cause without the effect

[nohawk]

so i feel like im doing LSAT logical reasoning here but help me if you can. when I take .25mg of finasteride per day i get testicle aches, watery seamen and flacid erections. When I take .25mg every OTHER day, I get none of the sides. From this i would love to conclude that finasteride is still working its magic and i just rid myself of the sides.

But, it could very well be that its not doing anything at all for my hair at this point.

should i keep going or should i stop.... i mean does the elimination of sides mean that effectiveness is lost? logically no, but maybe you guys have something to add.

 

[Way2Young]

I believe .25 of finasteride would have practicaly no effect?? I could be wrong but
are you sure you dont mean 1.25mg,
I havent come across any threads where this small a dosage has this kind of effect im completely baffed.

And no effectiveness isnt gone just because sides are gone.
It should still be working.

 

[nohawk]

yeah i mean theres a lot of people taking .50mg a day, which i tried and loved in terms of its effects on my hair, but i just get shooting pains in my testicles that stay stay with me throughout the day and is just unbearable. I dropped it to .25mg for half a year and the pain was still there and i just couldnt handle it anymore. Now that I am on the .25mg every other day the pains are gone and everything is fine. I am truly baffled by how my body rejects small amounts of finasteride while others on here claim they take up to 5mg!! what the hell!

Anyway, i guess i'll keep taking it

 

[Archon]

nohawk,

How long have you been taking Propecia so far? I'm also taking 0.25mg (every day) and having the same sides. They're *slowly* getting better but it's only been 10 days for me.

As for the dosage itself, 0.25mg is supposed to be almost as effective as 1mg so that really shouldn't be an issue. I'm not sure about how much taking it every other day might decrease the efficacy though.

 

[nohawk]

I thought id start low to be on the "safe" side, and started taking .5mg a day. a couple of weeks into it my seamen was watery, and stayed watery throughout the year. At about the end of the year I noticed pains in my testicle but tried to ignore it. I ignored it for a couple months, but after daily shooting pains i decided it was time to pull the plug. So I started cutting the dosage in half so .25mg a day. It didn't do much to help the problem so i just quit for 3 months. Lost all my precious hair that i had maintained and freaked out and started taking .25mg a day again (during my 3 months my ejaculate went back to normal and pain subsided). Once I started up the .25mg, the pain came back and i was certain it was the propecia. My right testicle has definitely gotten smaller in size and looks very asymetric. Anyway, I then decided to go the lowest possible route and take .25mg every other day, which has taken away any sides. Hopefully its beneficial for my hair. I dont care for 100% effectiveness, even if its 30% im happy as I have a full head of hair but a receding hair line (my hair is exactly like Ryan Reynolds')

So we'll see how it goes. If I were to give any advice to myself a year ago. It would be to start at .25 a day, then move up to .5 a day and so on

i think the up and downing of dosages and the whole trial and error process really took its toll on my hair

 

[Bryan]

yeah i mean theres a lot of people taking .50mg a day, which i tried and loved in terms of its effects on my hair, but i just get shooting pains in my testicles that stay stay with me throughout the day and is just unbearable.

How long does it take to for you to develop those "shooting pains", once you take a 0.5 mg dose of the drug? How consistently does that happen? Is the pain over with by the next day?

Depending on your answers to those questions, I may have a follow-up suggestion for you. Can you guess what that suggestion is going to be?

 

[nohawk]

the pains start about 1-2 hours after the dose and stay with me for hours. For a while i would take the pill at night and hope to fall asleep before it kicked in. I can't really guess what your suggestion is gonna be, but hopefully its not minoxidil. lol

in terms of consistency i would say 8/10 times the pill would cause pains. I don't know guys my right nut went from a grape to raisin. Im still gonna take the .25mg every other day and pray that some sort of cloning comes out before were all dead or too old to care.

Im almost 23 by the way

 

[Bryan]

the pains start about 1-2 hours after the dose and stay with me for hours... in terms of consistency i would say 8/10 times the pill would cause pains.

Excellent!! That's what I really wanted to hear! My suggestion is for you to a blinded, placebo-controlled trial on yourself, to see if this effect is real, or just a "nocebo" effect. I've always been a little skeptical of such claims of nearly immediate effects from finasteride doses, and several times I've suggested doing that to posters who reported them. Unfortunately, almost NEVER has anybody actually performed such a test, which makes me even more suspicious.

If you're not sure how to do such a test, here are some simple suggestions: first of all, you'll have to get a friend to help you. Buy some food items for the test; I think something like muffins or cupcakes would be perfect for that; ten of them should be enough for the test (you'll eat one muffin a day for ten days). While you're out of the room and can't see what's happening, your friend carefully labels each muffin 1 through 10. He randomly (he can roll a pair of dice to get the randomness) inserts into the middle of the muffins or cupcakes either 1) a powdered Propecia tablet; or 2) some harmless powder (maybe something like lactose). Half the muffins get the finasteride powder, half get the placebo. He carefully writes down on a piece of paper which muffin (again, labeled 1 through 10) has which ingredient. He keeps the paper himself, so you can't see what's on it.

Afterwards, you start eating one muffin per day, for 10 days. You write down the number of the muffin each day at the end of the day on your own piece of paper, and whether or not you had any "side effects" from it. After you've eaten all of them 10 days later, your friend finally "breaks the code", and reveals to you which muffin had which extra ingredient. Then you can post here on this forum how many hits you got, and how many misses! We'll have a pretty good idea of whether the effect is REAL, or a "nocebo"!

Wanna give it a try?