Category: Drugs

What is your opinion about taking a drug holiday for a few weeks every few years to keep from developing a tolorance to Propecia? After 10 years on the drug things don’t seem to be working too well any longer.

If you stop Propecia, you will lose hair. A drug holiday makes no sense, but it is not unusual for a person with genetic balding to eventually lose out in the “war” between the drug Propecia and the balding process. The good news is that it is a slow process, but if you go on a drug holiday, you may find that your hair falls out faster. Tolerance makes no medical sense with this drug.

Think about insulin and the diabetic. If the diabetic stopped taking insulin for 2 or so weeks, he may die. Not a good holiday.

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Dear Dr. Rassman,
Im always thankful to you as I visit your blog every alternative day. I also thank your blog for saving me from buying the useless hairmax laser comb. I am a 21 year old male, allergic to minoxidil and have been losing hair for more than three years now. My hairline is still intact but have thinning all over.

1. My first question is that can you think what david beckham might have done to regrow his hair. I have the exact same case, and heres the links to before and after pictures of him. Before and After. Please answer this question as its very important for me to know the answer.
2. Also, I consulted two dermatologists which belonged to the most famous hospitals in dubai, and both refused to give me a prescription for finasteride saying I am too young(one was upset) and this made me scared of the drug. What would you do if you were instead of me?
3. Do you find this information on this site reliable? Drugs.com – Finasteride side effects
4. Was that study done on finasteride 1mg or 5mg?

I apologize for this long e-mail. Thanks in advance.

1. It is difficult to tell in the after photo, as it isn’t close up and the lighting is different. It looks like his hair is just a bit longer or he could be using medication. I’m not even sure how much time was between the before and the after photo. I did write about David Beckham previously.
2. I’m not sure why your dermatologists would say you were too young at 21 years old to take finasteride. The studies on the medication were on men age 18 and up and the medication was shown to be effective.
3. Yes, Drugs.com is a reliable site.
4. If you’re referring to the study mentioned in that Drugs.com link you sent, I believe that is on the 5mg finasteride.

Hi,

I have been taking Propecia for 3 days and have noticed that my erections seem softer and do not last as long. Is it too soon for me to be experiencing such alleged side effects? Your response would be greatly appreciated.

There are many possibilities. The power of suggestion is sometimes more powerful than drug or side effects. If you think you are going to have a sexual side effect (after reading all the horror stories on the Internet) you will likely have a side effect. The real world sexual depression with Propecia is about 1 to 2 percent and may take weeks to appear. The real world power of suggestion (or placebo effect) is much higher.

Dr. Rassman,

I have relatively dense brown hair. I am using minoxidil to restore a hairline that is visibly receeding. However, whenever I lightly scratch my scalp after having used product containing minoxidil, I notice little hairs attached to my fingernail. They are normally about a half inch in lenghth, fine, and clear.

I thought, perhaps, that it was an anomaly. However, with repeated runs of my fingernails over my scalp, I continually pick up one or two of these strange, small hairs. This has been occurring as long as I have been using minoxidil (a year or two.)

Are these vellus hairs that are falling out? Is this a sign of an unhealthy scalp?

I don’t know what these little hairs are. If I looked at them under the microscope, I might know, but in the meantime you should just stop scratching them. Leave them alone! Let’s see what happens when they grow out.

Hello Dr R

As other chaps have commented – you operate an informative website but can you answer or provide referal to those who perhaps can. You cant know everything and yield a scalpel as well

Here is my situation. I am almost 40 years of age, been on finasteride since 2000, almost a decade. No significant side-effects and kept the majority of my hair. Probably in the next year or two, I shall conceive a child (hopefully a boy) but a healthly child is the main thing.

My questions to you

1. If finasteride has no real toxicological effect – why hasnt Merck released a study showing men who have been on the drug produce healthy children of either sex. I mean more the hormonal imbalance the drug does than the toxic effect. Hormones do play important roles even if that one causes hair loss.
2. Half life of the drug is cleared within a couple weeks or so. But how long would it take for the hormone levels to reach what they were prior to ever taking the drug in the first place
3. Is it possible to test for certain hormones to guage their levels to quantify this OR is this futile

My biggest fear is that the use of the drug would jeopardize having a healthly baby and also lessen the chance of having a male one!

Thanks for your unbiased opinion.

The half life of finasteride is about 4-6 hours so it is almost completely gone in 24 hours. There may be some tissue fixation that occurs and I would expect that it would take 1 or 2 weeks to clear that (just a guess). I can not comment on why Merck does or does not do something like gathering the statistics that go beyond safety and effectiveness (FDA requirements). You can write Merck and ask them directly.

I do not believe that there is any evidence of sex gender preferences conceived when a man is on finasteride. There is no evidence that babies are anything but normal when the father is on finasteride. We know, however, that this drug is dangerous for women who are pregnant particularly in the first trimester.

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Hello Doctor,

I wanted to share something. I’m sure you are familiar with the product called Procede. I believe you have even written about it before and thought it was some sort of coloring agent. Information on the product is very sketchy and nobody seems to know how it is even supposed to work. Until recently, the ingredients were never even posted on their website and the company has always been extremely vague about its mode of supposed action.

I just discovered the ingredients are now posted. I have pasted them below. The product seems really weird and the list of ingredients seems alarming. One of the main ingredients is actually a depilatory agent and the other is used for shrinking varicose veins. Obviously, the product does not seem to be a coloring agent as suspected.

Can you please look at the ingredients and tell us what you think the makers had in mind in formulating this product. What route do you think they were going for to achieve the claimed results? By what action do you think this product is supposed to work by and what do you see it actually doing?

A Formula #1 Ingredients:
Deionized Water, Thioglycolic Acid, Monoethanolamine, Cetyl Alcohol, Stearyl Alcohol, Mineral Oil, Polyquaternium-6, Ethyl Alcohol 1.4%, Ceteareth-12, Methyl Salicylate, Salicylic Acid, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Lactic Acid, Glycolic Acid, Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Papain, Citric Acid, Tartaric Acid.

Formula #2 Ingredients:
Deionized Water, Sodium Bromate, Cetyl Alcohol, Mineral Oil, Cetearyl Alcohol, Ceteareth-20, Urea, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.

I am not a chemist, and I really cannot comment on if those ingredients will grow hair. I’m not seeing anything proven to grow hair in there, though. I can tell you there is no cure for hair loss. Even the best medications we have (Propecia and Rogaine) still have limitations. As the ingredients you listed as being in Procede are not controlled by the FDA, you are at the mercy of the manufacturer unless you decide not to use is (which is still in your power).

Hello,

I’m a 30 year old male, and about 10-12 months ago started going through some various minor illness problems that lasted around 2-3 months total – things like a sinus infection, fatigue, aches, abdominal pains, nausea, etc. I’ve previously never really been ill, and always had (overly) thick hair.

I was finally diagnosed with Gilbert’s Syndrome – though whether this was related to my problems (or even accurate) I don’t know. Then, around 6 months ago, I noticed hairs falling out, say around 5-10 and up to 15-20 each time I washed or styled my hair. At first it didn’t worry me, but I’ve recently noticed that my hair is now a lot thinner, especially from the centre of my head to the front hairline. My scalp also seems to itch a fair amount in roughly the same area.

Am I just getting old and hitting a standard balding pattern, or could the increased bilirubin in my blood be a contributory factor? Either way, is there anything that can help (preferably avoiding prescription drugs, but I’m open to all suggestions)?

If there is any liver disease associated with Gilbert’s syndrome, then you will metabolize many hormones slowly (like DHT) which could cause them to have a higher blood level. I did see one report of someone with this syndrome getting a great response to finasteride. Finasteride is a prescription drug, though.