21 Years Of Finasteride/ Dutasteride ( Since 1998, Duta Since 2002).

[jamesbooker1975]

Took finasteride every day from 1998 to 2002. Then dutasteride since 2002 evey day, since 3 month ago that I reduced to 2 pills per week cause every hormone level was fucked. I am 39 now , used to post a lot on hairlosshelp before that site " died" . Back in the days of "Bryan" ( RIP ), my username there was guillermo.
My labs test 3 and 4 months ago :

Testosterone Free and total : Low
Estrogen: High
Progesterone : almost 0 ! ( was so low that was out of scale ) .
DHEA. low
DHT : I can't Measure it, I live in Argentina and here DHT is not tested

Liver Enzymes : High ( extremely common side effect of duta )! took me a while to know this and have being high since I started 15 years ago with Avodart
CHolesterol : High ( cause my testosterone was low, body "ask" to the liver for more cholesterol to produce more testo.

If you think I can help you, simple ask. I experiment with tons of dumb things ( spironolactone oral , gave me gyno and had to remove by a surgeon, oral minoxidil, etc ).

About my hair, I am still a big norwood 2 since 1998 .
Good news for youngs , you can keep your hair forever. Bad news, if you go internal route, you will have side effects, even cholesterol can not be lower a 70 or 90 plus % without side effects. WE need DHT, I learned the hard way. Focus on topical way

Right now I am using topical spironolactone, minoxidil, ketoconazole, alfaestradiol and only 2 times per week on cap of Avodart.

Trying to getting back my testosterone levels with aromasin ( tried clomiphen but it increase to much my LH , 3 times the limit , also increase to much estrogen and sides sucks ) .
Also doing progesterone ( google it, is not only for girls and my levels are zero )

I just have high hopes on the CTHR2 receptor antagonist, so high that after so many years without post I am posting again .

 

[jamesbooker1975]

Also about side effects :
Since the beginning, it was hard to have an orgasm take me a lot of time to ejaculate .
Not erection problems till a year ago where my libido started to be really low.
Since the begining, back in 1998, depression , anxiety and panic attacks. Back there, nobody new that this kind of meds f*** neurohormones.

After all this year, I finally understand why Glaxo never release the drug for male pattern baldness and only did it in south Korea . Somehow, in orient hair is even more important than your dick .

 

[The Baldy Man]

I am sorry this happened to you. If you were getting such severe side effects that included depression, anxiety, and panic attacks in addition to sexual problems then why did you continue to take the medicine? Were you that desperate to save your hair? I am sorry that you had this experience but not everybody does and some people take dutasteride for male pattern baldness and are fine or even take it for BPH and are fine. I am not trying to minimize the trauma of your experience but I have studied pharmacology (I'm pre med) there are many medicines other than just finasteride and dutasteride that can cause serious sexual dysfunctions and even neurohormone damage. The truth is that finasteride and dutasteride are well tolerated compared to the vast majority of other medications, many of which have the chance of causing seizures and death. I am sorry you were one of the ones who had a side effect. I, personally, was on SSRIs before I ever started finasteride and those have a MUCH greater chance of causing sexual problems and mental problems than finasteride. I was fine on them and I have to be on them for life so I figured I might as well give finasteride a try. No side effects from it either. Again I am sorry that this happened to you.

 

[WMQ]

f*** this sh*t. I think I'm on my way to how fucked your hormones are.

I have lower than ref range progesterone and boarderline lower range T (around 10). This is from more than 7 years of finasteride and it doesn't even work anymore. Anxiety, depression and blablabla as well. I've quartered my finasteride dose.

I tried dutasteride for less than a month and I had very mixed reactions. Some times right after I took a pill I would feel literally poisoned but the next day I'd surprisingly have pretty good energy level. My libido and gym gain went higher on dutasteride. I got occasional anxiety attack and brain fog (which was much worse than on finasteride). My inflammation and hair loss went into overdrive. I suspect those had something to do with temporarily increased testosterone levels and realized what a big role it might be playing in my energy level and therefore got a test a few days ago. And bingo, as a man in his mid 20s I have boarderline lower range T.

Maybe for some reasons long term use of finasteride/dutasteride lowers some people's T level very gradually over the years.

What form of progesterone do you use and what dose? I was thinking of trying a tiny dose to see how I feel. It is a 5AR inhibitor and is supposed to help hair as well and people's reactions are mixed.

BTW topicals still do go systemic. There's no way around that.

You're lucky at least you have a full head of hair. If I were you I would taper off all hairloss treatments and wait for future treatment in the next 5 year span. Hope all problems get fixed for you.

 

[abovedagame]

guillermo,
I've been in these boards a long time and remember reading many of your posts. I'm sorry to hear about the issues you've been having. Did you measure any of your hormones before last year when you started having sides?

Do u think finasteride is safer than dutasteride? Have you thought about going back to finasteride?

I had no idea liver enzymes can be affected by dutasteride as they are not affected by finasteride.

Do u experience scalp inflammation and what do u recommend to help it?

Also, do u still own pillsforall?

Hope u recover soon my friend

 

[MaxPayne3]

Hello, I'm sorry to read that.
Do you think that all those issues were caused by dutasteride? You took oral spironolactone and that would explain why your testosterone is so low. DHT inibitors should raise T levels.

What do you suggest to a young man that want to take dutasteride? Is 0.5 mg every other day safe?

 

[FCKW36]

Dutasteride for 15 years? Wow that's sounds terrible when I imagine what Dutasteride does to the human brain.

 

[sunchyme1]

i hope you fucked some hot b****s with that nw2 after all the sh*t these drugs have done to you

 

[davesmith420]

Did you switch to dutasteride because you would really losing ground or just out of paranoia? Would you ever consider going back to .5 mg - 1mg of finasteride?

 

[Bigbone]

Maybe for some reasons long term use of finasteride/dutasteride lowers some people's T level very gradually over the years.

This is what I want to know. I want a long term study on all hormone levels.

 

[MaxPayne3]

This is what I want to know. I want a long term study on all hormone levels.

Finasteride and Dutasteride are DHT inhibitors. If you inhibit DHT, testosterone and estrogens will increase.
If he got issues with testosterone, maybe it's the oral spironolactone that blocked his androgen receptors and gave him gynecomastia.

 

[Bigbone]

Finasteride and Dutasteride are DHT inhibitors. If you inhibit DHT, testosterone and estrogens will increase.
If he got issues with testosterone, maybe it's the oral spironolactone that blocked his androgen receptors and gave him gynecomastia.

That's how the body reacts at the beginning of treatment, but I want to know how the hormone-levels look 10 years down the road.

I've also seen this study posted: http://panarabderm.org/en/midi/18-5195327778442/162-51954bee84df3

"Oral finasteride in dose of 1mg/day for 9months improved the scalp hair growth by all types of evaluation. Serum level of free testosterone (FT) and DHT were decreased significally, where total testosterone (TT) was increased"

But like any other study, this just covers 9 months.

 

[dr75]

You have liver and cholesterol problems most likely because of dutasteride. 5 alpha reductase-1 modulates insulin sensitivity in humans and its inhibition in the long term may have metabolic consequences. My own opinion, it is far too important of an enzyme to be inhibited for costemic purposes..

You should have checked your liver enzymes and cholesterol regularly after you switched to dutasteride.

Check this thread: https://www.hairlosstalk.com/intera...associated-with-metabolic-alterations.106703/

 

[sunchyme1]

hair loss drugs are a joke

 

[michel sapin]

that is why i would just take duta twice a week : it inhibits only 5 % of type 1 with this dosage .

 

[sunchyme1]

we shouldnt be taking any of this sh*t

period

 

[MaxPayne3]

that is why i would just take duta twice a week : it inhibits only 5 % of type 1 with this dosage .

But it was approved in South Korea at 0.5 mg every day for hair loss treatment. I don't think they're fool.

 

[jamesbooker1975]

I am sorry this happened to you. If you were getting such severe side effects that included depression, anxiety, and panic attacks in addition to sexual problems then why did you continue to take the medicine? Were you that desperate to save your hair? I am sorry that you had this experience but not everybody does and some people take dutasteride for male pattern baldness and are fine or even take it for BPH and are fine. I am not trying to minimize the trauma of your experience but I have studied pharmacology (I'm pre med) there are many medicines other than just finasteride and dutasteride that can cause serious sexual dysfunctions and even neurohormone damage. The truth is that finasteride and dutasteride are well tolerated compared to the vast majority of other medications, many of which have the chance of causing seizures and death. I am sorry you were one of the ones who had a side effect. I, personally, was on SSRIs before I ever started finasteride and those have a MUCH greater chance of causing sexual problems and mental problems than finasteride. I was fine on them and I have to be on them for life so I figured I might as well give finasteride a try. No side effects from it either. Again I am sorry that this happened to you.

Thanks for your answer. I am pharmacist I know about side effects but even so, I denied them. Why ? I started a very aggressive male pattern baldness at only 17 ! I also had a really bad hair transplant by a bad surgeon in Argentina ( call them medicalhair , this mother f***.. still exist ) . That was before I even knew what internet was. Then had another in 2001 ( again in Argentina and the second one get infected and get a decalvans folliculitis that let me even more scars ) . So This is the only reason why I kept using it.

Today, we know that DHT is important, really important, that is not the evil As merk taught us. Also, 5-alpha reductase is in a lot of other reactions in the body, producing, for example neurohormones.

I also was a groupie of finasteride, If you tell me that finasteride or dutasteride check the old post " finasteride killed my hamster " where we mocked about people telling about side effects .

Why do you think Glaxo never released Dutasteride for male pattern baldness even after they proove it was more efective, much more, than finasteride in their clinical trial 2 ? Also they made the clinical trial 3 in Argentina and in south Korea. You know why ? cause they was aware of all the potential side effects and they wanted to test in a cheapest country before they do the phase 3 in USA . And we already know the results.

Just think this. What hormone in your body can be reduce it by a 70 or 90 % , without even test your hormone levels and don`t give you side effects ?

Merck told that we can Inhibit a major hormone in the body without even have to test our levels ! you will be a doctor, you know how insane that is.

 

[jamesbooker1975]

f*** this sh*t. I think I'm on my way to how fucked your hormones are.

I have lower than ref range progesterone and boarderline lower range T (around 10). This is from more than 7 years of finasteride and it doesn't even work anymore. Anxiety, depression and blablabla as well. I've quartered my finasteride dose.

I tried dutasteride for less than a month and I had very mixed reactions. Some times right after I took a pill I would feel literally poisoned but the next day I'd surprisingly have pretty good energy level. My libido and gym gain went higher on dutasteride. I got occasional anxiety attack and brain fog (which was much worse than on finasteride). My inflammation and hair loss went into overdrive. I suspect those had something to do with temporarily increased testosterone levels and realized what a big role it might be playing in my energy level and therefore got a test a few days ago. And bingo, as a man in his mid 20s I have boarderline lower range T.

Maybe for some reasons long term use of finasteride/dutasteride lowers some people's T level very gradually over the years.

What form of progesterone do you use and what dose? I was thinking of trying a tiny dose to see how I feel. It is a 5AR inhibitor and is supposed to help hair as well and people's reactions are mixed.

BTW topicals still do go systemic. There's no way around that.

You're lucky at least you have a full head of hair. If I were you I would taper off all hairloss treatments and wait for future treatment in the next 5 year span. Hope all problems get fixed for you.

Thanks for your reply ! I really appreciate it .
About progesterone first think is to tested. Like you said is a natural 5-alpha reductase Inhibitor but is also an aromatese Inhibitor .
In a male, when DHT goes up estrogen goes up and vice versa. When one goes down the others goes down, in part progesterone regulate this. Is like a ying/yang DHT and estrogen .

So, with Duta and finasteride DHT is reduced by a 70% estrogen increase at least a 20 % ! how the body can not be fucked by doing this ?

I use oral micronized progesterone cause here, in Argentina, the cream is not available. But if you have the cream, check your levels and then, if they are not in the top, give it the cream a try, it is easy to regulate the dose than the oral form. I will check my progesterone levels next week to see how the oral progesterone affected them.

 

[jetlife1]

You're the longest finasteride/dutasteride user I've ever heard of. The problem with dutasteride is that it unnecessarily blocks 5AR type 1 when it has been established that 5AR type 2 is the biggest factor in male pattern baldness. That might be one of the reasons it wasn't approved in most countries. Also, I don't think there is really a significant difference in effectiveness especially if you are just trying to maintain. There are also people who live with 5AR type 2 deficiency (normal levels of type 1 and they don't go bald) so we know finasteride is most likely very safe in the long term especially with the many studies on long term safety and effectiveness.

If I was a betting man I would say you would have maintained your hair with finasteride just as well after all these years. Why did you change to dutasteride after only 4 years anyway? Maybe it is time to switch back to finasteride because your health should come first!