Reduced Body Hair

[paximperia]

I started taking Finasteride on Jan 2007 and it has worked very well for maintaining/regrowth on my head-hair.

I have a question for anyone that has been on finasteride for 1+ years... but first let me specify exactly what's happening.

My body hair has been getting progressively thinner over the past year. Prior to a month or two ago, the body hair was thinner than it used to be, but was still a relatively normal length. Recently though it has been actually falling out The underarm hair has reduced by probably 50% or more. Currently I'm losing significant amounts of hair from my arms, legs, the "excess" eyebrow hair that I used to have to shave, my rear end, and my stomache (happy trail). If I just lightly pull on it, the hair falls out, and the roots are also smaller. The hair loss is a little patchy. My pubic hair has also thinned a little, but not much. My facial/chest hair doesn't seem to have thinned very much (maybe a little). There is a lot more hair on my head, and the texture has changed to more like baby hair (although this is probably just the new hairs growing in).

So my questions are...

1. Has anyone else experienced this/is this normal? I'm almost positive it's a side-effect of the Finasteride, even though it wasn't listed as a side-effect. This is part of the reason that I don't trust side-effect labels anymore.
2. What was the pattern of your body-hair loss, if any? At the moment certian areas are thinning much more than others. Did you also notice this?
3. Will the chest-hair/facial hair eventually catch up with the rest of my body-hair and thin so it looks more even/natural?
4. Does it last, or will the hair grow back in eventually?
5. I started taking it when I was 20 (1 year ago). Do you think my age has something to do with it? Any other people in their teens/twenties notice the same thing?
6. I went through puberty at 12 and pretty much done by 15 so I don't think that had anything to do with it, although maybe the Finasteride is partially reversing it (as far as body-hair anyway)?
7. I started taking a multivitamin with my finasteride in August. Is it possible that the vitamins are making the finasteride more potent?

I've heard about this happening with Dutasteride, but I wasn't expecting it with 1mg Finasteride. I don't mind it at all, but it still strikes me as a little odd. I don't have gynecomastia (although I freaked out at one point when I was losing the body hair and thought I was growing breasts. it was funny because I started working out a few weeks earlier, and it turns out they were just muscle. i didn't put two and two together until a few weeks later).

I'm in good health, no other sides/complaints, and I'm overall very happy with the results. I'm debating if I should get bloodwork done.

Here are all the things I'm taking, and when I started them. The only one I am 100% consistent on are the vitamins and the Finasteride, but I'm usually pretty good about the other stuff, particularly Nizoral.

1/2007 1mg Finasteride (alternated between Finpecia and Propecia)
2/2007 Coal Tar Shampoo
6/2007 Ketoconazole Shampoo (1%)
6/2007 Minoxidil
8/2007 Daily Multivitamin and Omega-3 Fish Oil
9/2007 Tricomin

 

[Pondle]

Perhaps there is an explanation for your experience: maybe your estrogen levels have increased significantly since starting finasteride. In previous threads the consensus of more-experienced posters was that estrogen could have a suppressive effect on the growth of body hair, and a stimulatory effect (although perhaps only a modest one) on the growth of scalp hair.

However, most reports say that finasteride has only a small effect on body hair. I personally haven't noticed any changes in body hair and only modest thickening of head hair in a little over two years of taking the drug. But then I only started at age 29.