About to go onto finasteride...should i perform tests?

[zetsui]

I am about to go on finasteride for the first time in my life, I was wondeirng since there are possible side effects (ie sexual) are there a regiment of tsests I could ask my general physician to perform to before I go on the drug and compare it to a few months after I'm on the drug to maek note of any sort of hormonal changes etc that occur with my body...for instance testosterone levels?


Also what are the chances of finasteride doing much for a norwood 6?

 

[s.a.f]

Finasteride is not likely to do anything especialy if you've been bald for a while.
As for tests I'm sure you'll know wether or not its effected you.

 

[Rawtashk]

I would say that the chances of finasteride helping a NW6 are very slight. finasteride works, but it's better at preventing hairloss than it is at regrowing. Yes, it will regrow hair, for sure....but NW6 is a LOT of scalp to cover :-/

I would get bloodwork done, just as a safety net. You are highly unlikely to have problems, and even more unlikely to have persistent ones. However, it would be nice to have a baseline to try and shoot for if you did run into problems.

 

[Chris87]

I would say that the chances of finasteride helping a NW6 are very slight. finasteride works, but it's better at preventing hairloss than it is at regrowing. Yes, it will regrow hair, for sure....but NW6 is a LOT of scalp to cover :-/

I would get bloodwork done, just as a safety net. You are highly unlikely to have problems, and even more unlikely to have persistent ones. However, it would be nice to have a baseline to try and shoot for if you did run into problems.

Finasteride probably isn't going to do much for a NW6 but I suppose its worth a shot

 

[abcdefg]

I know people advise getting blood work as kind of a safety net, but realistically the chances are very small for a problem. If you did have a problem though your probably just screwed I mean there is no way your going to fix your hormones back to normal if they get really messed up there is no magic pill to significantly raise a certain hormone back to normal without messing up a bunch of others. So I think you could chance it but the blood work is not bad idea just maybe not as helpful as people claim.

 

[Wuffer]

It's a good idea to at least get your T, DHT and E levels checked before you start finasteride, but as was already mentioned, I can't really see what you would realistically use this for.

Hormone levels vary quite dramatically over the course of time, and many things such as diet, exercise, age, and stress can change them. Theoretically if you ran into problems with the drug after a year of taking it and you see your hormone levels didn't return to baseline, it could be due to the factors I mentioned.

But as I said, as long as it isnt costing you a ton of money or a huge hasle, it doesn't hurt to get your levels checked. I actually had mine checked around 3 months before I started finasteride, and had them measured again about 6 months ago (after a year of being on finasteride). I can't remember the numbers exactly, but T was almost exactly the same, DHT was about half and E was up a little bit. No side effects so no cause for concern.