Author: Dr. William Rassman

My boyfriend has just started using the generic Rogaine from Costco in liquid form, and I have been helping him since depositing a dropperfull of liquid on the bald spot is not an easy thing to do alone. I use the dropper to distribute the liquid around the spot, but no matter what we do it seems that much of it runs off down his neck or forehead. The rest sits in the few hairs he has left in little droplets.

My questions:
– are we doing this wrong somehow?
– should I be putting on a latex glove and trying to spread the solution around with my fingers?
– would the foam work better? He has the typical bald spot at the crown of the head, with just a few fine hairs and mostly just scalp. But I have found in my research that an awful lot of guys say the foam just melts from your body heat and runs off anyway…

Suggestions or pointers to articles would be much appreciated!

Your problems are well shared by many users of liquid minoxidil, thus Rogaine Foam was created so that the medication stays on the area you want to treat. It may “melt” and run off as you say, but it is better than the liquid in my opinion. If you still want to use the liquid (or your boyfriend does, more precisely), you can apply the liquid with a gloved hand. That might be best anyway, since you’re not using the medication.

Note the importance of buying legit Propecia from a real pharmacy!!

Couple years old but a UK Press Release about fake Propecia rings true today.

Press release: Counterfeit medicines gang convicted

Thanks for sending this in. Yes, it is from late 2007, but it goes to show that counterfeit Propecia does exist and is a problem. One crackdown (no matter how large it was) in the UK doesn’t eliminate the problem altogether. Buyers need to use common sense when buying prescription drugs off the internet without a prescription.

If you knew that natural cures to hairloss existed, you wouldn’t be holding back on us just to get a few more bucks, would you?

Also, it’s been one year exactly since I stopped my 58 days on Propecia, and I still have these mental side effects of stumbling over words/lack of fluidity when speaking/lack of wit and smoothness. The only other thing in the world this could be would be the high soy diet I put myself on for hairloss measures a few weeks after I started Propecia, and right before I felt my first side effects. I’ve seen a thyroid doctor (who said everything at Whole Foods was a fraud), a neurologist, and a psychiatrist (the latter just for kicks really), and apparently I’m the foremost expert in soy isoflavones and their effect on the thyroid. Just because someone has a medical degree doesn’t mean they’re knowledgeable in every arena. I still never had any sexual or physical side effects, and my wit is still present when I type or write, so something is only affecting my speech, which lends me to believe it really has to do with the physical properties of the thyroid and perhaps the larynx. Any thoughts?

Would I hold back the cure for balding if I had it? The answer to that is… absolutely NO. I obviously spend all of this time answering questions on this site just so I can squeeze money out of you, telling you there’s no cure when secretly I’ve been hiding it in my wall safe. Did you catch the sarcasm there? If you truly think a natural cure for hair loss is out there, by all means keep rubbing onions on your head and coffee in your eyes… or whatever the “cure of the day” might be.

I can not tie the speech/voice problems you have with the drug Propecia. What you said about soy is interesting and noted. There have been some patient reports that finasteride may have caused some impact on brain function but, I suspect, that would be extremely rare and not proven in the medical literature.

Dear Dr. Rassman,

I have a question regarding Propecia side affects on the hair (!) if you stop taking it. If one stops using it after a long period (months or years), are there any chances the hair loss would increase? Meaning, if one took it for, lets say, one year and his body got used to the drug, can the hairloss get worst when he stops using it? I know of course that when one stops using propecia the shedding returns, but could it be more severe than if he had not taken the drug for the same period of time before he stopped?

Thank You

If you stop using Propecia, you may experience “catch up” hair loss. You will in effect lose all the hairs that grew from Propecia and lose all the hairs that would have been lost if you never took the medication in the first place. I have personally seen such cases and they can be pretty dramatic. The hairs that are lost will not likely come back if you re-start Propecia. I don’t know of any evidence showing that upon stopping Propecia, your hair loss even more severe than it would’ve been.

In the past, you have reccomended .5mg of propecia for those experiencing side effects. Why not .75mg?

As long as you have a good way to split a 1mg oval/circular pill into the correct geometry to make it 0.75mg, I don’t see a problem. Then you can take the 0.75 and save the 0.25 remaining for the next three days when you can combine three 0.25 to take the 0.75 dose. Or I guess you can just throw away the 0.25. Get the point? It makes practical sense to split a 1mg pill in half to make 0.5mg.

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