Do you think it would be wise to go back on finasteride?

[chrb]

I took propecia 1mg a day for 9 months until August this year. I stopped because about 7/8 months into taking it I noticed it was making me extremely fatigued, feeling like I'd only had a couple of hours of sleep.

Now my plan is to stick with Regaine foam (been on it for 10 weeks approx), just added Nizoral and plan to use that 3 times per week and also add in azelaic acid cream.

However if after another 6 months or so I wasn't getting any regrowth at all then I would probably be tempted go back on propecia.

Do you think it would be possible take it in limited doses and reduce or cut out the side effects? For example if I were to take 0.5mg every other day. Would that still be effective for hair loss?

 

[talmoode]

I am no expert but I guess its better than nothing? for the last 7 days, I have been taking 0.5mg ED now (used to take 1mg for 20 months).

 

[brandnew88]

I am no expert but I guess its better than nothing? for the last 7 days, I have been taking 0.5mg ED now (used to take 1mg for 20 months).

did you have sides before? how are you doing now?

 

[anonymous]

I don't mean to be arrogant, but I don't understand how somebody can take something for 7 months, then somehow pinpoint the source of a sudden problem back to it. What I mean to say is, how the heck would you know if it was IN FACT finasteride that was doing that to you? I mean you've taken it for 7 months without a problem right? How about getting more sleep? How about cutting down on daily caffeine intake? How about more exercise during the day, getting the blood flowing will make you feel better. How about eating better?

I understand with all the scare stories surrounding finasteride, there is some justifiable and warranted hypersensitivity. But to throw away 7 months of dedicated treatment for something that might have been unrelated is a little disheartening.

Even if your problems stopped after stopping finasteride, it doesn't rule out the possibility that it wasn't finasteride at all and was just a short term ailment from something else.

 

[talmoode]

did you have sides before? how are you doing now?

no sides. just oily skin/scalp and soreness on the scalp. I was hoping that reducing the dosage to 0.5mg (from 1mg) might be beneficial as I thought scalp pain and oily scalp may have something to do with reflex hyperandrogenicity. It seemed to help with scalp pain at first but it has come back. Yesterday I went to see my doctor and he prescribed me 5mg proscar. I cut it in 4 pieces and took one (1.25 mg) but a moment later, I was like what the heck, my scalp pain may be due to DHT attacking my hair follicles and has nothing do to with reflex hyperandrogenicity and having been taking 1mg for the last 20 months with no sucess but more thinng hair, I may need something stronger than 1.25mg. So I took another (1.25mg). I am seriously considering Dutasteride but before I got for it, I will try 2.5mg finasteride a day to see how it goes.

 

[badgenetics1]

I'm with anonymous. How do you know your tiredness was caused by finasteride? There have been plenty of times that I've felt uncharacteristically tired for a temporary period. I'd focus first on changing diet/exercise/etc before blaming it on finasteride.

 

[chrb]

Trust me, I have no reason to want to blame anything on finasteride unfairly. I really want to go back on it because I know it's the only the thing that's proven to work for most people. However when you get a completely inexplicable side effect from something that then ceases a week or so after stopping it I think it's safe to say that that was the culprit. I eat well, sleep well and get plenty of exercise so that was not the cause. The fact that it came on after 7 months doesn't really prove or disprove anything since finasteride tends to affect everyone differently.

For the duration of me taking propecia I barely even thought about it. I had heard of the negative side effects of course but after the first couple of weeks of no sides at all I didn't give it any thought after that. In fact even after I was suffering from fatigue for about a month, it didn't even occur to me that it could be the finasteride that was causing it since I had never heard of fatigue being a side effect. However once I realised that could be the cause I stopped and a week later I was back to normal. I realise that there's a lot of hysteria when it comes to finasteride but it seems to work both ways with some people assuming that all negative side effects are imagined, which is frankly ridiculous.

Was probably a silly idea to start this thread since nobody's going to be able to tell me whether a smaller dosage will be safe or not. I guess I'll just try it for myself and assess it.

 

[swingline747]

My sides took 8 months, I went off and on 3 times to prove it was the finasteride.
Sucks because I wanted to keep using it.