Norwood 6/7 Do You Take Finasteride?

[Curious25]

 

4 hours ago, ljpcarrera said:

This is an interesting topic about donor thinning. If you look at older men some do have general donor thinning, probably age related.

I have been taking avodart since it was released I believe in late 2001, I switched to that after being on proscar in 1996. I am 49 had 2 transplants back in the 90s basically for my hairline. I have been able to keep most of my hair on the crown and midsection since starting the drugs. 

I was thinking of switching to topical avodart but wondered how that would effect my donor region. It is very thick still along with my temple points. Since the topical would only be applied to the top of the scalp what would happen to the donor region once the pill form is stopped.

I have noticed some thinning the last five years maybe it's just genetics taking over.

 

Thanks

 Wow, 24 years of DHT Inhibition, 19 of which blocking both 5AR I+II ! 

How have you been throughout the years? Any reason as to why you are considering the change to topical? 

In response to your question, excuse my ignorance if this isn't possible - but could you not just apply the topical all over your scalp, covering your donor? 

[ljpcarrera]

Not bad, really no major side effects. Just reaching 50 now so my body is slowing down, just wondering how my body would feel if I stop taking it.

Thanks

 

[Melvin- Admin]

My main concern isn’t necessarily the sexual effects, because that can be nocebo effects. But there is a correlation between inhibiting DHT and early onset dementia or Alzheimers. The risk is worth it if you still have hair to save, but if your bald, I just cannot justify taking that risk. 
 

https://www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X(17)30372-6/abstract

[Curious25]

14 minutes ago, ljpcarrera said:

Not bad, really no major side effects. Just reaching 50 now so my body is slowing down, just wondering how my body would feel if I stop taking it.

Thanks

 

In contrast to what someone mentioned on here or perhaps another thread in regards to age being a consideration whilst assessing ones likelihood to experience unwanted side effects, 

I believe it was the user @Cristero - anyway, he mentioned the older one gets, the more susceptible they are to experiencing negative side effects due to the combination of forced inhibition alongside the natural decline in their androgens. 

To me, that logic makes sense.  

However at my recent consultation with the urological consultant, he had observed side effects to be less severe with age, something which he attributed to be potentially down to a more 'experienced' endocrine system, one that is perhaps more in tune with the body (similar to as wisdom comes with age), and able to tolerate attacks and tampering with 'a more mature approach'.  

This theory is not scientifically proven or researched at all, and was simply an observation from his experience over the years, and an offering of a potential explanation, when I probed him as to why this was. 

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Curious25

[Curious25]

12 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

My main concern isn’t necessarily the sexual effects, because that can be nocebo effects. But there is a correlation between inhibiting DHT and early onset dementia or Alzheimers. The risk is worth it if you still have hair to save, but if your bald, I just cannot justify taking that risk. 
 

https://www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X(17)30372-6/abstract

I think thats an important point to bring up.

A lot of focus always seems to get placed on sexual dysfunction whilst discussing unwanted side effects, and as important and obviously worrying that is for the majority, in reality it is only one area of your body's requirement for DHT. 

Your hormone profile is fundamental in making you the person that you are.

[ljpcarrera]

My psa level is really low on my yearly blood tests. I would assume this is from taking avodart so long.

My dad passed away from prostate cancer at 66. Might be time to speak to a urologist if I were to come off it. It might be worth staying on it to keep the psa level down.

 

 

[Melvin- Admin]

4 minutes ago, ljpcarrera said:

My psa level is really low on my yearly blood tests. I would assume this is from taking avodart so long.

My dad passed away from prostate cancer at 66. Might be time to speak to a urologist if I were to come off it. It might be worth staying on it to keep the psa level down.

 

 

My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer 4 years ago at 59. Thank god he caught it early and is now cancer free, another fear of mine and why I won’t take fin. I would strongly urge you to discuss with your urologist. There is a misconception that DHT causes prostate cancer, but that’s not true, it is testosterone. In some cases, dutasteride and finasteride can cause spikes in testosterone. The only thing fin and dut do is prevent early detection, from what I understand.

[Curious25]

10 minutes ago, ljpcarrera said:

My psa level is really low on my yearly blood tests. I would assume this is from taking avodart so long.

My dad passed away from prostate cancer at 66. Might be time to speak to a urologist if I were to come off it. It might be worth staying on it to keep the psa level down.

 

 

I'm sorry to hear of your fathers passing. 

I agree with the above, strongly advise you to speak with a urological consultant and have a full screening to check all is in good health. At the very least, it will be good for you to speak with someone regarding your medication routine over the years, and look into other options if thats the avenue you wish to eventually pursue. 

Wish you the best! 

[ljpcarrera]

Thanks guys, interesting topic. I do yearly blood test and my testosterone levels are mid range for my age. 

[Melvin- Admin]

I may bring this up to some doctors, I would like to get some of their thoughts. 

[Cristero]

40 minutes ago, Curious25 said:

In contrast to what someone mentioned on here or perhaps another thread in regards to age being a consideration whilst assessing ones likelihood to experience unwanted side effects, 

I believe it was the user @Cristero - anyway, he mentioned the older one gets, the more susceptible they are to experiencing negative side effects due to the combination of forced inhibition alongside the natural decline in their androgens. 

To me, that logic makes sense.  

However at my recent consultation with the urological consultant, he had observed side effects to be less severe with age, something which he attributed to be potentially down to a more 'experienced' endocrine system, one that is perhaps more in tune with the body (similar to as wisdom comes with age), and able to tolerate attacks and tampering with 'a more mature approach'.  

This theory is not scientifically proven or researched at all, and was simply an observation from his experience over the years, and an offering of a potential explanation, when I probed him as to why this was. 

 

The reason is because your body experiences a really slow androgens decrease with time. In a healthy male, the avreage is a decline of 1% of testosterone every year, one you reach your 30s.

Older men are accustomed to live with lower androgens and may suffer less the introduction of an anti-androgen at later stage, especially because they don't expect to perform as a guy in his 20s in every field of their life (not just sexually). 

[Cristero]

33 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer 4 years ago at 59. Thank god he caught it early and is now cancer free, another fear of mine and why I won’t take fin. I would strongly urge you to discuss with your urologist. There is a misconception that DHT causes prostate cancer, but that’s not true, it is testosterone. In some cases, dutasteride and finasteride can cause spikes in testosterone. The only thing fin and dut do is prevent early detection, from what I understand.

I'm glad you brought up the matter and mentioned that the issue with finasteride is not only sexual side effects. 5-ar is rich in some tissues for a reason.

Not many people knows that 5-ar inhibitors have been trialed as treatment fro prostate cancer, in order to try to target the androgens in the prostate in the early 2000s. We now know that prostate cancer is way more complex than just saying androgens is the cause. There are prostate cancers that are resistant to complete prostate androgens deprivation. In any case, finasteride and dutasteride didn't get approved for the treatment of prostate cancer, because not only they were ineffective, but they actually showed to be possibly trigerring a far more aggressive cancer prostate than the one they were supposed to treat. I've seen a recent study done to try to debunk that, but it didn't convince me at all.

[Melvin- Admin]

7 minutes ago, Cristero said:

I'm glad you brought up the matter and mentioned that the issue with finasteride is not only sexual side effects. 5-ar is rich in some tissues for a reason.

Not many people knows that 5-ar inhibitors have been trialed as treatment fro prostate cancer, in order to try to target the androgens in the prostate in the early 2000s. We now know that prostate cancer is way more complex than just saying androgens is the cause. There are prostate cancers that are resistant to complete prostate androgens deprivation. In any case, finasteride and dutasteride didn't get approved for the treatment of prostate cancer, because not only they were ineffective, but they actually showed to be possibly trigerring a far more aggressive cancer prostate than the one they were supposed to treat. I've seen a recent study done to try to debunk that, but it didn't convince me at all.

That’s true, I believe the main reason they aren’t effective is because DHT is not the cause for prostate cancer, early onset dementia or possible prostate cancer detection, to keep higher sides on an already bald scalp seems insane to me.

[Cristero]

12 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

That’s true, I believe the main reason they aren’t effective is because DHT is not the cause for prostate cancer, early onset dementia or possible prostate cancer detection, to keep higher sides on an already bald scalp seems insane to me.

As another user said, people are ignoring senile alopecia. Your donor won't be the same at 40 as it was at 20. Hairs are organs and they age like all the rest of the body.

I've personally asked Dr. Rassman because I saw with a microscope some miniaturized hairs on my occipital area (mostly one hair on a double graft). He told me he sees it quite frequently when "guys turn into men" and not to be worried about it. Donor miniaturization could be due to other causes, like lack of iron, low vitamin D levels, hypothyroidism etc. But yeah, let's ingest an anti-androgen like if it was a candy to thicken 200 hairs on the donor.

Edited September 1, 2020 by Cristero

[LonelyGraft]

1 hour ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer 4 years ago at 59. Thank god he caught it early and is now cancer free, another fear of mine and why I won’t take fin. I would strongly urge you to discuss with your urologist. There is a misconception that DHT causes prostate cancer, but that’s not true, it is testosterone. In some cases, dutasteride and finasteride can cause spikes in testosterone. The only thing fin and dut do is prevent early detection, from what I understand.

The “spike” in testosterone by 5ar are within normal ranges for males. It’s roughly a 10-15% increase, not anything supraphysiological like when taking ped’s. And it’s solely a result of the testosterone left over that isn’t being 5 alpha reduced.

[Curious25]

A lot of people are bringing up the two Australian doctors who present the hair loss show on YouTube in regards to discussions on finasteride. 
 

The elder doctor, actually discusses in one of the videos that he started started finasteride at the age of 50, because in his words ‘he didn’t have the same head of hair as he did when he was 30’. He then discontinued the use of the drug, because he realised it wasn’t MPB he was suffering, it was general age related thinning - and this is something that finasteride doesn’t prevent. 

[Melvin- Admin]

3 minutes ago, LonelyGraft said:

The “spike” in testosterone by 5ar are within normal ranges for males. It’s roughly a 10-15% increase, not anything supraphysiological like when taking ped’s. And it’s solely a result of the testosterone left over that isn’t being 5 alpha reduced.

I didn’t say it causes an super-physiological spike, but it does cause a spike regardless, and testosterone is the main cause for prostate cancer. Fin and dut make it difficult to detect early prostate cancer.  

[Curious25]

2 minutes ago, LonelyGraft said:

The “spike” in testosterone by 5ar are within normal ranges for males. It’s roughly a 10-15% increase, not anything supraphysiological like when taking ped’s. And it’s solely a result of the testosterone left over that isn’t being 5 alpha reduced.

Correct - this excess testosterone however can then seek its ‘escape route’ via a different pathway utilising aromatase, converting into oestrogen - increasing oestrogen levels,  thus creating a further change in the patients normal hormone equilibrium.  

[LonelyGraft]

42 minutes ago, Cristero said:

I'm glad you brought up the matter and mentioned that the issue with finasteride is not only sexual side effects. 5-ar is rich in some tissues for a reason.

Not many people knows that 5-ar inhibitors have been trialed as treatment fro prostate cancer, in order to try to target the androgens in the prostate in the early 2000s. We now know that prostate cancer is way more complex than just saying androgens is the cause. There are prostate cancers that are resistant to complete prostate androgens deprivation. In any case, finasteride and dutasteride didn't get approved for the treatment of prostate cancer, because not only they were ineffective, but they actually showed to be possibly trigerring a far more aggressive cancer prostate than the one they were supposed to treat. I've seen a recent study done to try to debunk that, but it didn't convince me at all.

Not sure where you got your info from but finasteride helped prevent prostate cancer in over 25% of men over 55 who were in it over 7 years. That’s significant.

 

the doctor provides a very good explanation in terms of why higher grade prostate cancer was detected. It likely wasn’t finasteride that caused it directly. Take a read:

 

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/prostate-cancer-prevention-finasteride-parnes

[Melvin- Admin]

4 minutes ago, Curious25 said:

A lot of people are bringing up the two Australian doctors who present the hair loss show on YouTube in regards to discussions on finasteride. 
 

The elder doctor, actually discusses in one of the videos that he started started finasteride at the age of 50, because in his words ‘he didn’t have the same head of hair as he did when he was 30’. He then discontinued the use of the drug, because he realised it wasn’t MPB he was suffering, it was general age related thinning - and this is something that finasteride doesn’t prevent. 

Senile alopecia/involutional alopecia is caused by dying cells, not DHT. Also, I bet he stop because of side effects, except he prescribes the stuff, so it would probably reflect poorly on saying the truth.

[LonelyGraft]

4 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

I didn’t say it causes an super-physiological spike, but it does cause a spike regardless, and testosterone is the main cause for prostate cancer. Fin and dut make it difficult to detect early prostate cancer.  

I just linked this earlier. If testosterone is the main cause of prostate cancer why did finasteride prevent it in over 25% of men in this huge study? 
 

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/prostate-cancer-prevention-finasteride-parnes

[Melvin- Admin]

7 minutes ago, LonelyGraft said:

Not sure where you got your info from but finasteride helped prevent prostate cancer in over 25% of men over 55 who were in it over 7 years. That’s significant.

 

the doctor provides a very good explanation in terms of why higher grade prostate cancer was detected. It likely wasn’t finasteride that caused it directly. Take a read:

 

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/prostate-cancer-prevention-finasteride-parnes

Are you actively ignoring what’s being said? It was found to raise the risk of aggressive prostate cancer, which is why it wasn’t approved by the FDA. Plus, it’s not DHT, it’s testosterone itself, part of the treatment is blocking your testosterone completely, not just DHT. I’m not talking out of my ass, my dad had prostate cancer, and he was given Lupron, which completely blocks testosterone. He also asked about finasteride and was told it wasn’t useful by his oncologist and urologist. 
 

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/prostate-cancer-prevention-finasteride-parnes

In 2003, results from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT)—an NCI-funded randomized clinical trial with nearly 19,000 participants—showed that men aged 55 and older who used the drug finasteride daily for 7 years had a substantially reduced risk of developing prostate cancerExit Disclaimer.

However, the trial results also raised the possibility that finasteride might increase the risk of high-grade (potentially more aggressive) prostate cancer. This finding led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to place a black box warning on the drug’s label about the potential risk of high-grade prostate cancer.

[LonelyGraft]

3 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Are you actively ignoring what’s being said? It was found to raise the risk of aggressive prostate cancer, which is why it wasn’t approved by the FDA. Plus, it’s not DHT, it’s testosterone itself, part of the treatment is blocking your testosterone completely, not just DHT. I’m not talking out of my ass, my dad has prostate cancer, and he was given Lupron, which completely blocks testosterone. He also asked about finasteride and was told it wasn’t useful by his oncologist and urologist. 
 

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/prostate-cancer-prevention-finasteride-parnes

In 2003, results from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT)—an NCI-funded randomized clinical trial with nearly 19,000 participants—showed that men aged 55 and older who used the drug finasteride daily for 7 years had a substantially reduced risk of developing prostate cancerExit Disclaimer.

However, the trial results also raised the possibility that finasteride might increase the risk of high-grade (potentially more aggressive) prostate cancer. This finding led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to place a black box warning on the drug’s label about the potential risk of high-grade prostate cancer.

Uhhhh did u read the explanation by the urologist? He goes into detail in regards to that finding and how it might cause a bit of confusion. Finasteride did not CAUSE onset of higher grade prostate cancer it simply was harder to detect bc of the method of action of finasteride:

 

So how do you explain the increased risk of high-grade disease reported in 2003?

There are two mechanisms by which we believe finasteride enhances the detection of high-grade cancer on prostate biopsy.

First, finasteride is known to decrease the size of the prostate gland by about 25%. When you biopsy a smaller gland, you are more likely to sample an area of cancer—or high-grade cancer—with your biopsy needle, compared to doing the same biopsy in a larger gland.

Second, as we showed in another analysis of the PCPT, finasteride improves the sensitivity of the PSA test for the detection of overall and high-grade prostate cancer. Because the decision to perform prostate biopsies during the study was based on PSA levels, this may have contributed to increased detection of prostate cancer, in general, and high-grade prostate cancer, in particular, among men receiving finasteride.

Due to the effects of this drug on gland size and PSA performance, it seems quite likely that the PCPT not only overestimated the harm of finasteride in terms of the observed increase in high-grade cancer, but may have underestimated the benefit of finasteride in terms of the amount of reduction in prostate cancer risk.

[LonelyGraft]

7 minutes ago, Melvin-Moderator said:

Are you actively ignoring what’s being said? It was found to raise the risk of aggressive prostate cancer, which is why it wasn’t approved by the FDA. Plus, it’s not DHT, it’s testosterone itself, part of the treatment is blocking your testosterone completely, not just DHT. I’m not talking out of my ass, my dad has prostate cancer, and he was given Lupron, which completely blocks testosterone. He also asked about finasteride and was told it wasn’t useful by his oncologist and urologist. 
 

https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2019/prostate-cancer-prevention-finasteride-parnes

In 2003, results from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT)—an NCI-funded randomized clinical trial with nearly 19,000 participants—showed that men aged 55 and older who used the drug finasteride daily for 7 years had a substantially reduced risk of developing prostate cancerExit Disclaimer.

However, the trial results also raised the possibility that finasteride might increase the risk of high-grade (potentially more aggressive) prostate cancer. This finding led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to place a black box warning on the drug’s label about the potential risk of high-grade prostate cancer.

And i wasn’t talking about TREATING prostate cancer with finasteride, the Medical community knows that doesn’t help. My main points were in regards to PREVENTION.

 

as a side, very happy to hear your dad had a successful recovery 

[Melvin- Admin]

I just copied and pasted directly from the same site you posted lol and it says specifically: 

However, the trial results also raised the possibility that finasteride might increase the risk of high-grade (potentially more aggressive) prostate cancer. This finding led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to place a black box warning on the drug’s label about the potential risk of high-grade prostate cancer.