Author: Dr. William Rassman

Doc..I am a pharmacist..37 y/o male..I was started on propecia approx 2 weeks ago and noticed that I have become moody and irritable. do your patients complain of similar sx? is this common? does it resolve or should i consider stopping? thanks

You are a pharmacist, so your post-graduate training has been the study of drugs. You do not need me to tell you about side effects and how Propecia works. In fact, you are one of the rare few that can read the entire drug profile insert that came with the medication and actually understand it!

If you are asking me if I have personally seen anyone with your complaints at my private practice, I would say yes, on rare occasions people have discussed personality changes with me and mood swings. This is not a common complaint, and I don’t have information about whether it goes away or not. If you do enough research on the Internet to see if people have complained about your possible symptoms, I am sure you will find it.

I have come across a Neuroendocrine Physician, Dr. Alan Jacobs, and he wrote an interesting blog post on his site that you may wish to read.

Doc,

It’s hot and humid outside! what’s the best way to store your generic finasteride in these hot months? I keep it in a drawer away from light and try to keep my non AC room as cool as possible. Thanks a lot!

I would say store it in the bottle it comes in, and only cut one 5mg pill at a time. The situation you describe sounds reasonable for many people. It sounds like you’re doing the right thing in terms of medication storage. I doubt there would be any problem with the finasteride effectiveness if it is kept in a drawer with limited light and kept as cool in the room as possible.

Here’s some more tips on storing medication.

First off, I just want to say that I love your blog and I thank you for your willingness to offer advice to the general public. I’m a 24 year old male who recently stopped taking Propecia after 1 month because well, basically I began to experience sexual side effects and let’s just say I’m not man enough to risk losing my manliness for good. You’re well aware of the information available on the internet, so I won’t go too much into detail. There have been in-depth studies in other countries and I trust their scientists know what they’re doing.

I guess what I wanted to know is what my other options are. Right now it looks like the next best option would be Rogaine, but coupled with diet and exercise and overall good health, is there any thing else that I can do to prevent further hair loss? I’m a very early NW1, so my main goal is to maintain my hair.

Thank you

I’d wonder why your doctor would prescribe Propecia to someone with a “very early” Norwood Class 1, which isn’t even considered balding. That causes me to think that you weren’t prescribed the medication to begin with. I won’t lecture, but I sincerely hope this isn’t the case. If you had these side effects, perhaps you should’ve gone back to the prescribing doctor and gone over your options (lower dosage, etc). Or maybe you went to an inept physician. Regardless, don’t start trying to treat something that isn’t there.

Get your hair and scalp mapped out for miniaturization and find out if you have any real balding going on. Everything else follows a proper diagnosis, which you most certainly need. As for treatment options, you’re correct in that the next best would be Rogaine (minoxidil)… but again, I do not recommend that you start using hair loss medications preventatively.

As for your claims that “there have been in-depth studies in other countries and I trust their scientists know what they’re doing” — how in-depth are we talking here, and does that mean you don’t trust studies performed in the US? If you’re referring to the Swedish Medical Products Agency study from 2008, I wrote about that already.