Category: Drugs

Doc.. you asked me to follow up on a previous post about a year ago to let you know my results. So I am now. I was on 5% non PG Dr. Lees formula for a some years. After the FDA closed him and others down I switched to Rogaine foam and had a terrible shed. I had a good hairline that was thinned considerably within 10 days. I called the company and they told me to stop use. I was extremely concerned what to do next.

I knew I’d have another terrible shed if I quit minoxidil completely so I went to 2% which had less pg. I was already on propecia. The results were what appeared to be stabilization with some slow loss. though about 15 months later i’ve noticed quite a shed. My guess that going from 5 to 2% had a negative effect but not as immediate as going from 5 to 0 would have been. That it took 15 months instead of the usual 4 to notice a big change.

I wish I started Propecia first and not minoxidil. I would rather have my hair dependent on Propecia than minoxidil..

Thanks for the update. Best of luck with your continued hair loss battle.

Question regarding catch-up hair loss and propecia. I have been on propecia for 4 years now and have not seen an affect of balding. Im a 27 year old male with no sign of hairloss as of right now. I started taking it because my mothers father was bald as well as her brother. I had no signs of hair loss. Right now Im about to attend a school for work (military) that does not allow prescriptions. My question is how long do most people have before they see severe catch-up hair loss?

I don’t know why you would take a prescription hair loss treatment if you didn’t have signs of hair loss — or I guess the better question would be, why would a doctor prescribe it to you? Finasteride should not be used as a preventive medication; it should only be taken once hair loss is evident. Since you started taking the medication with no hair loss present, I don’t know if you do have genetic hair loss that Propecia protected you from, or if the hair loss gene skipped you altogether.

If you have genetic male patterned hair loss, and have been slowing or stopping the problem with finasteride/Propecia, you may very well have “catch-up” hair loss and see the impact in 1-4 months.

Hello and thank you for all these answers and clarifying a lot of myths on balding!

My father, his brother and their dad are bald and I started balding in my early 20s. A quick visit to a dermatologist made me start 1/4 Proscar which I did for 6 years. By then end of that period I become increasingly worried that some depression symptoms, lack of motivation, memory and concentration were being caused by it. No major sexual problems… I stopped it over 1.5years ago.

Some people think stopping finasteride may not have any consequences… that’s very naive i think, specially if you took it for a long time. The major changes I’ve noticed were: increased body hair (beard, arms, back and legs mainly), more easy to gain muscle, but my belly suddenly also started accumulating fat way more easily, body smells are all of a sudden way more intense, my constant 4-5 colds/ throat “virus” per year reduced a lot (not been sick at all this past year…), erections are more potent (horny way more often), skin aging seems to have accelerated, hair is falling and receding fast! Many of these are consequences of a male hormone back into a high level i think. Depression, memory improvements? … very hard to tell!

Question: Have you heard of any of these depression/ mental problems? Some people claim nasty sexual sides, is it likely that i will develop those if i restart 1/4 proscar for some more years? I mean, given i had no major sides (apart from the elusive mental problems which doctors never believed) can i assume proscar is safe for me?

Also, may i ask what are the current guidelines for having a HT at an early balding stage? Could i just assume that balding is occurring and do half transplant now which lasts some years and do the rest in say… 10years time or so?

Many thanks in advance for your advice and for this blog!

I appreciate your problems, but you need to see a doctor to surround them. I’ve never heard of anyone having their body smells change or getting sick more often, nor have I heard that finasteride could cause skin aging. I am not surprised that your hair is receding fast, since you stopped the medication that was protecting your hair.

As for hair transplant guidelines, hair loss is a progressive process. You’ll need to talk with a surgeon to develop a Master Plan for treating your loss.

Hello, I am 24 years old male and my hair thinning in the front has started to accelerate a year ago. I went to my doctor and he has prescribed generic finasteride 5mg, but he recommended that I take half the tablet (2.5mg) stating that it will be easier to divide than quartering and that I will be fine on it.

Well I have been taking it for the past 9 months and I have been shedding lots of hair and front has thinned while on the finasteride. Is it possible that the higher dosage (more than 1mg) of finasteride has caused this? Or is this normal shed? and What do you think I should do? Talk to my doctor and decrease the dosage to quarter the tablet? I feel lost and helpless. Thank you for your answer

Men that take the full 5mg dose of finasteride for treating the prostate don’t experience increased shedding, and I don’t believe that a 2.5mg dose taken daily will cause additional shedding. Some men do report some initial shedding even with the 1mg dose (though this isn’t terribly common), but if you’ve continued to shed for 9 months, you may just be continuing to lose hair from your primary genetic disorder.

You need to communicate better with your doctor or find another doctor who you can relate to better. It would be inappropriate for me to take charge of your care with regard to being more specific in the solution to your shedding problem. In other words — talk to your prescribing doctor.

Hi doc
I’m into third month of propecia, and I’m glad to say it’s starting to work- woohoo! However- a strange side effect. It’s so darn effective that I’ve now grown hair between my eyebrows and my temples. As I noticed this in the daytime, I doubt I’m moonlighting as a werewolf.

How common is this? Is it adviseable to shave it off? What’s the chances of it thickening up and being a real problem? Can you hook me up with an audition for a horror film- I’ll save loads in make up costs!

Keep up the good work.

I have heard of strange hair growth patterns with Propecia, but this is a new one to me! You sound to be in good spirits with a healthy sense of humor, at least.

I suppose shaving the hair off would be the best thing to do.

I understand that I have to use Rogaine throughout my life if I want to retain my hairs but my only concern with it is its impact on other natural hairs (not affected by DHT yet). I have read somewhere that when you stop applying rogaine, not only the hairs which were grown by it would be gone but along with, your natural hairs will also be affected due to the way it works. Is it true doctor?? As you can see in the picture, my hairs are quite thick except the crown area so if I have to use rogaine, I will only use it on crown area, which means if I stop using it in future for some reasons, I will only loose regrown hairs (on crown area) and not anywhere else. But if that publication is true about the impact of rogaine on other hairs as well then don’t u think it is risky to use it as I may end losing more hairs if I have to stop it??

So to sum up, my question is that once the rogaine treatment is stopped, does other hairs (not effected by DHT) will also be lost along with rogaine dependent hairs?? Secondly, I also read that with years of using rogaine, your body becomes immune to it thus negating its positive effect. Is it true?? For how many years, it can be used before it stop working on your body.

In the end, I would like to thank you again for taking the time out to reply to me….It really means a lot to me to get an answer back from the world most renowned doctor. Thank you so much.

If you stop Rogaine, the only hairs that may be lost are those that grew as a result of this drug. What you’re asking me is something people refer to as minoxidil dependence, but that only applies to the hairs that minoxidil grew. You can learn more about that here.

Rogaine (minoxidil) should not impact normal hair in any way, nor does it impact DHT in any way. The impact of Rogaine is strictly a side effect of this drug, and DHT will still cause hair loss on genetically impacted hair. Finasteride (Propecia) is a DHT inhibitor, but Rogaine is not.