Oral 1mg Finasteride after 7 years use

Speenybean

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Hello everyone. New member here. Thanks for any help. I have been taking oral 1mg Finasteride since I was 29 and am now approaching 37. I used it everyday give or take a few days off in between prescriptions being filled. I recently decided to stop taking it for about 10 days to see how I would feel. I will say that I have never experienced any sexual side effects the whole time I’ve been on Oral. During my 10 day break from finasteride I noticed increased brain fog, def increase in stress and anxiety. I took a dose today of 1mg and I seemed to feel better after a few hours ( wether it was the medication or placebo I guess I don’t know ). Im seriously contemplating either reducing my dosage to 3-4mg a week instead of the 7mg I’ve been using this whole time as well as options for topical. Reading some negative stuff about how suppressing DHT systemically can effect your cognition and well being. Im just a little afraid at this point if I come off of finasteride my body has been so use to it that it will
Complete Throw my body and hormones out of wack. Thank you for any help or info I greatly appreciate It.
 
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br1

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If you decide to come off, I would recommend tapering off slowly. DO NOT QUIT COLD TURKEY.

Start taking half pill every day for a couple weeks, then space out like half pill every other day, etc..

I was on finasteride for 20+ years, stopped cold turkey and initially felt AMAZING, then like sh*t. From what I researched I had a hormonal feedback then crash. Felt terrible. Jumped back on finasteride and felt "normal" again. - Also, you gonna lose hair, quickly, if you stop.
 

Speenybean

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If you decide to come off, I would recommend tapering off slowly. DO NOT QUIT COLD TURKEY.

Start taking half pill every day for a couple weeks, then space out like half pill every other day, etc..

I was on finasteride for 20+ years, stopped cold turkey and initially felt AMAZING, then like sh*t. From what I researched I had a hormonal feedback then crash. Felt terrible. Jumped back on finasteride and felt "normal" again. - Also, you gonna lose hair, quickly, if you stop.
Thanks man. Just the response I was looking for. I greatly appreciate it. What did you do after stopping oral finasteride? Anything topical? I honestly feel like just trying to take a reduced dose of 3-4 MG for the long term to see how that works. Why did you stop after 20 years?
 

20YearsOnFin

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I honestly feel like just trying to take a reduced dose of 3-4 MG for the long term to see how that works.
Ideally from a hair point of view, it's usually better to keep everything nice and stable which means always maintaining the same dose week in, week out for years like you have been currently doing.

But If you did want to reduce your dose, you could simply reduce the frequency by taking it every other day, which would obviously instantly reduce your weekly intake by half.

Or, you could try the pill splitting route, the actual peak dose of finasteride is apparently around 0.8mg, so you could theoretically take 3/4 of a pill a day and possibly have one day or two days off a week as well which would give you a weekly dosage of 3.75mg-4.5mg.

just depends if you want the extra hassle that comes with splitting the pills.

Otherwise, like you already said, if you don't like the sound of oral anymore, have a think about topical.
 

Speenybean

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Ideally from a hair point of view, it's usually better to keep everything nice and stable which means always maintaining the same dose week in, week out for years like you have been currently doing.

But If you did want to reduce your dose, you could simply reduce the frequency by taking it every other day, which would obviously instantly reduce your weekly intake by half.

Or, you could try the pill splitting route, the actual peak dose of finasteride is apparently around 0.8mg, so you could theoretically take 3/4 of a pill a day and possibly have one day or two days off a week as well which would give you a weekly dosage of 3.75mg-4.5mg.

just depends if you want the extra hassle that comes with splitting the pills.

Otherwise, like you already said, if you don't like the sound of oral anymore, have a think about topical.
Thanks man. Is there really any difference in taking say 1mg EOD as opposed to .5mg everyday? Essentially that’s the same dose give or take but just curious if an everyday approach is better then an EOD. Thank you
 

user394587

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Thanks man. Is there really any difference in taking say 1mg EOD as opposed to .5mg everyday? Essentially that’s the same dose give or take but just curious if an everyday approach is better then an EOD. Thank you
It's the same weekly exposure to the drug on average (3.5mg), so in theory there shouldn't be any difference between taking it on alternate days and half the dosage daily. The net concentration of finasteride at the tissue level should be identical.
 

20YearsOnFin

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Thanks man. Is there really any difference in taking say 1mg EOD as opposed to .5mg everyday? Essentially that’s the same dose give or take but just curious if an everyday approach is better then an EOD. Thank you
Only that the 1mg EOD is meant to be the preferred option.

I appreciate it sounds like it should work exactly the same,

the theory was something along the lines of, a 1mg EOD dose accumulates and flattens out the same as a 1mg ED dose.

whereas 0.5mg ED eventually flattened out at 0.5mg.

so theoretically there might be a higher risk of shedding if the dose is reduced to 0.5mg ED

But you could try it and see how you respond.
 

Hairful

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I don’t think stopping cold turkey is bad. What finasteride does is suppress DHT concentration by some percentage, you stop finasteride and DHT concentration goes back to full. It isn’t like injecting testosterone that your body becomes dependent on external source and shuts down internal production that you can’t just stop injecting testosterone.

Stress, anxiety, sexual performance are all extremely dependent on mind. If you expect something that will happen. So yeah that’s what happened to you.

finasteride stays for a long time in tissues, up to a month or more. You can and should take a break for a month safely or even two. Let your body take a breather from all this DHT suppression
 

br1

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Thanks man. Just the response I was looking for. I greatly appreciate it. What did you do after stopping oral finasteride? Anything topical? I honestly feel like just trying to take a reduced dose of 3-4 MG for the long term to see how that works. Why did you stop after 20 years?
I actually resumed it after that episode. Then I never actually quit, sometimes I do periods of lower dose (when I am feeling really bad and think it's from finasteride).. But, I feel I loose ground when I reduce the dose. So I try to stick to a weekend on 0.5mg every month or so..
 

br1

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I don’t think stopping cold turkey is bad. What finasteride does is suppress DHT concentration by some percentage, you stop finasteride and DHT concentration goes back to full. It isn’t like injecting testosterone that your body becomes dependent on external source and shuts down internal production that you can’t just stop injecting testosterone.

Stress, anxiety, sexual performance are all extremely dependent on mind. If you expect something that will happen. So yeah that’s what happened to you.

finasteride stays for a long time in tissues, up to a month or more. You can and should take a break for a month safely or even two. Let your body take a breather from all this DHT suppression
I guess the thing is, that I read somewhere here in this forum and I think it make sense is: after 2 decades on finasteride, nonstop, the body's receptors for DHT have been up-regulated (they become more sensitive to DHT). That happens because since your body is not providing enough DHT the receptors (everywhere in the body) gets more sensitive to try to make more of the little DHT it gets.

When you stop finasteride, you're correct, DHT comes back to normal levels. And, since your receptors are not accustomed to that you'll get the effect of having much more than you need. I did top cold turkey and after 1 or 2 weeks, I remember feeling a rush in the body pretty much like injecting T or something like that. Then, it went away and I felt like sh*t. Maybe I could have avoided that if I had slowly "dosed the DHT back in" .
 

Speenybean

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I guess the thing is, that I read somewhere here in this forum and I think it make sense is: after 2 decades on finasteride, nonstop, the body's receptors for DHT have been up-regulated (they become more sensitive to DHT). That happens because since your body is not providing enough DHT the receptors (everywhere in the body) gets more sensitive to try to make more of the little DHT it gets.

When you stop finasteride, you're correct, DHT comes back to normal levels. And, since your receptors are not accustomed to that you'll get the effect of having much more than you need. I did top cold turkey and after 1 or 2 weeks, I remember feeling a rush in the body pretty much like injecting T or something like that. Then, it went away and I felt like sh*t. Maybe I could have avoided that if I had slowly "dosed the DHT back in" .
Man this. Exactly what I felt. Like 10 days after stopping cold turkey. I was just feeling super weird. Idk how to describe it. Brain fog and also couldn’t really sleep. I felt very restless and anxious
 

Calvino82

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Man I can tell you i am using Finasteride for almost 21 years (my experience is somewhere here in the Forum), never had real side effects but i was suffering of some anxiety in the beginning. So i suspended the medication for about 2 months just to find out my anxiety had increased due to fear of hair loss! About brain fog, personally, i always had it all my life long so i can't really tell.

But what i think is the following: while i do believe you are experiencing these symptoms, i don't think it's due to Finasteride suspension but rather from other temporary factors which may be external or internal. The correlations with the suspension of Finasteride is reasonable but it might be 100% psychological, which is totally normal, especially after reading forums and things across the Internet.

Another example: long ago i was suspecting i contracted hepatitis because of a slightly higher antibody value from a blood test. In the days and weeks following the test, i started feeling liver pain, which inmediately did wear off as soon as i was 100% cleared by a second, more specific blood test!

So don't worry and never underestimate the power of the mind! Just get back to your finasteride ASAP and you will see how quickly you will recover, but once again, the reason for your troubles might not be what you feel it is!

Good luck ;)
 

Speenybean

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Man I can tell you i am using Finasteride for almost 21 years (my experience is somewhere here in the Forum), never had real side effects but i was suffering of some anxiety in the beginning. So i suspended the medication for about 2 months just to find out my anxiety had increased due to fear of hair loss! About brain fog, personally, i always had it all my life long so i can't really tell.

But what i think is the following: while i do believe you are experiencing these symptoms, i don't think it's due to Finasteride suspension but rather from other temporary factors which may be external or internal. The correlations with the suspension of Finasteride is reasonable but it might be 100% psychological, which is totally normal, especially after reading forums and things across the Internet.

Another example: long ago i was suspecting i contracted hepatitis because of a slightly higher antibody value from a blood test. In the days and weeks following the test, i started feeling liver pain, which inmediately did wear off as soon as i was 100% cleared by a second, more specific blood test!

So don't worry and never underestimate the power of the mind! Just get back to your finasteride ASAP and you will see how quickly you will recover, but once again, the reason for your troubles might not be what you feel it is!

Good luck ;)
Thanks a lot man.
 

UnknownT

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If you decide to come off, I would recommend tapering off slowly. DO NOT QUIT COLD TURKEY.

Start taking half pill every day for a couple weeks, then space out like half pill every other day, etc..

I was on finasteride for 20+ years, stopped cold turkey and initially felt AMAZING, then like sh*t. From what I researched I had a hormonal feedback then crash. Felt terrible. Jumped back on finasteride and felt "normal" again. - Also, you gonna lose hair, quickly, if you stop.
after how long did you start losing hair?
 

debyne

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14 years on finasteride. I dropped to 0.5mg and felt really weird at about 2-3 weeks into the change and then felt great. Your body definitely needs to adjust, so please taper the drug.
I’m now fully on topical and WAY happier. No sides. Better efficacy.
 

Hairful

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14 years on finasteride. I dropped to 0.5mg and felt really weird at about 2-3 weeks into the change and then felt great. Your body definitely needs to adjust, so please taper the drug.
I’m now fully on topical and WAY happier. No sides. Better efficacy.

Impossiblerrrr according to some people here, finasteride stops working after 5 years! You must be lying lol
 

Speenybean

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14 years on finasteride. I dropped to 0.5mg and felt really weird at about 2-3 weeks into the change and then felt great. Your body definitely needs to adjust, so please taper the drug.
I’m now fully on topical and WAY happier. No sides. Better efficacy.
Thanks for info. What is your regimen / dosing for topical? I’ve been considering making the switch. Also where do you purchase it. Thanks !!
 

br1

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after how long did you start losing hair?
it's hard to tell. I am a diffuser.

What I meant was, I quit for say, 1 month. Then I came back on it.. And months down the road I feel like my hair was fuller/ more dense before I had paused the finasteride.
 

UnknownT

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it's hard to tell. I am a diffuser.

What I meant was, I quit for say, 1 month. Then I came back on it.. And months down the road I feel like my hair was fuller/ more dense before I had paused the finasteride.
oh ok i see.
so during the period which you stopped taking it did you notice an increase in shedding or hair loss?
 

br1

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oh ok i see.
so during the period which you stopped taking it did you notice an increase in shedding or hair loss?
not during. but it's hard to assess as the process is slow.

didn't noticed shedding as I am now way pass the point of stressing counting hairs in the shower -
 
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