Hey HairLossTalk.com, I'm new and i have a Propecia concern.
I'm 20 years old, have a family history of pretty progressive male pattern baldness on my father's side and I started noticing my hair loss at 18. 3 months ago I was prescribed Propecia and I've been taking it since.
Didn't notice any sort of change until about 6 weeks in. At that point i started noticing my vertex was quite noticeably thinner. There was still sufficient hair there to make it look almost like the normal "swirl" that some people have in that area which has nothing to do with male pattern baldness. But that part of my hair had always been very full, thus I was fairly alarmed. Around the same time, I noticed that the back region of my hair, between the vertex and neck, was also getting thinner. This area too had always been full of thick hair, to the point that every hair stylist I've had commented on its thickness. Cosmetically it wasn't an issue because I could lose a lot of hair there and still be OK, but it was still worrying in connection with the vertex thinning and the fact that the hair near the neck is supposed to be impervious to male pattern baldness anyway.
I continued the Propecia thinking that this thinning was going to happen regardless and that it simply coincided with taking the medication. About 8 weeks into the 3 months I found much cheaper generic finasteride, but it would take 2 weeks to ship. During that time I made the 2 pills of the brand-name stuff last by taking a quarter pill every other day. I had serious doubts that this dosage was high enough to be effective, but I figured it was better than taking the 2 pills normally and going the rest of the 2 weeks with nothing.
After most of the 2 weeks had passed, I noticed that my hair was fuller all around. The vertex was almost back to where it had been before finasteride, and the back of my hair felt and looked thicker too. Even the top appeared healthier (and increased libido was an added bonus). Not tying this to the decreased finasteride dosage, I went back on 1 mg per day when the shipment came. Again after a couple weeks my vertex showed visible re-thinning along with the back. My hair even felt finer. At this point I thought it would be illogical to rule out finasteride as the cause again.
My questions--should I continue with finasteride and hope that more time will reverse these early effects? Do finasteride "sheds" usually cause VISIBLE hair loss? Is the finasteride simply changing the texture of my hair, or causing it to stand up unusually as some report, leading to a thinner look? Or is this med obviously doing something abnormal and thus I should get off of it?
I'm 20 years old, have a family history of pretty progressive male pattern baldness on my father's side and I started noticing my hair loss at 18. 3 months ago I was prescribed Propecia and I've been taking it since.
Didn't notice any sort of change until about 6 weeks in. At that point i started noticing my vertex was quite noticeably thinner. There was still sufficient hair there to make it look almost like the normal "swirl" that some people have in that area which has nothing to do with male pattern baldness. But that part of my hair had always been very full, thus I was fairly alarmed. Around the same time, I noticed that the back region of my hair, between the vertex and neck, was also getting thinner. This area too had always been full of thick hair, to the point that every hair stylist I've had commented on its thickness. Cosmetically it wasn't an issue because I could lose a lot of hair there and still be OK, but it was still worrying in connection with the vertex thinning and the fact that the hair near the neck is supposed to be impervious to male pattern baldness anyway.
I continued the Propecia thinking that this thinning was going to happen regardless and that it simply coincided with taking the medication. About 8 weeks into the 3 months I found much cheaper generic finasteride, but it would take 2 weeks to ship. During that time I made the 2 pills of the brand-name stuff last by taking a quarter pill every other day. I had serious doubts that this dosage was high enough to be effective, but I figured it was better than taking the 2 pills normally and going the rest of the 2 weeks with nothing.
After most of the 2 weeks had passed, I noticed that my hair was fuller all around. The vertex was almost back to where it had been before finasteride, and the back of my hair felt and looked thicker too. Even the top appeared healthier (and increased libido was an added bonus). Not tying this to the decreased finasteride dosage, I went back on 1 mg per day when the shipment came. Again after a couple weeks my vertex showed visible re-thinning along with the back. My hair even felt finer. At this point I thought it would be illogical to rule out finasteride as the cause again.
My questions--should I continue with finasteride and hope that more time will reverse these early effects? Do finasteride "sheds" usually cause VISIBLE hair loss? Is the finasteride simply changing the texture of my hair, or causing it to stand up unusually as some report, leading to a thinner look? Or is this med obviously doing something abnormal and thus I should get off of it?