Category: Drugs

I would like to share my experience with latisse. I am 27. I am prone to balding as we have the genes in our family (father, uncle, and grandfather are bald!). However, I have not experienced any balding since I use propecia regularly (only a half a pill every day or every other day) and also use latisse on my scalp every other 2 days. My hair is thick, dark, youthful, and excellent. My hairline is still practically a juvenile hairline and rests at the upper crest of my brow. These combo of meds (propecia + latisse) seem to be protecting my juvenile hairline even into my late 20s.

Most people in their late 20s are unable to retain a youthful hairline. I started using propecia at only 22, and have added bimatoprost in at 27 years of age. I also use the latisse on my eyebrows every once in a while for the heck of it and my eyebrows are thick and dark as well. I have had absolutely no side effects from the latisse other than my hair becoming darker. It may be a cure/preventative measure to gray hair possibly.

Thanks for sharing! It sounds like you started on Propecia as a preventive treatment not for obvious balding (which I don’t generally recommend) and then added Latisse just for kicks years later. Since there are two medications in use, it would be difficult to pinpoint which of them (or perhaps both) are keeping your hairline intact. It could be possible that the MPB gene skipped you altogether, as it can skip generations. I’m not sure why you’d think Latisse could cure of prevent gray hair, as you’re not likely to see a lot of gray hairs anyway at 27 years old…

But this is interesting, and I do appreciate your 2 cents. If these treatments are working for you and the costs can be afforded, it is tempting to ponder a more extensive study, which I hope is already underway. I am happy that you’re not seeing any side effects. I hope you’re meeting with your prescribing doctor to keep track of your progress, particularly with using Latisse on your scalp, which I’d classify as experimental at this point.

Hello Doctor,

Firstly I’d like to thank you very much for maintaining such a very informative blog.

I have read that in cases where 1mg finasteride has lost its “effectiveness” in patients over the years you have prescribed 2mg instead of avodart. In the majority of these cases do you see a halt to hair loss, or no change from 1mg. Thanks for your time.

I haven’t seen much difference in results for those men that take 2mg finasteride from the start compared to those that take the recommended 1mg. I’m still not clear if it helps to take 2mg when 1mg seems to not be as effective as it once was (generally after years of taking it). I occasionally do advocate the double dose for those situations, but there isn’t actual evidence that this helps. There’s been only a small handful of patients that I’ve recommended this to within the past year, too soon to get a follow-up. In other words, there is no objective data on the results of changing the dose.

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Snippet from the article:

On May 25, 2007, Kevin Xu logged into his Gmail account and found a startling message from a man who could have been his biggest client.

From an office suite on the 28th floor of the Plaza Royale in Beijing, the baby-faced businessman had gone from selling shark cartilage and penicillin to Chinese hospitals and clinics to cashing in on the high-profit margins of the European and—he hoped—US pharmaceutical markets. Xu kept a list of 29 brand-name drugs he could deliver at cut-rate prices, from the baldness remedy Propecia to lifesavers like the antileukemia drug Gleevec.

Read the full article — TheScientist.com – The Counterfeiter

The article goes on to show how Kevin Xu was ultimately caught and convicted, but also delves into the fake pharmaceutical business. The rate of drug counterfeiting has gone up substantially in the past few years, and just goes to show how this stuff is more widespread than most believe. A fascinating read! Thanks to the reader that sent me the link!

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Dear Dr. Rassman,

Could you talk a little bit more about what you see over long-term with results with Propecia? Let’s start with the assumption that nine of 10 patients will have not lose hair from baseline at year 5.

At year 10, what percentage of patients would you say have a very noticeable decrease in hair, what percentage have a modest decrease in hair, and what percentage do not have any visible decrease in hair? I, for instance, have modest diffuse thinning-just barely visible to the naked eye. It has been diagnosed as MPB. I started on Propecia and minoxidil a few weeks ago, and am just looking for rough probabilities that 5 and 10 years from now, I will still have reasonably good hair coverage.

I know there are no hard and fast numbers and no clinical studies beyond the 5 year point, but any rough estimates would be great.

Your assumption that 9 of 10 patients will not lose hair from baseline is incorrect. Almost all patients will lose hair from baseline, because Propecia is not a cure! The rate of hair loss will be slower, but you still continue to lose some hair. Some will lose more hair and some will lose less hair, as it mainly depends on their genetic predisposition. That’s why I always tell folks here to get their miniaturization mapping done so that you have a baseline status at different regions of your scalp. This way you can track the progress of hair gain/loss.

As you know, the actual study was for only a 5 year time period, so I don’t have the data to be able to make any realistic estimates beyond that. A few years ago I posted a 10 year projection estimate here, just as an example. I really cannot give you probabilities on how good your results will be, just like I cannot predict the weather a year from now. If you have modest diffuse thinning on your front, top, and crown, I can expect the worst and say you may be an early Norwood Class 6… and that means you will likely go bald sometime in your life. With Propecia that will hopefully buy you a few years or maybe even a decade or more of good hair. But really, I haven’t examined you and I don’t know where your loss pattern will go.

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Hello,

If I wanted to, could I grind a 5mg proscar and dissolve it into 5ml of liquid and drink 1 ml of it a day? The objective being to avoid waste and have a more accurate dosing regiment compared to cutting them into 1.25 mg, segments.

I suppose you can, but I do not know if water will impact the potency. To be safe, I’d just cut a pill into smaller pieces and take 1/4 of it each day. It’s really not that difficult. You don’t have to be so precise. Just as long as you remember to take it everyday, that’s what really counts.

Are any generic Proscar pills any more or less difficult to cut into fourths?

Have you ever noticed/heard of a difference in shape, consistency, etc?

thanks!

I have heard this complaint about the different shapes/sizes of generic Proscar (finasteride 5mg), with some being more difficult to break up into four equal pieces. Ask your pharmacist to see the generic finasteride pills to determine whether you can cut it easily. The size difference is going to be from various fillers, but the finasteride should be evenly distributed throughout.

I don’t know specific pills that are best for cutting, but that is a great question to pose to our audience. I encourage the readers out there with generic finasteride 5mg experience to write in or leave a comment below.

Here’s the original article from 2006 about US athlete Zach Lund, who was banned from competing in the Olympics due to using Propecia.

Well, there’s been an update. Here’s a snippet from the new article:

Lund was informed he had tested positive for a banned drug. He was told he had to leave, immediately. Within minutes, he went from Olympic contender to Olympic exile.

“I had to pack my bags and walk out in front of everybody,” Lund said. “They cut up my credential. I was on top of the world, and then I was out on the street.”

Lund’s transgression? He was trying to preserve his hair. He was using Propecia, as he had for years to stave off baldness. But the main ingredient in Propecia is finasteride, which was on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of prohibited substances as a masking agent for steroids.

Lund, guilty of thinning hair, was labeled a drug cheat and kicked out of the Olympics.

Read the full article: Bald is beautiful for U.S. skeleton star

Zach is back in the 2010 Winter Olympics, but it’s a shame that he was banned from competing in the 2006 games. He had been taking Propecia for years, informed the Olympic committee about it, and at some point the medication was added to the banned substance list for a brief time. During that brief time, Zach was banned from competing. The ban on finasteride has since been lifted by the World Anti-Doping Agency, but not before Zach lost all the hair that Propecia had been keeping for him.

I have been taking 1mg of propecia every other day for almost 2 years now with excellent results. What are your thoughts on taking 1mg every other day?

You’re probably not getting the full benefit of the medication (recommended dosage is 1mg daily), but if you’re seeing excellent results, there’s no reason to change that now. I’d only recommend patients switch to partial dosing (usually 0.5mg/day) if they have side effects.