Balding Blog

Thanks doctor. What is your opinion on how finasteride effects sperm, that’s really my main concern at the moment, I’ve read people saying their levels dropped to a point they would be considered infertile. Also if I was to start I would like to stay on for 10years max, I’m concerned fertility problems could be permanent after such a long duration.

Sperm counts often drop with finasteride so checking it before and after you are on it for a month or so will tell you how low it will get. My son, on finasteride for 15 years, saw a reduction a sperm count but he fathered two children, the second one was not planned.

What do you think: Does fin hit harder for guys with previously high or low libido? Any personal experiences here?

Some context: Im not on any medication but considering getting on the big 3. Like everyone else I’m concerned about sides from fin. When I was 20 or under, my libido was always sky high but now that I’m 25 I’ve noticed that I’m in the mood a lot less frequently. I’m sure this is a natural consequence of me getting older and I’m totally ok with that, but I’d prefer to not artificially tank my libido if I can avoid it.

We know that men who are in their 20s have some ED at a rate of about 20%, men in their 30s have an ED rate of about 30% and men in their 40s have an ED rate of about 40% and so on. I have not seen a relationship between men’s previous ED elements in their history to those who get finasteride induced ED, but it may exist.

21M, been on finasteride for 3 months now, experienced huge shedding of around 150 hairs per day during the first month. It gradually stopped and now I shed less than 10 strands during a shower. Tried combing my hair onto a white cloth and found a lot of miniscule strands less than 1 cm long. I have pretty thick hair N1 but was receding a bit at the hairline.

Hair becomes miniaturized in the balding process and as it miniaturizes, its growth often slows down. Sooner or later the hair will fall out and the stem cells that were there, will die. We don’t know exactly when these stem cells die out so if the balding is recent, these stem cells can kick into action if they are stimulated properly with possibly microneedling or some new drugs that may yet come to market.

Been balding since 2014. The type of balding I have is related to DHT. What happened to my scalp from 2014 to now? Did my body produce more DHT? Or am I producing the same amounts of DHT as before, but something that used to use DHT is lowered? If it increased, then theoretically, fin and all should have no negative effect on me, and I should be like pre 2014.

DHT often goes down slowly with age because it is the product of testosterone metabolism and the older you get the less testosterone you produce, hence less DHT. Balding works off of a genetic clock, so you don’t need a rise in DHT to allow the clock to kick in when the time comes (genetically speaking). Get professional advice from a good hair doctor.

There are reports that people who take Creatine and have the genes for balding, can bring on or accelerate the hair loss process. I wrote about it a number of times, but take a look at this previous post: https://baldingblog.com/creatine-increases-dht/

I don’t know as everyone is different. Many people who drop the dose do just as well at half of the dose. With that said, I just saw a man who dropped the dose from 1mg to a half mg and saw hair loss from the drop. The studies that were done in the 1990s indicated that half the dose was 80% as effective on average as the full dose.