Dosage and amount of sides

[Ian Curtis]

I got this doubt..does the dosage we take of finasteride increase the severity of side effects?
For example,If I take 1 mg a day (blocking all DHT that finasteride can,or at least almost all) and I get sides and then I take 5 mg a day (blocking the same amount of DHT),do I get more damage on sides?
Supposedly we get side effects from the DHT lowering and not the pill itself,right?
Then taking 1 mg or 5 mg or more would be the same on side effects purposes...

 

[philly]

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[philly]

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[Ian Curtis]

So using 1 mg or 5 mg is the same on hairloss fighting...everyone says that.
But its the first time I hear what you are saying about prostate DHT levels...does anyone else agree with philly?
Plus,if someone doenst have (or has a minimal amount) side effects from finasteride,is it possible to say that we are never gonna get sides from using that dosage?

 

[philly]

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[philly]

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[sammo]

i personally do believe the higher the dose the more CHANCE you have of sides. some people are completely fine, but for people like me 0.25mg does not give me sides, whereas 0.5 does, and i dont wanna live with sides so ive compromised its effectivness and am consistently on 0.25mg.

sammo

 

[Ian Curtis]

Plus,if someone doenst have (or has a minimal amount) side effects from finasteride,is it possible to say that we are never gonna get sides from using that dosage?

I don't understand what you mean here.

I use 5 mg and I dont have sides right now,it has already been 8 months.I was wondering if its possible to say whether ill have sides from 5mg now that it has been 8 months with no sides.

 

[ANDREW_J_I]

look, its been said about a thousand time....

the lowering of DHT causes sides, so if you lower the dose but are still almost halting the same level of DHT, the sides and what it is doing to you inside is going to be the same!!!

Its common sense surely?

 

[Ian Curtis]

look, its been said about a thousand time....

the lowering of DHT causes sides, so if you lower the dose but are still almost halting the same level of DHT, the sides and what it is doing to you inside is going to be the same!!!

Its common sense surely?

ha HA!
That was my question and philly contradicted me and explained.
Andrew,you just agreed with me about my first post.
If we get sides from inhibiting DHT and if 1 mg and 5 mg are roughly the same THEN 1 mg or 5 mg would mean same amount of sides on one person.
BUT if we lower even more the dosage (beyond 1 mg) we dont inhibit so much DHT ergo the sides arent so severe.

The two above paragraphs are what you just said.
And no,it hasnt been said thousands of times...everyone says that 5 mg would get you much more sides than 1 mg.

philly,dont bash me for saying that 1 mg or 5 mg are roughly the same,well they are, in terms of hairloss fighting and keeping hair.They are just different when it comes to prostate levels.You say 5 mg inhibits more than 1 mg on prostate DHT, could you link me to that study please?

 

[Ian Curtis]

Just some interesting results I found:
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/conten ... 7/3096#R21

Notice the similar serum DHT levels at 1 mg and 5 mg and notice the 50 mg (lol)
Notice the similar DHT prostate levels at 1mg and 5mg.philly,you said 5 mg would be lower...this isnt much of a study anyway.


Now this link confirms what philly said:
There was a decrease in serum dihydrotestosterone by 66 +/- 4% and 70 +/- 8% (p = 0.32), and of serum androstanediol glucuronide by 78 +/- 3% and 86 +/- 3% (p = 0.012) in the 1 and 5 mg. finasteride groups, respectively. Intraprostatic dihydrotestosterone in the placebo group decreased from 18.6 +/- 1.4 nmol./kg. to 3.8 +/- 1.0 nmol./kg. and 1.7 +/- 0.7 nmol./kg. with 1 mg. and 5 mg. finasteride

 

[philly]

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[Bryan]

P.S. I hope you do now understand that I sometimes can get quite upset when people say that they are absolutely certain that 5mg finasteride is of equal efficaciousness as 1mg finasteride

I agree. I don't know why people can't speak more cautiously and say that 1 mg is NEARLY or ALMOST as effective as 5 mg!

 

[Bryan]

[quote="ANDREW_J_I":1io4iwvl]look, its been said about a thousand time....

the lowering of DHT causes sides, so if you lower the dose but are still almost halting the same level of DHT, the sides and what it is doing to you inside is going to be the same!!!

Its common sense surely?

ha HA!
That was my question and philly contradicted me and explained.
Andrew,you just agreed with me about my first post.
If we get sides from inhibiting DHT and if 1 mg and 5 mg are roughly the same THEN 1 mg or 5 mg would mean same amount of sides on one person.
BUT if we lower even more the dosage (beyond 1 mg) we dont inhibit so much DHT ergo the sides arent so severe.

The two above paragraphs are what you just said.
And no,it hasnt been said thousands of times...everyone says that 5 mg would get you much more sides than 1 mg.[/quote:1io4iwvl]

Hey, _I_ have been saying for YEARS on hairloss sites that the side-effects from 5 mg/day would be reasonably expected to be only slightly worse (if noticeable at all) than 1 mg/day! It's been only relatively recently that other people have started to pay any attention at all to that simple and obvious logic! :dunno:

I've also been pointing out for years that in early testing of finasteride, volunteer test-subjects took as much as 80 mg/day (!) of finasteride for several months, with no ill-effects at all. Now you know why I give a big belly-laugh whenever people say that taking 5 mg/day is going to greatly increase side effects!! :mrgreen:

philly,dont bash me for saying that 1 mg or 5 mg are roughly the same,well they are, in terms of hairloss fighting and keeping hair.They are just different when it comes to prostate levels.

It's true that 5 mg/day is noticeably more effective in the prostate than 1 mg/day, probably because of the very high concentration of the type 2 enzyme in the prostate. However, it's almost certainly true for hair follicles, too, but it's not going to be nearly as noticeable.

 

[Anthony83]

i personally do believe the higher the dose the more CHANCE you have of sides. some people are completely fine, but for people like me 0.25mg does not give me sides, whereas 0.5 does, and i dont wanna live with sides so ive compromised its effectivness and am consistently on 0.25mg.

sammo

this is a question for everyone. i cut fincar into 5 pieces, take one a day. i have had erectile disfunction since starting. you say that its possible to decrease the sides by decreasing the dose.

so the question is, would taking the pill every other day be effective at reducing the sides while still being effective in preventing hair loss?

 

[Bryan]

P.S. Just an interesting remark. Do you know why very high doses of finasteride reduce serum DHT better than 1mg or 5mg? Well, it's simply because at those high doses, finasteride is capable of inhibiting the 5AR1 enzyme! Just thought it was interesting to point that out.

Uhh...it's a combination of BOTH factors: high doses of finasteride inhibit more of the type 2 enzyme, AND they start to inhibit the type 1 enzyme more significantly.

 

[Bryan]

So using 1 mg or 5 mg is the same on hairloss fighting...everyone says that.

Let me add this. According to Merck's studies on finasteride, 1mg and 5mg was of equal efficacy at the 1st (or 2nd... must look that up) year mark. HOWEVER, they didn't continue the comparison beyond that date. Consequently, it isn't impossible at all that 2mg or 3mg or 5mg is more efficacious than 1mg after the 1st (or 2nd) year mark!

Philly, I think you're a little confused. I don't know of ANY published hairloss study with finasteride in which 1 mg and 5 mg doses were directly compared to each other over the exact same time period. The huge Phase III Propecia trial tested only the 1 mg dose. The smaller Merck "dose-ranging" trial tested both doses, but the trial with 1 mg lasted for only 6 months, whereas the trial with 5 mg lasted for a full 12 months. Here's a scan of that dose-ranging study:

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/finasteride ... anging.htm

What's interesting about both of those studies (the Propecia Phase III trial and the dose-ranging trial) is that when looked-at superficially, they _do_ seem to show a slight advantage for a 5 mg dose over a 1 mg dose: the huge Propecia trial had an average haircount after 1 year of +86 hairs for 1 mg, and the dose-ranging trial had an average haircount after 1 year of +95 hairs for 5 mg. The only problem with making that comparison, of course, is that they were SEPARATE trials, and there's no absolute guarantee that haircounts were carried out in both of them in exactly the same way, with the same degree of precision. Furthermore, the difference between +86 and +95 probably isn't even statistically significant. But in any event, it does seem to support the general idea that 5 mg/day is at least slightly more effective than 1 mg/day.

 

[Ian Curtis]

Thanks for the info guys,it was very enlightening.
But I have other questions. In terms of inhibiting prostate DHT 5 mg peforms better than 1 mg,does that mean that 5 mg increases testosterone more than 1 mg in an overall way? Because Im interested also on upping my T levels, Im rather skinny and I want to gain some muscular weight
And what about estrogen,does it also increase while on finasteride?is it bad?

 

[ANDREW_J_I]

[quote="ANDREW_J_I":2xtks3nt]look, its been said about a thousand time....

the lowering of DHT causes sides, so if you lower the dose but are still almost halting the same level of DHT, the sides and what it is doing to you inside is going to be the same!!!

Its common sense surely?

ha HA!
That was my question and philly contradicted me and explained.
Andrew,you just agreed with me about my first post.
If we get sides from inhibiting DHT and if 1 mg and 5 mg are roughly the same THEN 1 mg or 5 mg would mean same amount of sides on one person.
BUT if we lower even more the dosage (beyond 1 mg) we dont inhibit so much DHT ergo the sides arent so severe.

The two above paragraphs are what you just said.
And no,it hasnt been said thousands of times...everyone says that 5 mg would get you much more sides than 1 mg.

Hey, _I_ have been saying for YEARS on hairloss sites that the side-effects from 5 mg/day would be reasonably expected to be only slightly worse (if noticeable at all) than 1 mg/day! It's been only relatively recently that other people have started to pay any attention at all to that simple and obvious logic! :dunno:

I've also been pointing out for years that in early testing of finasteride, volunteer test-subjects took as much as 80 mg/day (!) of finasteride for several months, with no ill-effects at all. Now you know why I give a big belly-laugh whenever people say that taking 5 mg/day is going to greatly increase side effects!! :mrgreen:

philly,dont bash me for saying that 1 mg or 5 mg are roughly the same,well they are, in terms of hairloss fighting and keeping hair.They are just different when it comes to prostate levels.

It's true that 5 mg/day is noticeably more effective in the prostate than 1 mg/day, probably because of the very high concentration of the type 2 enzyme in the prostate. However, it's almost certainly true for hair follicles, too, but it's not going to be nearly as noticeable.[/quote:2xtks3nt]

whats your thought on propecia and fertility please?? Do you have many studies on this topic, and also, the liklihood of gyno occuring?

I have stopped propecia, but am very curious......

 

[ANDREW_J_I]

[quote="ANDREW_J_I":x827oo0p]look, its been said about a thousand time....

the lowering of DHT causes sides, so if you lower the dose but are still almost halting the same level of DHT, the sides and what it is doing to you inside is going to be the same!!!

Its common sense surely?

ha HA!
That was my question and philly contradicted me and explained.
Andrew,you just agreed with me about my first post.
If we get sides from inhibiting DHT and if 1 mg and 5 mg are roughly the same THEN 1 mg or 5 mg would mean same amount of sides on one person.
BUT if we lower even more the dosage (beyond 1 mg) we dont inhibit so much DHT ergo the sides arent so severe.

The two above paragraphs are what you just said.
And no,it hasnt been said thousands of times...everyone says that 5 mg would get you much more sides than 1 mg.

philly,dont bash me for saying that 1 mg or 5 mg are roughly the same,well they are, in terms of hairloss fighting and keeping hair.They are just different when it comes to prostate levels.You say 5 mg inhibits more than 1 mg on prostate DHT, could you link me to that study please?[/quote:x827oo0p]

its all going to be roughly the same. You take 0.5mg a day or 1mg, ur sides are unlucky to change much I would say.