Need help making a decision

[ILikeMyHair]

I used to wear a turban and lost the hair in the front of the head because of traction alopecia. I also used to pull my hair sometimes so that didn't help. I went to a clinic when I was 22, got hair transplant done to fix the traction damage and I am somewhat satisfied at this point with my hair. I'm 26 now.

 

The doctor also told me to go on Proscar at the time because I know I will most likely experience MPB because my dad is bald. Basically he is a NW6. He does have hair on top of his head, but they are very weak miniaturized hair. He hasn't lost all the hair on his scalp, but the hair caliber is so poor that it might as well not be there. It's just very short and thin hair. I do have MPB in my family. My uncles from my dad's side have various degrees of baldness. from NW3-6. My uncles from my mother's side are less bald. Around NW3-4.

 

However, what I don't know is when I will start to experience the MPB. My brother who is 2 years older than me has a full head of hair at the moment. However, his hair seemed to take after my mother's side of the family and my hair seems to take after my father's side of the family in terms of density and hair caliber.

 

Anyways I have been on proscar for 3 years now and recently started to notice significant joint pain and joint clicking in most of my joints. Now I'm otherwise very healthy guy and always been active. I started getting too many injuries in the gym recently. And have random joint pains in my fingers also which never got injured.

 

I did many xrays and blood tests and all came back normal. I am not taking any other medicine other than proscar. I have no family history of joint pains or arthritis. So I am assuming that it's the proscar causing the joint pains because there doesn't seem to be any other cause. I'm aware that joint pain is not one of the commonly reported side effects. However, when I did some research on google, very few people did report the same type of joint symptoms I'm reporting, but their symptoms started 1-2 months after taking it. My symptoms started recently around 6 months ago.

 

I also changed my pharmacy from which I get the medication 6 months ago and that was around the time the symptoms started to show up. Even though I ordered proscar from them too. Could there be different versions of medication that is prepared by different pharmacies for the same prescription?

 

Anyways I'm stopping the proscar for 6-8 weeks to see if the symptoms get better. If they do, then I'm stuck as to what I should do regarding my hair loss treatment. I mean should I start topical finestride? I live in Canada so I can obtain it, but there hasn't been to much testing on its efficacy or its side effects.

 

Or maybe I should start Rogaine instead because I know that my hair loss when it begins will occur in a diffuse pattern on the top of the head and the crown so rogaine might help keep it at bay.

 

I don't even know if my MPB has started already but proscar was the one not letting me notice and was saving my hair. That's my main concern. Hopefully I haven't started losing hair yet like my brother and can wait it out till I'm 30 when it will start and then maybe start taking medicines. My dad started losing his hair at around 25-26 though so I can't be too hopeful.

 

Too much uncertainty.

 

How long would it take for me to notice the hair loss once I go off of proscar if I do have MPB? My dad's hair loss occured by becoming thinner on top everywhere over 5-10 years of time.