Month: June 2008

I am a 42 year old male and my hairline began to recede about 3 years ago, primarily on the sides. In addition, the hair in the sideburn area began to thin as well.

To combat this I decided to go to a medical hair treatment consultant 8 months ago. They suggested hair transplants of about 1000-1400 grafts, but I could first try the Propecia & Rogaine combo. I opted for the latter.

After about a month I noticed a huge difference in hair loss. I went from seeing dozens of hairs on my pillow and on my hands when washing my hair, to just a few here and there. At the 6 month mark I began to notice small peach fuzz hairs along the hairline which had been smooth before. Now I am beginning to get hair where hair did not grow before in the lower temporal and side burn areas. Instead of a horseshoe area it is shaped more like a triangle.

My question to you is, will this peach fuzz hairs become thicker? Also, is the hair that was never there before an anomaly?

It is a known side effect of Rogaine (minoxidil) that it will grow hair on other parts of the body, possibly from systemic absorption. When the drug was first developed it was used as an antihypertensive and the side effects were not detectable in women treated systemically with abnormal hair growth on the face and elsewhere.

I can not answer your question directly, but you may be unusually sensitive to this drug’s side effect (of hair loss). Wait it out or stop it. If it continues to grow hair, make sure it is in the areas you want to or just stop it.

I used to be highly sexually active up my entire life up until I started taking the propecia six months ago. I’m ready to throw in the towel with taking the propecia. I wanted to hear your thoughts on it first. I haven’t noticed any difference in hair growth, seems to be exactly the same as it was when I started, but I read in places to give it a year before nixing it. If that’s the case is there anything you recommenend to counteract the propecia and increase the sexual libido to the way it was before, besides viagra. Something to take daily.

Speak with your prescribing doctor. With your doctor’s awareness, you might reduce the dose to 1/2 pill (0.5mg) or even 1/4 pill (0.25mg), as some finasteride is better than none in the fight against hair loss. I would want to know more about your sexual problem before I would throw in the towel, so your doctor may give you more insights. If this does not solve the issue, it becomes a personal choice and if it were me, I would take balding over giving up sex (personal choice).

AskMen.com has an article up about foods that are claimed to increase libido. I’m not going to vouch for the validity of these, but with such gems as, “The Aztecs called the avocado tree ahuacatl or ‘testicle tree.’“, I don’t see how you could possibly go wrong! It might be more to do with how the avocado fruit looks when it grows on the vine, rather than what it does to your genitalia, but my Aztec is a bit rusty and I have to rely on AskMen to steer me in the right direction.

Theoretically, how much finasteride would we have to consume to equal the amount those tuber-eating hermaphrodites ate?

I think that the answer to this question has never been quantified. I would guess that it would be hundreds of times the dose, but I really don’t know. A very interesting question, but one that I just don’t have an answer to.

For those interested, a couple years ago I wrote a post about genital abnormalities in babies exposed to finasteride — Proscar Warning Label and Possible Birth Defects.