Hello, I’m making this post to get some feedback and share my personal experience with finasteride, and whether or not I should start taking it again to fight my hair loss.
To keep it simple: I started losing my hair at the age of 21. In May 2024, I was around a Norwood 2 / 2.5, and I noticed my temples receding a bit more and my hair starting to shed. Around that time, I started taking finasteride and minoxidil to prevent and fully stabilize my hair loss, which actually worked very well. My hair loss completely stabilized and I even had good regrowth around my temples, so I was responding very well to the treatment.
I took it from late May 2024 until mid-November 2024.
The reason I stopped is because I think I experienced sexual side effects. Without going too much into personal details, in November 2024 I had a testicular torsion over a weekend, and I also started having erectile problems afterward. Following that period, I stopped finasteride because I thought it might have created favorable conditions for the torsion to happen.
The issue now is that I still have major erectile difficulties since stopping the treatment. The thing is, my erectile problems could also be 100% psychological, because I’m currently not in a very happy period of my life, and my current sexual/erectile issues could be entirely linked to my mental state and a loss of confidence sexually.
So I’ve stayed off finasteride from that period until now. As you can imagine, my hair loss has started again, and I’m currently around a progressing Norwood 3. I’ve continued using minoxidil alongside to limit the damage.
The dilemma I’m facing now is whether I should try finasteride again at a lower dosage, such as 1 mg three times a week, or simply focus on improving my lifestyle and plan for a hair transplant at the end of the year when I turn 24 without taking ever finasteride again.
To keep it simple: I started losing my hair at the age of 21. In May 2024, I was around a Norwood 2 / 2.5, and I noticed my temples receding a bit more and my hair starting to shed. Around that time, I started taking finasteride and minoxidil to prevent and fully stabilize my hair loss, which actually worked very well. My hair loss completely stabilized and I even had good regrowth around my temples, so I was responding very well to the treatment.
I took it from late May 2024 until mid-November 2024.
The reason I stopped is because I think I experienced sexual side effects. Without going too much into personal details, in November 2024 I had a testicular torsion over a weekend, and I also started having erectile problems afterward. Following that period, I stopped finasteride because I thought it might have created favorable conditions for the torsion to happen.
The issue now is that I still have major erectile difficulties since stopping the treatment. The thing is, my erectile problems could also be 100% psychological, because I’m currently not in a very happy period of my life, and my current sexual/erectile issues could be entirely linked to my mental state and a loss of confidence sexually.
So I’ve stayed off finasteride from that period until now. As you can imagine, my hair loss has started again, and I’m currently around a progressing Norwood 3. I’ve continued using minoxidil alongside to limit the damage.
The dilemma I’m facing now is whether I should try finasteride again at a lower dosage, such as 1 mg three times a week, or simply focus on improving my lifestyle and plan for a hair transplant at the end of the year when I turn 24 without taking ever finasteride again.