said "we only give propecia, ill have to check with the doctor if he is willing to prescribe proscar.

 

How did all of you get Proscar? Did your doctor's give you a hard time about it?

[blkblk]

Ive always had it recommended by GP's. They usually say "you could take propecia, but if you want to save some money, I suggest getting proscar"

[Gin0rm0usF0rehead]

Ive always had it recommended by GP's. They usually say "you could take propecia, but if you want to save some money, I suggest getting proscar"

 

Don't you need a dermatologist or hair loss doctor to prescribe hair loss treatments? I mean, would my primary care doc give it to me?

[NEWHAIRPLEASE]

If they know anything about the drug they should give you a script for generic Proscar. That's the only way to go!

[mahhong]

You should be able to get a script for propecia easy, but proscar is something some doctors are a bit funny about. Technically speaking it's not prescribed for hairloss (same drug but much different dosage, as you know), so a doctor is having to "trust" you if you ask to use it for hairloss. Doctors like to keep themselves covered!

 

A primary care doctor should have no trouble giving a script to you for finasteride (whether propecia or proscar, depending on what they're comfortable with). It's pretty commonplace.

 

Most men don't experience side effects with finasteride so you should be fine! If you do experience anything you can always stop and they should go away just fine!

[blkblk]

Don't you need a dermatologist or hair loss doctor to prescribe hair loss treatments? I mean, would my primary care doc give it to me?

 

 

I didn't when I lived in Australia, and I don't now that I live in the US. I got my latest one from a Duane Reade's in store doctor.

[blkblk]

mahhong: side effects will "probably" go away when stopping. Not for everyone.

 

In fact, some people have reported that they didn't have any side effects until after they stopped.

 

DHT is an important chemical in your body, and when you get rid of it, the results seem to be quite unpredictable

[richie48]

I recently changed suppliers for finasteride , I used to use a doctor , but now just buy online from a reputable source that a few lads buy from in the UK , I now buy from ukfinasteride.info , it's on spex's site . I sent a cheque and recieved my fin this week , you can also do a bank tranfer online , anyway , it was easy and quick either way .

 

Below is a post i have posted before on my own experiences with meds , I hope it helps .

 

I started on minoxadil cream and 1mgs propecia ( brand name of finasteride ) in 2006 .

 

By 2007 I had ditched the minoxadil cream , it didn't seem to help any regrowth and occasionally irrritated my scalp .

 

I also switched to 5mgs of generic finasteride ( proscar )in 2007 , I cut these into 4 pieces and took 1.25mgs daily .

 

By 2009 I started to cut the 5mgs of finasteride into 5 pieces and took 1mg daily .

 

In 2010 I started to cut the finasteride into 6 pieces and I now take only 0.8mgs daily , I did this with no noticable loss of hair .

 

I have suffered no side effects , no drop in libido or loss of erections , I do however believe I have become more of a calmer and more focused person , my girlfriend has noticed this also , is it the finasteride , I don't really know but it coinsided with me starting on them meds .

 

However I did notice my seamen become more watery after I started using the meds .

 

Due to wanting to start a family I have recently had my testosterone , thyroid and sperm count checked , my testosterone levels where higher than average , my thyriod is fine and my sperm count was also higher than the average , on average most men have between 20-200 million sperm per edjuculation , I had 140 million .

 

I used to buy proscar and minoxadil from a well know London hair clinic , hahaha , the one advertised on channel four in the early morning !

 

Now I buy generic finasteride from the same uk doctor whose details can be found on spex's website , this doctor is always available for questions and supplies lots of men with finasteride .

 

Generic simply means another company has made it but can't call it propecia for legal reasons .

 

I have included a link below to one of my older posts showing pics of my improvement from meds only .....

 

DR FELLER UK PATIENT /RICHIE48 THEN AND NOW TWO YEAR TRIP ! From meds and a 9 month HT

 

I hope that answers your questions bud

 

richie

[mahhong]

mahhong: side effects will "probably" go away when stopping. Not for everyone.

 

In fact, some people have reported that they didn't have any side effects until after they stopped.

 

DHT is an important chemical in your body, and when you get rid of it, the results seem to be quite unpredictable

 

I myself had side effects when taking finasteride and am unable to use it for this reason, and of course I'm aware of the testimony from some people that they've had persistent side effects that have started or continued after stopping the drug.

 

The overwhelming majority of men who take the drug appear to receive little or no side effects, and of those who do experience side effects the vast majority of men experience total cessation of side effects when they stop the drug. I know there are men who claim long-term and permanent damage from the drug, but these are a tiny minority of users and the cases are often anecdotal and, as far as I'm aware, there are few or no verified medical investigations that have established definite links between finasteride and persistent side effects after discontinuing the drug.

 

I'm not necessarily doubting men who claim long-term effects, I'm just saying the science is not currently there to support it. I myself am, in retrospect, not 100% convinced of the practice of lowering DHT values in the body, but similarly I do not doubt the testimony of most doctors that they see very few side effects and I don't think any doctor, certainly on these forums, has ever verified a case of sexual or psychological symptoms that have had definite links to finasteride use even after cessation.

 

I'm just wary of creating a biased opinion one way or another. The number of men who feel they've experienced genuine long term side effects from finasteride is absolutely tiny compared to the millions who take it just fine. And of those men who do report long-term effects post-cessation, there isn't any clear cut confirmation that finasteride is or could be the link. As a man who can't take the drug myself I'd be upfront about the fact that I'm not 100% convinced on the long term safety or efficacy of finasteride, but I don't like scaring people off it either, because it's by far the best tool we have in the fight against hairloss (save HTs, which are a costlier and more committed affair and come with their own limitations of course).

[blkblk]

mahhong: I recommend a quick read of propeciahelp.com help for you. specifically this area

 

When FDA approved it as a safe drug for hair loss treatement, this did NOT include studies of long term affects. The scientific evidence seems to be quite strongly suggesting that a significant portion of people taking the drug ARE having long term permanent problems as a result. When I say significant, I do not mean 'most' or 'almost all', what I mean is that if you choose to take the drug, do not be suprised if it impacts you. The quoted numbers from Merck suggest close to 2% of people will suffer permanent effects after stopping propecia - others think this number is much smaller than reality.

 

One very, VERY telling sign that there is a significant risk of permanent problems after stopping the drug is the fact that in April of this year, Merck has modified their Propecia instruction leaflet to say this exact thing.

 

Claiming that there is no science to support the suggestion of long term effects is just plain wrong - even the company who makes the drug believes that there are. It is quite upsetting that you would take this issue so lightly as to write lengthy advice without appearing to have done any investigation into the matter yourself.

 

I appreciate that you are here to help advise people in your own spare time, and that you want to push an impartial opinion on this contraversial topic, however people should be scared of this drug. They might still choose to use it, like I have, but everyone making this choice should not have it hidden from them that there is a chance of things going very very wrong.

[mahhong]

mahhong: I recommend a quick read of propeciahelp.com help for you. specifically this area

 

When FDA approved it as a safe drug for hair loss treatement, this did NOT include studies of long term affects. The scientific evidence seems to be quite strongly suggesting that a significant portion of people taking the drug ARE having long term permanent problems as a result. When I say significant, I do not mean 'most' or 'almost all', what I mean is that if you choose to take the drug, do not be suprised if it impacts you. The quoted numbers from Merck suggest close to 2% of people will suffer permanent effects after stopping propecia - others think this number is much smaller than reality.

 

One very, VERY telling sign that there is a significant risk of permanent problems after stopping the drug is the fact that in April of this year, Merck has modified their Propecia instruction leaflet to say this exact thing.

 

Claiming that there is no science to support the suggestion of long term effects is just plain wrong - even the company who makes the drug believes that there are. It is quite upsetting that you would take this issue so lightly as to write lengthy advice without appearing to have done any investigation into the matter yourself.

 

I appreciate that you are here to help advise people in your own spare time, and that you want to push an impartial opinion on this contraversial topic, however people should be scared of this drug. They might still choose to use it, like I have, but everyone making this choice should not have it hidden from them that there is a chance of things going very very wrong.

 

I've been to propeciahelp.com and have indeed read a fair bit about the drug, the side effects, and the changes that Merck have put on their labelling. However, these things must be put into perspective. A lot of people assume that a drug company are "hiding" the truth about drugs like finasteride, and the change in labelling is some kind of "admission" that the drug is dangerous.

 

Here is the thing. There is a scientific study that links paracetamol usage to infertility in unborn children later in their adult life. Long-term paracetamol users have a higher risk of developing blood cancer. Aspirin has caused intestinal bleeding and Reyes Syndrome. Anti-depressants can cause depression.

 

No drug is unquestionably "safe". Many millions of people take many different drugs and a huge, huge number of side effects or observations, sometimes serious ones, are reported. There is no drug that hasn't been blamed for serious adverse effects on a minority of individuals - often a tiny minority. Most of the time these observations are anecdotal - sometimes they are anecdotal but prevalent enough to cause drug companies pressure in changing their labelling. This happened with Merck. There are no wide-scale, peer approved, scientifically foolproof studies on why certain people get serious effects during or after taking propecia. Yes, there are lots of articles and abstracts you can point me to on the web; studies of 5 people, studies of 20 people, studies of 500 people perhaps. Yes, there have been no long-term studies (in fact a reason myself I am still on the fence about the drug). There are never long-term studies of drugs when they're released; if there was we'd still be waiting for half of them.

 

The reason I am hesitant to make instant negative claims about propecia is because millions of men take it and perhaps a few thousand, spread over the internet, have made serious allegations about the damaging effects of the drug. There is no major conspiracy or unknown variable about the drug - millions of men take it, millions of men are fine, a small percentage have some temporary or mild side effects and a very tiny percentage of men claim it has ruined them. Paracetamol has the same sort of statistics. Or warfarin. Point to any medicine on any shelf in the world and I can show you studies and theories that it's dangerous; cases of men and women who have been massively affected by them.

 

Almost every doctor on this planet has no problem writing a script for propecia. Yes, it has its detractors. Yes, it has enemies. Yes, perhaps there really are skeletons in the closet. But, statistically, prescribing or using finasteride is no more risky than virtually any other drug on the market. A few dozen men have probably popped the pill whilst I've been typing this.

 

As a matter of fact, however, propeciahelp.com is to propecia what Al Qaeda is to the Western World. There are men on those forums claiming they've eaten nothing but raw fruit for 3 years and are just starting to get their libido back. I do not wish to seem dismissive, but propeciahelp is not where you go for unbiased truth. I feel sorry for men who genuinely believe propecia has ruined their lives, but joining propeciahelp is probably just as negative a move as taking finasteride in the first place.

 

 

 

To that extent, it is not for me to go against the grain. I follow essentially the same line as any other doctor on these forums; try it and, if you get side effects, stop taking it and they should abate. It would then be unfair for me to say; "on the other hand, some men have reported it has ruined their life and if you go here and here and here there are suggestions that the drug is very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs". People are are intelligent and I'm just saying what most doctors would say.

 

Having had effects from finasteride, to the point I felt unable to continue taking the drug, I am actually dubious of the long term benefits of taking it myself. But millions of men are doing just fine; some for 10, 20 or more years. Medicine is not the realm of the safe and unsafe, it's just the realm of risk. You take a risk every time you smoke a cigarette or eat a McDonalds and far more people have been irrevocably damaged by both than by finasteride. I trust people to make their own minds up on the drug, but whisper words of caution in their ear excessively and they'll instantly start believing there are dark truths your doctor on the drug companies don't want you to know. There's no doubt finasteride can cause problems, but statistically it is still safe drug.

[blkblk]

thanks for the explanation of your viewpoint.

 

I don't think that there is any conspiracy or hiding of the truth, but it does seem that there are definitely a lot of unknowns regarding taking on propecia, and I want to make sure that people are aware of this.

 

You make a good point regarding possible lack of correllation between these permanent side effects and the drug. I think that there is some, however with the large number of users, perhaps this is just the stastical chance of these things happening regardless of the drug.

 

Thanks for the exchange - hopefully it encourages people to investigate this a bit more themselves, and hopefully the conclusion is that it is safe to take.

[Gin0rm0usF0rehead]

Thanks for the replies. I understand the risk and I am willing to take a chance and try finesteride, but the thing stopping me is the price of propecia. I want to use proscar as so many have suggested. But I do not know how to get proscar from a doctor to hairloss reason. I live in CT. Can someone nearby tell me how they got their proscar?