Finasteride/ Propecia vs low labido and anxiety...is it worth it?

[Torip]

I do not believe the Merck's assessment of side affects. The study completely ignored the mental side affects of Finasteride. Also the percentage of people with sexual and mental side affects is too low to be true. How much can you trust Merck which had huge financial interests in the drug, to be honest in reporting the side affects? I am a Fin user and I get significant mental side affects, mainly the brain fog. Please do not dismiss me by saying it is all in my head. I have tested my self stringent enough to make sure that the side affects are due to Fin. On the other hand I do agree that Dr. Irwig's study had limited number of patients and most likely the patients belong to the pool of people with side affects. So the percentages will be skewed and not accurate.

[Shampoo]

I do not believe the Merck's assessment of side affects.

 

I wonder if it is sometimes difficult to do very expensive studies by totally neutral parties? Of course if the trial lawyers pay millions for a study it's "well it's biased" and if a drug company pays the millions for a study it's "well it's biased". Is there a such thing as a 100% unbiased study?

[Spanker]

I'm not a pharmacist, but the only further regulation that I know of that could be imposed in the U.S. is to classify it as a narcotic, which it isn't. It's already a prescription drug, and some do find it difficult to get a GP to prescribe it. There could be other things that I am not aware of that could further regulate it, but I wouldn't know what it would be.

 

I do believe that anxiety can be caused by hair loss. We see people who say that they have suicidal thoughts over hair loss on this board fairly often due to hair loss that are and are not taking fin. It can be truly devastating for some.

 

I think that a telling study would be to give the same exact questions to men that have enlarged prostates who are taking 5mg of finasteride daily and with a control group of men with enlarged prostates who are not treating it. With a large enough sample of both, you could largely eliminate hair loss as a contributing factor as the reason for any difference (if any) in depression and anxiety, and your could possibly be able to prove or disprove causation of finasteride being a contributing factor.

 

Yes, there are some that will tr to make a buck off of insecure people. These are clinics that give the patients what they want against their best interest (super aggressive implantation) on unstable heads, clinics that offer cases that they know are going tobe too small to satisfy the patient to rope them in to subsequent procedures, clinics that work on someone and butcher them because they really just don't know what they are doing, and people that work on very young patients who are unstable. However, I don't think we see much of that on here. Most of the clinics on this site are reputable and provide the service of cosmetic surgery. That is the nature of this industry. Is every woman that gets a nice breast implant surgery a victim of being prayed upon due to her insecurities or has she been provided a service?

 

That said, there are predators in every cosmetic industry and sites like these weed those type of clinics out for most people who do their research. The sharpest people around here are long time contributors and they will give great advice and draw attention to excellent work while also bringing attention to those that produce work that is below the standard of care. Actually, any doctor CAN perform hair transplantation, which is why we see do see "hacks" every once in a while. I would argue that a more important regulation should be that there should be more strict requirements on physicians to begin performing these cases rather than more regulation on finasteride, at least, until it can be more proven to me more potentially harmful than what Merk has described. That is not to say that I am against further research, but it should be solid apples-to-apples study with a large sample size.

[Spanker]

I do not believe the Merck's assessment of side affects. The study completely ignored the mental side affects of Finasteride. Also the percentage of people with sexual and mental side affects is too low to be true. How much can you trust Merck which had huge financial interests in the drug, to be honest in reporting the side affects? I am a Fin user and I get significant mental side affects, mainly the brain fog. Please do not dismiss me by saying it is all in my head. I have tested my self stringent enough to make sure that the side affects are due to Fin. On the other hand I do agree that Dr. Irwig's study had limited number of patients and most likely the patients belong to the pool of people with side affects. So the percentages will be skewed and not accurate.

 

A double-blind procedure is an experimental procedure in which neither the subjects of the experiment nor the persons administering the experiment know the values, aspects, or other aspects of the experiment, therefore a double blind procedure is used to guard against both experimenter bias and placebo effects. If Merk DID do anything shady in terms of the way this study was performed, I feel like it would have been called out by now. Hopefully you are incorrect. It is much easier to prove that someone is corrupt than to that they are not, so hopefully if this was not a legitimate blinded study, it will come to light.

 

I have heard of people having brain fog but there is nothing in the study about it. Maybe more studies need to be done this. It does say that there are some side effects that people had that they felt were not significant enough to discontinue use. Hopefully you are gaining more than you are losing. The drug is not perfect and we all have to weigh the risk vs reward before taking and when continuing its use. I wouldn't blame anyone for stopping it or not getting on it even just based on fear, but there are consequences, especially when a person has had a transplant, for not medically treating their MPB. It's really a personal decision each of us has to make.

[Rootz]

Also the percentage of people with sexual and mental side affects is too low to be true.

 

There are other large scale studies which have also confirmed the <2% chance of side effects. So even if Merck's study was rigged (I personally doubt it), it happens to line up with what other scientists have found. I don't recall ever reading any large scale scientific study that found greater than 2% chance of side effects. If there is one I would be interested to read it though.

 

I think reading accounts of people's experiences online is misleading because the ones who have problems are MUCH more likely to post about it. People rarely just go online to post, "Hi everyone I've been on Fin and... nothing bad has happened. Well, just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading!" For every Fin horror story where someone's life is ruined, there is probably thousands who have no side effects.

[Profoam]

Earlier in 2011, a study found that Finasteride caused long-term sexual dysfunction. Impotency and sexual problems, the researchers said, were the most common symptoms of the side effects. In some users, the side effects can not be avoided. Twenty percent from the respondents reported experiencing sexual dysfunction for more than six years after they stopped taking it.

 

The latest study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, started from 61 findings of former Finasteride users who had experienced sexual disorders for more than three months. Among the respondents, 11 percent had mild depression, 28 percent had medium depression, and 36 percent experienced severe symptoms. 44 percent were reported to have suicidal thoughts.

 

My question is, would you rather have a full head of hair and chance not having a 'normal' sex drive and an increased possibility of drug related anxiety? Are you willing to take the chance of the possibility that your libido will be inhibited indefinitely (in some cases)? Are you also willing to take the chance of suffering psychological side affects that can affect your state of mental health?

 

The issue that is very apparent from studies, research and my own professional experience is that most guys with alopecia are actually already anxious making them not great recipients of the drug. Finasteride and Propecia can only increase levels of anxiety which in turn causes more harm than good.

 

Most Drs do not even discuss the side affects when prescribing.

 

Has anyone on this forum had any of the issues stated above, or other side effects that are not talked about openly. Would you chance the side affects?

 

You joined this forum a week ago and half of your 20 posts are stating how bad Fin is.

 

I have used finasteride for 16 years with no sides, the last 3 years I have used 5mg/day for BPH.

 

Google Propecia side effects, I'm sure MEW would love to have you on his forum.

 

Bottom line, if you don't want to use finasteride then DON'T !

[BeardedOne]

Hi Maccer,

 

I have been on fin for nearly 6 months. After my first script (given by a HT doctor) ran out I was recently prescribed fin by my (NW7) GP who has no affiliation to the hair loss industry. He possesses a range of knowledge about fin and also my own medical and psychological history, and he knows full-well that over the years I have periodically struggled with depression and anxiety. He had absolutely no problems doing so. Quite simply I place a lot of faith in his word on the matter.

 

The study you have posted is disingenuous to say the least. All it really asserts for certain is that 61 people have experienced side effects, among them depression and anxiety. I can say that, from my own experience with depression, finasteride has in fact helped me greatly. It has allowed me to combat my hair loss, which has significantly improved my overall positive frame of mind. I take no medication (save for vitamins) to combat depression. I am not saying this proves finasteride assists in fighting depression, not at all, but it has assisted in fighting my depression. Besides, I am merely highlighting that there is no one-way causal link between finasteride and depression as you declared to be evidenced by the original study.

 

I would also like to state that Spanker's participation on this forum should be beyond reproach at this stage, he has always engaged with every thread and discussion in an honest, knowledgeable and open manner.

[keithy]

I do not believe the Merck's assessment of side affects. The study completely ignored the mental side affects of Finasteride. Also the percentage of people with sexual and mental side affects is too low to be true. How much can you trust Merck which had huge financial interests in the drug, to be honest in reporting the side affects? I am a Fin user and I get significant mental side affects, mainly the brain fog. Please do not dismiss me by saying it is all in my head. I have tested my self stringent enough to make sure that the side affects are due to Fin. On the other hand I do agree that Dr. Irwig's study had limited number of patients and most likely the patients belong to the pool of people with side affects. So the percentages will be skewed and not accurate.

 

 

I dont either i looked into this a lot last month.