2.5 mg of finasteride v. propecia

[returnoftheshedi]

I have been on the cipla fincar (ordered from inhousepharmacy.com) for about 3 years. Because its so cheap, i have taken half a pill (2.5mg) every day. I think i have had side effects - decreased libido, at one time i had testicular pains. However, i have never stopped shedding.

The visible appearance of my hair was fine up until a few months ago (generalized thinning). I just started 5% minoxidil about 5 weeks ago. My next step is a doctor's appointment tomorrow to get a RX for propecia. I am tired of wondering whether the fincar is legit.

Anyone think I am making a bad decision (aside from the increase in $$)?? If the fincar is real, by taking 2.5mg, have i killed any good effecs propecia might have on me?

Advice apprecaited - appointment is tomorrow at 1.

 

[juststarting]

God, someone else please answer this, I don't have the strength....

Why on god's green earth would you take so much finasteride????? Cause its sooo cheap!? WTF? Are you brain damaged or have a prostate problem or something?

Ok, time for me to step away from the computer now. lol

Read the link in my sig as a FIRST step. Then read the rest of the FAQ as well.

I have been on the cipla fincar (ordered from inhousepharmacy.com) for about 3 years. Because its so cheap, i have taken half a pill (2.5mg) every day. I think i have had side effects - decreased libido, at one time i had testicular pains. However, i have never stopped shedding.

The visible appearance of my hair was fine up until a few months ago (generalized thinning). I just started 5% minoxidil about 5 weeks ago. My next step is a doctor's appointment tomorrow to get a RX for propecia. I am tired of wondering whether the fincar is legit.

Anyone think I am making a bad decision (aside from the increase in $$)?? If the fincar is real, by taking 2.5mg, have i killed any good effecs propecia might have on me?

Advice apprecaited - appointment is tomorrow at 1.

 

[Bryan]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to take 2.5 mg of finasteride every day. I'm not sure why you're so outraged by the idea!

Bryan

 

[returnoftheshedi]

I think your response is a lot more ignorant than me taking 2.5 mg of finasteride. We are all trying to maintain/regrow our hair at a time when there isn't a cure...or even a guaranteed method.

Anyone have a helpful response?

 

[juststarting]

I think your response is a lot more ignorant than me taking 2.5 mg of finasteride. We are all trying to maintain/regrow our hair at a time when there isn't a cure...or even a guaranteed method.

Anyone have a helpful response?

Fine, I will bite. :hairy:

You should try to avoid the BAD idea with medications of "take more, it will do more." If you have sides (which you say you do), then your dosage is likely too high. Since you are taking 150% more then the suggested level, that is likely why you have sides.

Jury is still out if taking higher levels of Finesteride will cause upregulation in receptors on the follicles. However, it is a fact that reduced response over time to Finesteride (the cause may be male pattern baldness accelerating naturally or not). Since you are taking such a higher dosage it is *possible* that you are hitting this "theoretical" wall sooner then otherwise.

While you are likely fine, since Finesteride is believed to be a very safe drug, at your dosage level there is a not so insignificant chance you have already cased some significant changes to your physiology.

As for your doctor, I can pretty much tell you that he/she will ask you to stop taking meds off prescription as well as over the suggested regime. UNless you have prostate inflamation (which I highly doubt you do after 3yrs of such a high dose), there is no reason to be taking such a high level of finesteride. Again, I refer you to the link in my sig. Also, there is a graph in this forum that shows that there is very little statistical difference in amount of blockage between 0.2mg and higher dosages, here is the paper

Here try reading
http://www.physics.upenn.edu/facultyinfo/frankel/papers/propeciafda2/

 

[Bryan]

I don't think people should make a big deal over what are actually still quite small doses of finasteride. If you check the PDR, you'll see that in early testing of the drug, 50 mg/day of finasteride was given to human subjects for several months at a time, with no harmful effects. Single doses of 400 mg (!) were also given to human volunteers, again with no harmful effects. In the stumptailed macaque studies, the dose was 1 mg/kg/day, AGAIN with no harmful effect. Since I personally weigh about 100 kg, that would be the same as if I took 100 mg of finasteride every day, indefinitely.

Bryan

 

[Resultsnottypical]

Bryan: Please try it and post your results.

I bet you will have some wonderul hair....perhaps not unlike the gents in my avitar.

 

[Bryan]

If I were 30 years younger, I'd probably start using it!

Bryan

 

[Resultsnottypical]

"When I get older, losing my hair...many years from now..."

 

[returnoftheshedi]

i emailed dr. lee about this and he said that 1mg is the best option, but didn't comment on whether i had hurt my chances with finasteride in the future by taking 2.5mg.

also, i saw my doctor today and, although he knows nothing about hairloss (he didn't know what minoxidil was until he looked it up in his palm pilot, at which point he said, "oh, rogaine"), he had no problem proscribing me proscar.

i don't know about you guys, but my pharm charged me $106 for 30 pills. i couldnt go through insurance because the drug is red flagged as being for people 50 and over.

 

[mre]

I don't mean to sound negative, but in some ways your question is irrelevant. You've stated that you don't want to take generic finasteride, so you've made up your mind and that leaves Propecia or Proscar. I know it's hard to do, but does it really matter if you've hurt your chances by taking 2.5mg of fincar? What's done is done and even if it has hurt your chances, I think most people will say that in general, taking 1mg will help your hair more than taking nothing. Take the 1mg and move forward, knowing that you are doing the best you can given your situation.

 

[returnoftheshedi]

i agree, but am not as negative about the situation, considering that part of the reason i upped my dosage to 2.5mg was that i ALWAYS had shedding while on finasteride at 1mg. i thought, maybe naively, that the increase might help...it didn't. Now I am on minoxidil 5% though and as you saw, just switched to regular proscar at 1.25 mg a day. I'm hoping i will be more responsive to minoxidil, and if the finasteride was helping, that it will be just as effective as before.

 

[Pirate Commander F.B.]

I think your response is a lot more ignorant than me taking 2.5 mg of finasteride. We are all trying to maintain/regrow our hair at a time when there isn't a cure...or even a guaranteed method.

Anyone have a helpful response?

it is a fact that reduced response over time to Finesteride

I believe you're talking about the 5 year propecia study and the fact that the average haircounts decline after the first year? In that case this reduced response you're talking of is not a fact. Here's why:

Remember those number in the 5 year study are average haircounts and say nothing about individual response. Simple maths can tell us that unless a product at least halts hairloss in 100% of patients, there will always be a point when average haircounts decline. Because:

- people who regrow hair make average haircounts go up
- people who stop hairloss but do not regrow hair have no influence on average haircounts
- people who still lose hair make av. haircounts decline

If for example you have a product that regrows a full head of hair for 90% of patients after one year and they maintain that for as long as they use the product, but it does nothing for the other 10%. After one year those 90% will stop gaining while the others will lose hair. Hairloss is then greater than hairgain and you get a decline in av haircounts.

It's possible that finasteride becomes less effective over time, but it's not a fact. If you have other sources that do prove this reduced response theory, feel free to correct me.

You should try to avoid the BAD idea with medications of "take more, it will do more."

Well, from the link in your own sig, it says that 0.2mg finasteride is only 66% as effective as 5mg. You can't argue that finasteride is not dose dependent, because it is. If you take more, it will do more. Of course side effects are important in deciding on your dosage.

 

[Johnny24601]

re:

Cipla is so vague about their medications and they provide no evidence that their product is legit. All that we hear is that they are a "big" company so it must be legit. Their website is awful and frankly they should not be distributing the wide variety of narcotics that they make without more regulation in my opinion. I considered taking the generic finasteride but my hair is too important and I knew I would just worry everyday if I was taking a fake pill.
Even at $108 that is less then $1 a day (assuming you will cut the proscar at 1.25 mg/day). However, I would look at other pharmacies. I am in the U.S. and I get 30 proscar for $40 at walgreens with my insurance.
At this point you sould just go with the proscar and hope for the best. You at least can feel good that you are taking real finasteride. The reality is that studies on finasteride are minimal and results are typically vague with a certain percentage always falling in a category in which the drug did nothing for them. Therefore, the reality is that you can only take the medicine and document how effective it is for you. It may work or you may fall in the group that it does nothing for, who knows? You have made the decision to try finasteride so just go for it. Not knowing what the results could be is just something that one has to accept. You are doing all you can to fight male pattern baldness which should be comforting. Now just take your 1/4 proscar per day, apply your minoxidil and stop worrying because the rest is out of you control.
You mention that your shedding has not stopped. Well, my question is in regards to what you define as a shed. All men shed hairs everyday and even those who report positive results on finasteride indicate that they continue to shed, but it is just a reduction in the number of hairs that shed.

 

[returnoftheshedi]

i completely agree with you on Cipla (or now i do i should say), that is why i switched to proscar. my insurance will not cover Proscar because i am under $50 years old, but i am not complaining about paying (what comes down to) $26 a month.

As far as your shedding question-> Prior to 2001, i never noticed hairs in the shower, sink or on my pillow. All of a sudden, I started seeing them everywhere. That is when I went to get my first Rx for propecia (which i stayed on for 6 months, until i discovered cheaper proscar and fincar online). Since being on finasteride, I have always shed in the shower (see hairs in my hands and in the drain), on my towel, in the sink, and on my pillow. That is what I call a Shed. Still, I have no clue whether finasteride works for me- In 4 years and 4 months (the time i have been suffering from male pattern baldness), my hair line is fine, but my overall hair density is definitely lower. Its probably not very noticeable to most people, but its completely obvious to me. I agree with you though that my best option is to stick with finasteride, minoxidil and nizoral. why take any chances.

 

[mre]

Stick with the big 3. I don't mean to sound repetitive, but I encourage you to look forward, and settle on a treatment that you can afford and are comfortable with.

Trust me, there's been times that I think I screwed up in my regimen and cost myself some hair, but how do I really know? My point is you don't. I have a plan, I have my regimen, and I'm literally doing everything I possibly can to keep the hair I have. Most importantly, my regimen includes preparing myself mentally for not having hair and working on things that I have control over.