Month: January 2009

You always say at the 8th – 9th month mark you should see Propecia’s regrowth/thickening of hairs. If you haven’t seen anything by then does it mean there is no possibility of thickening of miniaturized hairs or regrowth after that? I read that Propecia can take up to 1 year to see its benefits and some say up to 2 years (I personally doubt that), so what’s the deal here?

If you follow the process with miniaturization studies (see here) then you can state categorically that it is not thickening up the hair shafts. I don’t always say you’ll see regrowth… but the drug almost always works on preventing or slowing hair loss in those genetically prone to it.

I have been looking at your website for quite sometime and have sent pics of my receding hairline. After much thought, i decided to start on propecia and after taking it for 2 or 3 days i felt no side effects. on the 3rd or 4th day i felt my throat swelling ant tightening. I figured it was a virus due to the cold whether we have been having in Chicago and at night i would hear strange sounds in the middle of the night. I started on zithromax and after a couple of days i began to feel much better.(during this time i stopped using propecia.) after finishing the zithromax i started taking propecia again and within minutes i felt my throat swell up and started to itch. I went to the pharmacy and they gave me benedril which helped. Therefore, it seems i am allergic to propecia and am trying to prevent my hair line from receding any more, any suggestions???

I have never heard of such complaints from my own patients, but allergies do happen. This is something you should discuss with your doctor (who can run various allergy tests on you, for example), not someone like me over the Internet. The question you should pose to your doctor is, “Is this an allergic reaction?” and then work out a plan with him/her on what to do.

Aside from the 1mg of finasteride, Propecia pills have the following inactive filler ingredients: lactose monohydrate, microcrystalline cellulose, pregelatinized starch, sodium starch glycolate, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, hydroxypropyl cellulose LF, titanium dioxide, magnesium stearate, talc, docusate sodium, yellow ferric oxide, and red ferric oxide. Perhaps there is something in there that you have an allergy to?

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I wrote once asking you if in 8-9 months you don’t see any thickening/regrowth on Propecia that later results are unlikely. You said there is no guarantee the medication will work for me. I understand that nothing is a guarantee but my question really was that “if” thickening/regrowth will happen for a man on Propecia does it “must” happen on the 8-9th month mark or can it happen later?

You will likely know by the 8 or 9th month mark, but keep in mind that if you also notice less hair loss (but no thickening or regrowth) it may still be working… even if it’s just slowing the process down. I don’t recall saying that if you didn’t see regrowth that results are unlikely. Just seeing the hair loss halt is also a benefit of finasteride.

To answer the question you’re asking directly though, if you’re expecting regrowth of your hair and you don’t see it by month 9, I don’t think that continuously taking the drug will result in regrowth by month 15. If you do take Propecia for 15 months (as an example) and decide to stop, you’ll see your hair loss continue and possibly speed up. This is what I call catch-up hair loss, in that any halting benefits the Propecia gave you would be gone after stopping the drug, and your hair loss catches up to the point that you’d be at had you never taken it at all.

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