Propecia 3 Year update: Good and Bad

[hairgrass]

I'm 33 and I've been on 1 mg propecia for about three years now. I haven't been on this site for a long time, but thought I would come back and share my experience. My hairloss started about 10 years ago, slowly, but I didn't start treatment until the propecia.



The good:

-I feel that my hair has maintained relatively well, and is 'possibly' even thicker on top (although its hard to say for sure, since I'm wearing my hair longer than I did three years ago, it was very short when I started). My hairloss was about a norwood 2 to 2A when I started, and is probably about the same today. I am thinning on top, and my hairline is very very slowly creeping backwards. (snails pace).


Things I can live with so far:

-My libido is not quite as good as when I started, but its ok. (bodybuilding seems to rev it up quite a bit).
-erections- not as good as before I started, can't keep em up quite as long, takes more work, but I think it's a fair trade off.


Concerns:



-Since my hairloss was fairly slow before I started treatment, I really have no way of knowing just how much, if anything, the drug is actually doing.

-The jury seems to be out on its effect on bodybuilding. Somehow I can't get that outta my head when trying to motivate myself to keep working out.

-No one really knows what Finasteride could potentially be doing to our bodies in the long term. Sure, old men have been taking it for a long time, but most of us are not old men. This concerns me.

-I have a few problems that have developed within the past 12 months that may have absolutely nothing to do with Finasteride, but that I feel are cause for concern nontheless. The main one being a lack of concentration/being able to focus/lack of speed to comprehend things. This problem has occured to me many times within the past year especially, and it never even occured to me that it could have anything at all to do with propecia. But then today I stumbled back into this website, and others, and came across 'brain fog' threads all over the place, and now I have to wonder if there's a link.

In addition, I've been much more depressed, my vision, seems to have gotten much worse, and I developed a dry eye problem which will have to take restatis for.

Now, I'm not one to to jump to conclusions, and blame every problem that crops up on propecia. It may be that these are all coincidences. But I'm at a crossroads right now with this drug. I do NOT like the idea of staying on this stuff forever.

I recently purchased a lasercomb, and I'm set to give it a try for a year to see what happens. Maybe its junk, maybe not, but I think its worth a try. My dermontologist recommended I try it as he felt that there is some merit to its effectiveness. (no he does not sell them).

I'm curious as to what others 'long term' plan is to deal with their hairloss. Do you have any concerns about being medicated for so long? I'm considering taking a 6 to 12 month break from finasteride, and trying a different regimine to see just how it goes. It's possible my hairloss may not be that bad, I guess I won't know until I try.

 

[Pondle]

I'm going to re-post my contribution to the "side effects" forum. I don't have any answers, I'm just trying to think through the issues logically.

There has been some comment about the role of finasteride in regulating neurosteroids like allopregnanolone and potentially causing side effects such as something (?) called "brain fog".

Although there are studies on PubMed detailing experiments which reveal that finasteride can block the formation of certain neurosteroids, I assumed that any neurosteroidal changes attributable to 5-alpha-reductase inhibition would be due to an effect on 5ARI rather than 5ARII, since the former is found in the brain. We know that finasteride is selective for 5ARII, whereas dutasteride targets both 'flavours' of the enzyme.

However, I have seen various posts where people have claimed that very large amounts of finasteride can inhibit 5ARI as well as 5ARII. Bryan Shelton, for example, claims that large doses of finasteride taken at regular intervals each day could result in DHT inhibition approaching the levels achieved by dutasteride. Of course, finasteride has a fairly flat inhibition curve, but it's not totally flat - so this seems feasible.

So I surmise that the neurosteroidal changes induced by finasteride in various animal studies are due largely to the higher levels of inhibition achieved by massive doses of finasteride. I know some research was treating rats with as much as 50mg/kg, which is an enormous amount, equivalent to hundreds of milligrams daily in humans.

A secondary question is, even if finasteride at a low dose could modulate neurosteroids - which dutasteride certainly does - does it matter? After all, apart from physical developmental defects, no other clinical abnormalities have been observed for the intersexuals with a natural deficiency of 5ARII, even though I assume they should have a neurosteroidal profile similar to finasteride or dutasteride users. Equally, women have much lower levels of both 5ARI and 5ARII compared to men (frontal hair follicles in women had 3 and 3.5 times less 5- reductase type I and II, respectively, than frontal hair follicles in men) and there seems to be no medical 'penalty' attached to this.

I'm certainly no physician or biochemist, just an Ordinary Joe trying to interpret the literature. Any comments welcome.

 

[youngbaldie]

I'm certainly no physician or biochemist, just an Ordinary Joe trying to interpret the literature. Any comments welcome.

That was actually very well written and informative. Thanks for the contribution.

I myself am concerned about the supposed brain fog that happens with some people, but I tend to agree with your assessment of the data that we have at this point.

 

[TA45]

Brain fog

I also get brain fog, and a little agressive and moody. I'm positive it is all linked!

 

[Pondle]

Re: Brain fog

I also get brain fog, and a little agressive and moody. I'm positive it is all linked!

It's hard to prove causality. We all get mood changes anyway, depending on what's happening in our lives. It could also be symptomatic of stress, fatigue, or aspects of diet. The fact that nothing about brain fog was recorded in the finasteride trials is key for me.

 

[abcdefg]

if you think those 3 things are all linked for you then stop using it or if u like your hair more then those 3 problems keep using it. For most men those 3 problems dont happen and if they do the men weigh whats most important and either quit or keep using it. You dont have any other choices.

 

[DoctorHouse]

hairgrass, you brought up a very good point. I have had very slow and minimal hairloss before I took Propecia and now that I am on it I too always question is it really doing anything. I guess when you decide to take Propecia, you have to have faith it is slowing down the process even more than without it.

 

[tairian]

Yea I'm not really sure what you can and can't link to finasteride since some of the time it can be paranoia. You get an odd pain you've never had before and you attribute it to finasteride , sometimes I think we get a bit carried away, as far as brain fog goes I've had that and libido decrease is generally in intervals but nothing serious.. the long term affects of finasteride do worry me but it's not 98 where a better solution was so very far away, most of us on finasteride now don't have to worry about forever since something better should be out within the next 5-10 years so for now you just roll with the punches try and maintain as much as you can by the sounds of things HM works better with the more you have to begin with...although I cannot see the long term affects of finasteride being positive It definitely messes with your body I can't really pick a whole slew of side affects out but I have felt different since I hit my second/third month of being on it...I personally will be immensely happy when something better surfaces and I can get off it.

 

[klink]

I'm always hesitant to connect some sort of problem to exactly one cause since for me, I never get enough sleep and with two kids under the age of 2 we are always in fire drill mode.

But I think that brain fog does happen. I would take Propecia in the morning, and by 11am I felt very sleepy, and unfocused. I started taking it around 6pm when I get home, and I notice that sometimes at 8-9pm I feel the same way.

I'd like someone who thinks they are experiencing brain fog to try taking Propecia in the morning for a while, and then at nite for a while... See what you notice.

 

[Hans Gruber]

I'm certainly no physician or biochemist........

you should be

 

[RaginDemon]

thanks for the info