Decades-long use of Finasteride and Minoxidil – Personal Experiences, Advice, and Takeaways

[kutekay]

Greetings, fellow hair restoration enthusiasts!

As someone who's recently started using Finasteride and Minoxidil for hair loss, I'm curious about the experiences and advice of those who have been using them for years or even decades. If you're one of them, I'd love to hear from you and learn from your journey.

[stevenbol]

Can't speak for Minoxidil since I've only been using it since my hair transplant.

But for Finasteride, I was started on 5mg/daily by my Doctor when I was around 21. No sexual side effects were observed in this 4-year span of taking it. Eventually, I decided to stop caring about hair loss and started getting off the drug. My hair loss started again about 6 months later, but also I started being able to grow a thick beard, and my face gained a more mature appearance overall. I'm not sure if that was because I was no longer on finasteride or it was just me aging... I started on Finasteride last September again, this time on 1mg. I haven't noticed any side effects yet, and I've even been trying to split the pills in half as I've been told by multiple doctors that .5mg has the same effect as a 1mg dose. Just .5mg will have less risk of side effects. So that's an option if you're wanting less risk.

I can't help but think that some of the side-effects that people claim on finasteride are self-manifested or just consequences of being an aging male. As a counter to that, I remember before taking the drug seeing a whole website/organization dedicated to being against finasteride, as there are claims that men's lives were ruined because of the drug. IMO, there are so many factors that go into depression/anxiety/sexual performance/arousal ... so it's hard to pin those on finasteride alone.

 

 

 

[A_4_Archan]

1 hour ago, stevenbol said:

Can't speak for Minoxidil since I've only been using it since my hair transplant.

But for Finasteride, I was started on 5mg/daily by my Doctor when I was around 21. No sexual side effects were observed in this 4-year span of taking it. Eventually, I decided to stop caring about hair loss and started getting off the drug. My hair loss started again about 6 months later, but also I started being able to grow a thick beard, and my face gained a more mature appearance overall. I'm not sure if that was because I was no longer on finasteride or it was just me aging... I started on Finasteride last September again, this time on 1mg. I haven't noticed any side effects yet, and I've even been trying to split the pills in half as I've been told by multiple doctors that .5mg has the same effect as a 1mg dose. Just .5mg will have less risk of side effects. So that's an option if you're wanting less risk.

I can't help but think that some of the side-effects that people claim on finasteride are self-manifested or just consequences of being an aging male. As a counter to that, I remember before taking the drug seeing a whole website/organization dedicated to being against finasteride, as there are claims that men's lives were ruined because of the drug. IMO, there are so many factors that go into depression/anxiety/sexual performance/arousal ... so it's hard to pin those on finasteride alone.

 

 

 

Yeh evn am taking since many years without any side effects ...am taking oral minoxidil as well since so long and nvr faced any issues..and i got very good results ....still we cannot say tht thr is no side effect to anyone ..thr mite be and actually evry drug will have some degree of side effects to some percentage of individual ..even a common drug like paracetamol have its side effects...bt i agree with you tht ths side effects thng is bit exaggerated ...people cn use finasteride and see if it works for them and suppose if someone face any issues thn they cn stop it..its nt tht the problems are irreversible and evn its nt a poison tht it would kill a person....and yeh i agree tht sometimes ths exaggerated negativity of finasteride effects the mindset of an individual and they feel tht they are also facing such thngs...i have seen some people sayin tht they started facing issues in 2-3 days which i guess practically not possible ....

[Damifino]

I'm 46, and have been on 1mg Finasteride daily since I was 22. Never had any side effects from it. My hair loss has been what I would call "stable" for most of that time (I'd classify my loss as around NW 2). I think Finasteride has done a good job of holding off any further significant loss in my temple and crown areas...so I would definitely call my experience "successful".

I've used 5% foam Minoxidil sporadically over the years, particularly when I feel like I'm losing a little ground on just Finasteride alone. I've been good about using it at least once (sometimes twice) every day for the last year and a half or so, and I think it's helped to thicken up the miniaturized hairs in my crown a bit. I have naturally curly/wavy hair, which helps to cover things some, and in my experience the minoxidil acts as a kind of "thickening" agent on the hair strands themselves. So my advice would definitely be to keep up with the Minox in addition to the Finasteride.

The two treatments really do work well together for most people.