Intermittent Propecia Use

[nohawk]

I used Propecia for 5 years with excellent results and horrifying side effects. I jumped on at age 20 when I first noticed signs of recession and thinning, regained a full head of hair and maintained for 5 years. During those years, side effects such as brain fog, absent-mindedness, fatigue etc. crept up on me and sexual desire/libido diminished. I then got off and went through 2 years of PFS-hell and have just about recovered at this point. I am HYPER sensitive to medication and especially finasteride. Within 1 hour of taking the pill I will be lucky to find a single strand of hair on my hand in the shower and my ejaculate is akin to aquafina. I feel slight discomfort in my testicles (especially the right side) and this is all on a single .5mg dose, these effects slowly wane after 3-4 days. It is no wonder then, that my previous daily dose of .5mg compounded these effects and eventually resulted in a total endocrine crash and dangerously low DHT levels. My question is, even though I vowed not to ever touch this poison again, what are the effects/dangers of taking for instance .25mg of the drug once per week or once every other week?

My thought is that the finasteride will reduce DHT, albeit not 75% (which might be too much reduction for some), and the body will work to slowly increase DHT in a linear fashion. Once the finasteride is out of your system in 14 days and your DHT is back to baseline, you again take .25mg to drop it and the cycle continues. This avoids any compounding effect of the drug and possibility of over-reduction of DHT.

I am looking for informed answers that take into account the half-life of the drug in light of the body's ability to reproduce 5AR, and the possible dangers of "resetting"/dropping DHT levels as such.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE spare me the "merck recommends 1mg so you must take 1mg," or "if your balls don't ache your hair isn't being affected" type of comments that are either based on circular reasoning or sweeping generalizations.

Thanks in advance

 

[Quantum Cat]

but in order to stop male pattern baldness you have to block DHT. Taking a minute dose might prevent side effects but will be pointless as it's unlikely your help your hair. You can't have it both ways.

also how sure are you that the side effects you experienced were real and not psychosomatic? All the things you listed could be psychological.... just saying

also if you really are that sensitive to finasteride, you probably shouldn't try taking it again, or at least consult with a doctor or derm/endo

 

[nohawk]

but in order to stop male pattern baldness you have to block DHT. Taking a minute dose might prevent side effects but will be pointless as it's unlikely your help your hair. You can't have it both ways.

also how sure are you that the side effects you experienced were real and not psychosomatic? All the things you listed could be psychological.... just saying

also if you really are that sensitive to finasteride, you probably shouldn't try taking it again, or at least consult with a doctor or derm/endo

I understand that DHT needs to be blocked, but the idea was to allow the body to produce it and then to cut it off before it becomes harmful to the hair. Let me analogize to my experience with morning allergies. I get an unstoppable runny nose in the mornings about 20 minutes after waking up, but I have found that I don't need to pop a Zyrtec every single day. One Zyrtec pill blocks enough histamine to keep me alleviated for 2 weeks. After about 2 weeks, my body has slowly produced enough histamine for me to slowly notice the allergies again, at which point I pop another pill. This way, I'm not blocking and compounding the effects of the Zyrtec on a daily basis, instead I let my body go through its natural histamine production process, but I block the receptors once every two weeks and the cycle starts fresh.

 

[elephant_knight]

A lot about intermittent finasteride use has been said. Some say it works, some say it doesn't. There are some studies floating around that say that even though finsteride half life it's just about 7 hours or something like that, it takes almost a week for the body to get back to it's pre-finasteride DHT levels. And it is also know that doses as small as 0.05 mg have a similar effect as much as 5 mg over the DHT levels. You could play around that, how? I don't know. Anyway, I come from a spanish forum, there you can find a lot of guys who have been experimenting on their doses. There are some guys who say it has worked for them. Have you seen the indomethacin pics that have been floating around lately? that guy has had awesome results, and he is only taking tree miligrams of finasteride per week! granted, he is also using indomethacin, but, as of now, we are not even sure if indomethacin is doing something, it could be that all he has get is from finasteride.

 

[beaner]

There was a guy on this forum who claimed success with 1 Proscar pill per week. As stated above it takes DHT levels some time to rise back to baseline levels so it's a good possibility that once a week dosing will offer some benefit. It wouldn't hurt to try but if you're really getting "horrifying" side effects, my advice would be to just not take it at all. Continuously fluctuating your hormones with once a week dosing may not be a good thing for you.

 

[WarLord]

but in order to stop male pattern baldness you have to block DHT. Taking a minute dose might prevent side effects but will be pointless as it's unlikely your help your hair. You can't have it both ways.

also how sure are you that the side effects you experienced were real and not psychosomatic? All the things you listed could be psychological.... just saying

also if you really are that sensitive to finasteride, you probably shouldn't try taking it again, or at least consult with a doctor or derm/endo

Another hypochondriac, who carefully read all these "side effects" on the leaflet (or on a message board). What about swollen eyes and a bloated face? Oh, excuse me. That's just minoxidil's side effects. But remember, once you confuse leaflets, you will get these "sides" immediately, too!

 

[elephant_knight]

Within 1 hour of taking the pill I will be lucky to find a single strand of hair on my hand in the shower

By the way, that just doesn't make sense, thats not how finasteride is suposed to work at all. If you are imagining effects like this, it could be very well that you are just imagining some other of side effects you listed (maybe not all of them, but who knows)...

And, if I remember correctly, you were the only one on the cetirizine thread who reported some crazy side effects who none other at all reported...

 

[WarLord]

By the way, that just doesn't make sense, thats not how finasteride is suposed to work at all. If you are imagining effects like this, it could be very well that you are just imagining some other of side effects you listed (maybe not all of them, but who knows)...

And, if I remember correctly, you were the only one on the cetirizine thread who reported some crazy side effects who none other at all reported...

I learned that I can't trust anything on the internet. There are many people, who just make these things up in their rich fantasy. For example, you can find many guys complaining about their hair loss, the ineffectiveness of treatments that they use, that they experience massive shedding, that their hair is thin and temples recede etc. In other words, you would say that they are half-bald. But subsequently they post a photo - and you see a guy with a full head of hair and no signs of hairloss. This is actually pretty common on these hairloss forums. They disproportionately attract nutcases with mental disorders.

- - - Updated - - -

I used Propecia for 5 years with excellent results and horrifying side effects. I jumped on at age 20 when I first noticed signs of recession and thinning, regained a full head of hair and maintained for 5 years. During those years, side effects such as brain fog, absent-mindedness, fatigue etc. crept up on me and sexual desire/libido diminished. I then got off and went through 2 years of PFS-hell and have just about recovered at this point. I am HYPER sensitive to medication and especially finasteride. Within 1 hour of taking the pill I will be lucky to find a single strand of hair on my hand in the shower and my ejaculate is akin to aquafina. I feel slight discomfort in my testicles (especially the right side) and this is all on a single .5mg dose, these effects slowly wane after 3-4 days. It is no wonder then, that my previous daily dose of .5mg compounded these effects and eventually resulted in a total endocrine crash and dangerously low DHT levels. My question is, even though I vowed not to ever touch this poison again, what are the effects/dangers of taking for instance .25mg of the drug once per week or once every other week?

My thought is that the finasteride will reduce DHT, albeit not 75% (which might be too much reduction for some), and the body will work to slowly increase DHT in a linear fashion. Once the finasteride is out of your system in 14 days and your DHT is back to baseline, you again take .25mg to drop it and the cycle continues. This avoids any compounding effect of the drug and possibility of over-reduction of DHT.

I am looking for informed answers that take into account the half-life of the drug in light of the body's ability to reproduce 5AR, and the possible dangers of "resetting"/dropping DHT levels as such.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE spare me the "merck recommends 1mg so you must take 1mg," or "if your balls don't ache your hair isn't being affected" type of comments that are either based on circular reasoning or sweeping generalizations.

Thanks in advance

You are making these "side effects" up. This is not the right forum for you. You need a psychologist first.

 

[elephant_knight]

I learned that I can't trust anything on the internet. There are many people, who just make these things up in their rich fantasy. For example, you can find many guys complaining about their hair loss, the ineffectiveness of treatments that they use, that they experience massive shedding, that their hair is thin and temples recede etc. In other words, you would say that they are half-bald. But subsequently they post a photo - and you see a guy with a full head of hair and no signs of hairloss. This is actually pretty common on these hairloss forums. They disproportionately attract nutcases with mental disorders.

- - - Updated - - -


You are making these "side effects" up. This is not the right forum for you. You need a psychologist first.

Come on man, he may be having real side effects or fake side effects, who knows?, but you are just being rude... As long as finasteride has the potential to cause that kind of side effects (wich it do), we have to grant him the benefit of the doubt...

 

[Wuffer]

Within 1 hour of taking the pill I will be lucky to find a single strand of hair on my hand in the shower and my ejaculate is akin to aquafina.

It is not possible for either of these to happen within an hour of taking a pill. You are imagining these things. 1 hour is barely enough time for the medication to make it through your blood stream, let alone enough time to start inhibiting 5AR, let alone enough time for your DHT levels to start coming down, let alone enough time to have ANY effect on your ejaculate or hair loss. Absolutely minimum in the best possible case, it would take a month for you to notice ANY difference in your hair loss. You don't understand how this chemical works.

This makes me reach the conclusion that you are sensitive drugs for a psychological reason. You clearly show signs of hypochondriasis so it's hard to take anything else you said very seriously.

But as was mentioned, you can't cheat around side effects and expect to still have a positive benefit from the drug. If the drug gives you sides, if you take it infrequently enough to avoid these sides, you are also not going to see any benefit from the drug.

 

[Allen Parks]

It is not possible for either of these to happen within an hour of taking a pill. You are imagining these things. 1 hour is barely enough time for the medication to make it through your blood stream, let alone enough time to start inhibiting 5AR, let alone enough time for your DHT levels to start coming down, let alone enough time to have ANY effect on your ejaculate or hair loss. Absolutely minimum in the best possible case, it would take a month for you to notice ANY difference in your hair loss. You don't understand how this chemical works.

This makes me reach the conclusion that you are sensitive drugs for a psychological reason. You clearly show signs of hypochondriasis so it's hard to take anything else you said very seriously.

But as was mentioned, you can't cheat around side effects and expect to still have a positive benefit from the drug. If the drug gives you sides, if you take it infrequently enough to avoid these sides, you are also not going to see any benefit from the drug.

You do realize he was being hyperbolic right? Did you intentionally misinterpret his post in order to make yet another "psychological reason" post? He clearly used hyperbole to communicate he tolerates medications far worse than the general population. Nothing psychological or hypochondriasis about it. Do you enjoy playing armchair psychiatrist?

 

[Quantum Cat]

there was nothing in the OPs post to suggest he was deliberately exaggerating

 

[Wuffer]

You do realize he was being hyperbolic right? Did you intentionally misinterpret his post in order to make yet another "psychological reason" post? He clearly used hyperbole to communicate he tolerates medications far worse than the general population. Nothing psychological or hypochondriasis about it. Do you enjoy playing armchair psychiatrist?

"I am HYPER sensitive to medication and especially finasteride. Within 1 hour of taking the pill I will be lucky to find a single strand of hair on my hand in the shower and my ejaculate is akin to aquafina."

There is nothing about this that made me believe he was simply exaggerating. I've seen quite a number of other members in the past suggest similar things (side effects that occurred within an hour of taking their first dose) because it is a misconception that does exist.

 

[beaner]

"
I've seen quite a number of other members in the past suggest similar things (side effects that occurred within an hour of taking their first dose) because it is a misconception that does exist.

Ain't that the truth. There was a guy here who swore up and down that he felt "spaced out" five minutes after taking finasteride. Those people need to stay away from medications.

 

[Wuffer]

Ain't that the truth. There was a guy here who swore up and down that he felt "spaced out" five minutes after taking finasteride. Those people need to stay away from medications.

Some people (Allen Parks appears to be one of them) assert that psychological symptoms either can't happen on finasteride, or aren't significant enough to even warrant a frank discussion. These people don't seem to consider that conditions such as anxiety disorder and depression cause dozens of horrible physical symptoms, and ALL of them are psychological in nature.

There is a finasteride study that studies the potential for psychological causes of symptoms on finasteride:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17655657

"In the current study, blinded administration of finasteride was associated with a significantly higher proportion of sexual dysfunction in patients informed on sexual side effects (group 2) as compared to those in which the same information was omitted (group 1) (P = 0.03). A scenario similar to group 2 of the current study is likely to occur in clinical practice, where the patient is counseled by the physician and has access to the drug information sheet. The burden of this nocebo effect (an adverse side effect that is not a direct result of the specific pharmacological action of the drug) has to be taken into account when managing finasteride sexual side effects."

Almost 3 times as many people had sexual side effects by simply being told it might rarely occur. If you were so inclined to extrapolate these findings to the general population, 2 in 3 people with side effects on finasteride are experiencing them from a psychological cause.

Taking these facts into consideration, I think it's ridiculous that a psychological cause is, not only not considered, but quite often violently rejected as a possible explanation for a person with symptoms.

 

[IrishFella]

Wuffer, why do you respond to Allen Parks? It's Hair to Learn Nigga What, Habeas Corpus etc, he's a lawyer looking for people to rob money off. He's jumping on the propecia bandwagon, trying to make a quick buck. Best ignore him.

 

[Allen Parks]

Some people (Allen Parks appears to be one of them) assert that psychological symptoms either can't happen on finasteride, or aren't significant enough to even warrant a frank discussion. These people don't seem to consider that conditions such as anxiety disorder and depression cause dozens of horrible physical symptoms, and ALL of them are psychological in nature.

There is a finasteride study that studies the potential for psychological causes of symptoms on finasteride:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17655657

"In the current study, blinded administration of finasteride was associated with a significantly higher proportion of sexual dysfunction in patients informed on sexual side effects (group 2) as compared to those in which the same information was omitted (group 1) (P = 0.03). A scenario similar to group 2 of the current study is likely to occur in clinical practice, where the patient is counseled by the physician and has access to the drug information sheet. The burden of this nocebo effect (an adverse side effect that is not a direct result of the specific pharmacological action of the drug) has to be taken into account when managing finasteride sexual side effects."

Almost 3 times as many people had sexual side effects by simply being told it might rarely occur. If you were so inclined to extrapolate these findings to the general population, 2 in 3 people with side effects on finasteride are experiencing them from a psychological cause.

Taking these facts into consideration, I think it's ridiculous that a psychological cause is, not only not considered, but quite often violently rejected as a possible explanation for a person with symptoms.

Even an autistic person would identify what the OP said about 1 hour and aquafina as hyperbole. You have to either be totally detached from reality or have some bias towards finasteride. The way you jump through hoops to defend finasteride makes me think you work for a firm with a vested interest in finasteride.

According to FDA standards, none of those interactions are statistically significant. In order to determine causation, p has to be less than .01. You've been told over and over again not to "extrapolate these findings to the general population."

 

[Quantum Cat]

Some people (Allen Parks appears to be one of them) assert that psychological symptoms either can't happen on finasteride, or aren't significant enough to even warrant a frank discussion. These people don't seem to consider that conditions such as anxiety disorder and depression cause dozens of horrible physical symptoms, and ALL of them are psychological in nature.

.

Allen Parks and the PropeciaLawsuitHelp brigade don't want to accept the role of psychological/placebo type causation because it's much easier to prove physical side effects in court, and prove physical/medical causes for these sides, and therefore win damages. But the brain is a whole different ball-game, even though established doctors and scientists fully accept effects like placebo/nocebo and the power of the mind to cause/cure physical ailments.

That's why he will dismiss that line of thinking out of hand. Admin has already said that 'Allen' is an attorney

 

[Admin]

This time he tried using multiple anonymous IP proxy addresses. I guess people don't realize that anonymous IP's are easily identified as such, and just draw more attention to their sneaky attempts.

He's gone.

Admin

 

[Wuffer]

makes me think you work for a firm with a vested interest in finasteride.

This time he tried using multiple anonymous IP proxy addresses

What irony. He accuses me of being a shill, yet he's posting on this forum under multiple usernames to do what he can to discredit me and badmouth finasteride. Clearly someone is trying to shut up the critics so that their lawsuits go off without a hitch.