Category: Drugs

Hello Doctor,

i’ve since talked to my GP about medication regarding prevention of hair loss, he didn’t seem that bothered. He was more interested in assuring me that no medication works and my efforts will be pointless however he did steer me away from rogaine as i suffer from psoriasis.

I’ve since ordered generic finesteride but am not sure about the product i received. Firstly its called PROSCARE and not proscar, does that matter? They are small blue pills from “centurian laboratories” and i received 60 5mg tablets for $88.75 which sounds too cheap. It was one of the first results on google when i search cheap generic finesteride.

Do you think the product i have purchased could be a rip off and a “dodgey” item?

Thanks for your help doctor

Oh boy. First, the doctor you went to is correct — there is no medication to take for hair loss prevention. Neither finasteride nor minoxidil should be used to prevent something that might not even occur. If you’re losing hair (even in the early stages) that is a different story, but I don’t know where your loss is at, if any.

So, let’s get back to what I do know: you bought a prescription medication off the web (WITHOUT a doctor’s prescription or recommendation), and you found this online store by searching for “cheap finasteride”. This was not a smart move. Besides the financial aspect of money wasted, you are creating a health risk by taking unknown medication.

At least you realize that the pills you bought sounded a bit odd. I’ve never heard of “Proscare”, but it’s not uncommon for a generic drug maker to name their product something similar to the real thing. I can’t find any mention of a product by that name, except for on sites that sell it. I have no idea if this is legitimate generic finasteride. The name sounds frightening, though. Who puts “SCARE” right in the name of a medication? I even found the Centurion Laboratories site and they make no mention of finasteride. Sounds completely dodgy to me.

What you should’ve done is gotten a 2nd opinion from another doctor if you felt the first doctor you saw was uncaring about your situation. You’re not going to do yourself any good by buying illegal prescription drugs. At the least, I’ll give you a silver star for effort and knowing the spelling of Proscar.

I’ve been on Avodart for 2 years now with good results. Propecia simply stopped working for me. I believe we all know that Avodart is more effective. Are you a “paid speaker” for Merck? Thanks…

Avodart (dutasteride) is possibly more effective for some men, but at what cost? Not only has dosage not been defined for treating hair loss and the side effect risks may be greater, but clinical trials aren’t even complete. Remember, Propecia is FDA approved to treat hair loss… Avodart is not. As a physician, it is difficult to make a recommendation to a wide internet audience for a medication like dutasteride that would have to be prescribed off-label.

I need to know more about the medication before I can feel comfortable recommending it. I’m glad you have good results from Avodart, but I don’t know anything about you (age, hair loss history, etc)… so I couldn’t use your 3 sentence review as something that would change my opinion.

I’m not on Merck’s payroll nor do I own stock in them. I’ve answered the question a few times. Here’s a post from a few years ago that should help explain this (it still applies today).

Dr. Rassman,

I’m sure you get plenty of repetitive questions and whining but I just wanted to share more good news from people out on the Internet.

I started taking generic proscar 4 months ago to help my diffuse thinning and hope for some nice reversal. The thing I was scared most of was side effects. I did get a strange aching in the testicles for about a week, it was annoying, but it went away. However, after that, I continued to get some strange groin/testicle aches. I made sure it wasn’t a result of an injury exercising. If I stopped taking my finasteride for two days, it went away.

However, right around the 3 month mark it went away completely and I have had no more side effects. I have started to see tiny hairs sprout up all around my hairline and I am hoping for minor regrowth and at least stabilization of my hair.

Finally, the “itching” a lot of people with MPB seem to have has went away completely within the last two weeks. It has been very a very plesant month for me on finasteride and I do not regret taking it at all!

Thanks for telling people to take it. It really does seem to be a safe medication.

As I’ve said before, when finasteride/Propecia works well for a patient, he isn’t likely to bombard internet forums with his positive results (they just go about their daily lives)… but if he feels like he’s been wronged or cheated, he might have no problem going out of his way to let everyone know on every website he can find. That’s why the complaints can be more in your face than the positive messages and can give a skewed impression of the actual statistics. So it’s good to have a balance.

What I’m trying to say is, thanks for writing about your experience and I’m glad the medication has worked out. I always like reading good news.

Hey doctor, I have 1 year old propecia sitting in my drawer. I am wondering if it is still safe to take the drug or will it loose all effectiveness? I cannot find any expiration date on the package. Thank you.

The Propecia bottle should have an expiration date stamped towards the bottom of the front label, right next to the lot number.

In the event that you find the date and discover it has passed, you shouldn’t be using expired drugs (I would say the same about expired bread or milk). While it may not harm you, the effectiveness of the drug may be diminished.

Hello,

I have a receding hairline (power alleys) that I’ve watched continually recede over the past few years. It appears that the majority of my hair loss is in the frontal hariline, but over the past year I’ve noticed that the hair on the top of my head has become thinner. Each year that has passed I’ve noticed a logical progression of balding. I’m 30 years old now and am looking into taking medication to not only prevent further loss, but to possibly regrow some of what has been lost on top. With my age, I feel confident in the hair loss that has occurred in my frontal hairline area. If it was possible to strengthen the frontal hairline again, then that would be icing on the cake.

I’ve flipped through the website, and from what I could find, it sounds like Finasteride and Rogaine would be the products to use in order to obtain the results I’m after. Could you verify this or offer any other treatments?

I will be getting an assessment from a dermatologist as well, but I would like to get a second opinion from this website. Unfortunately, I do not have any photos at this time. Thanks for the help

The only FDA approved medications to treat hair loss are finasteride (Propecia) and minoxidil (Rogaine). You might read about supplements, lasers, magic lotions, etc, etc… but none of them are proven to work and in my opinion, are a waste of time. Hair loss is progressive, so the more time you spend experimenting with things that aren’t likely to work, the more time and hair is lost.

Propecia is by prescription only, and minoxidil is available at most pharmacies. Now whether these medications will work in the hairline for you remains to be seen. Generally, they work best in the crown/top of the scalp.

Hope that helps!

Hello Dr,
First I would like to thank you for your great blog which is extremely helpful. I am a medical school student and I was doing some research on the documentation of Merck for approval of Propecia. Some data which was submitted to FDA brought my interest toward these documents. [Link: PDF file]

As you can see in the link above there are some figures regarding the DHT in scalp as well at T serum. I can see clearly that 0.05mg of finasteride would significantly lower T and DHT levels in scalp while this dosage does not effect the hormone levels as much in the rest of the blood (although the numbers are lower for 0.05mg,but still they are very close to 1mg and look very effective). Now my question to you is that why aren’t we using 0.05mg dosage instead of 1mg? 1mg finasteride seems to lower DHT and T levels a lot more in the blood which causes uncomfortable side effects; and we also know that once we lower 1mg to 0.5 (half a pill) or 0.25mg the side effect tend to subside, so we do know that the side effects of finasteride are dosage dependent.

Also I would like to add that I am at one of the UC system medical schools and we have been running and experiment on MPH sufferers and so far (within 1.5 years of our study) we have been successful up to 88.5% to get the same results of finasteride 1mg by using 0.2mg dosage on 749 men. unfortunately I am not allowed to release more information about out experiment, but the results are very convincing and our study will continue for another 3-5 years on these patients.

Thank you

It has been known that a 1/2 dose of Propecia (finasteride 0.5mg) and even 1/10 dose (finasteride 0.1mg) showed efficacy on androgenic alopecia. I am aware of the study you’re referencing, and we’ve written in the past about how the 1/2 dose of Propecia is about 80% as effective as the full dose. So I believe your study! I do wonder why your school would be conducting a study that has already been published and established or why you would not be able to publish your results. I must not have all the story here.

I would say in the real world many patients with side effects elect to take 1/2 dose Propecia and see benefits for their hair. It is my understanding the 1mg finasteride was chosen for Propecia to give maximum benefits for a wide percentage of the general population while maintaining the lowest side effect profile balance. You said yourself, 88.5% get same results on 0.2mg finasteride. Maybe Merck wanted that number a bit higher for the general public.

I would be curious to know the reduction in side effects from 1mg to 0.2mg. If the reduction was not significant then I could understand why a drug company would choose the 1mg option. I do not know if this is what really happened, but it is my speculation and logical guess. Perhaps you should find this information or add it to your experiment/research and publish the data. Good luck!