Hey everyone. I haven't posted in a long time, but thought I'd stop by with an update. (Pardon me for posting info about finasteride that most of you probably already know.)
I started finasteride almost six years ago -- in July 2000 -- at age 21 to combat a thinning vertex and temples. As of right now, I have almost all the hair I started with. The vertex has thinned out a tiny bit more than when I started, as has one of the temples. But most of that minor thinning happened within the first couple years I was taking finasteride (2000-2002). I have almost everything I had in 2000 and pretty much the same as I had as of one, two, or three years ago.
I've been taking 1.25 mg/day of Proscar (a 5mg Proscar pill quartered) almost the entire time. My very first batch was a month's worth of Propecia (dumb, but I didn't know any better), but then I learned in August 2000, from this very website, about Proscar as a cheaper alternative, and switched after just a month paying the higher Propecia price. (BTW, the last time I mentioned being on this site in 2000, all these people wrote comments saying that HairLossTalk.com wasn't around then; well, it was, but all the posters' registration dates were moved forward when it switched to new software; plus back ca. 2000 you didn't need to register in order to post.) Quartering the pills has been extremely easy, and I've only lost a couple of doses over the years through accidentally crushing a pill into powder instead of getting a clean split. My insurance picked up the cost for most of the period (a lot will cover Proscar but not Propecia, since Proscar is meant for BPH), until I switched insurance more recently. But even so, a year on 1/4 of a Proscar pill per day doesn't cost that much at all.
My first year had shedding, even at the nine month mark -- which, I gather, is unusual though not unheard of. When I was still having periods of shedding as I approached a year on finasteride, I was totally freaked out, and thought I was damaging my hair, making the male pattern baldness even worse, etc. Well, the shedding subsided and the vertex thickened back up. (By thickened up, I mean that the additional thinness from the shedding went away as hairs cycled through, not that I gained vertex hair above and beyond my July 2000 benchmark.) The first year was tough, but I'm really glad I gave it that amount of time even when I was frustrated.
Nothing dramatic happened along the way in terms of regrowth. I probably didn't get any regrowth at all. But since I caught it early, and started early, I'm in pretty decent shape. I'd definitely like to get back more vertex and temple thickness, but if I can just continue to maintain -- as I've been doing for almost six years -- I'll count myself lucky.
Now I do get nervous sometimes, wondering if, as I move farther and farther past the five-year mark, my hair will start to slide again. I know the peak effectiveness -- in terms of haircount measured against baseline, is at two years -- and it slides on the graphs after then. So I'm still apprehensive, and really hoping for advances in all the cloning, etc., just so I have some more options. But finasteride has definitely gotten me closer to the date when these technologies will be a reality. I know I could add topicals if things go downhill again, but the one time I tried them (a two-month span with topical spironolactone before I gave it up), I was terrible at adhering to the regimen. I don't know if I could stand doing the minoxidil once or twice a day, so a one-pill-a-day routine has worked out really well for me thus far.
I'm not trying to be a Finasteride Evangelist, but I did just want to mention that it's worked for me over a reasonably long time period. I think people on this site get frustrated sometimes because people who have success stop thinking about their hair so much, and hence stop visiting this site and posting about their experiences. I used to check HairLossTalk.com discussions several times a day, back in late 2000 through early 2002, but now I come here very seldom. I just don't worry about my hair as much, except for the occasional annoying moment when I'm combing it and wishing that even the minor temple/vertex thinning were gone.
Anyway, good luck everyone! Glad to read all these other success stories in here, and congrats to those who've found effective regimens.
I started finasteride almost six years ago -- in July 2000 -- at age 21 to combat a thinning vertex and temples. As of right now, I have almost all the hair I started with. The vertex has thinned out a tiny bit more than when I started, as has one of the temples. But most of that minor thinning happened within the first couple years I was taking finasteride (2000-2002). I have almost everything I had in 2000 and pretty much the same as I had as of one, two, or three years ago.
I've been taking 1.25 mg/day of Proscar (a 5mg Proscar pill quartered) almost the entire time. My very first batch was a month's worth of Propecia (dumb, but I didn't know any better), but then I learned in August 2000, from this very website, about Proscar as a cheaper alternative, and switched after just a month paying the higher Propecia price. (BTW, the last time I mentioned being on this site in 2000, all these people wrote comments saying that HairLossTalk.com wasn't around then; well, it was, but all the posters' registration dates were moved forward when it switched to new software; plus back ca. 2000 you didn't need to register in order to post.) Quartering the pills has been extremely easy, and I've only lost a couple of doses over the years through accidentally crushing a pill into powder instead of getting a clean split. My insurance picked up the cost for most of the period (a lot will cover Proscar but not Propecia, since Proscar is meant for BPH), until I switched insurance more recently. But even so, a year on 1/4 of a Proscar pill per day doesn't cost that much at all.
My first year had shedding, even at the nine month mark -- which, I gather, is unusual though not unheard of. When I was still having periods of shedding as I approached a year on finasteride, I was totally freaked out, and thought I was damaging my hair, making the male pattern baldness even worse, etc. Well, the shedding subsided and the vertex thickened back up. (By thickened up, I mean that the additional thinness from the shedding went away as hairs cycled through, not that I gained vertex hair above and beyond my July 2000 benchmark.) The first year was tough, but I'm really glad I gave it that amount of time even when I was frustrated.
Nothing dramatic happened along the way in terms of regrowth. I probably didn't get any regrowth at all. But since I caught it early, and started early, I'm in pretty decent shape. I'd definitely like to get back more vertex and temple thickness, but if I can just continue to maintain -- as I've been doing for almost six years -- I'll count myself lucky.
Now I do get nervous sometimes, wondering if, as I move farther and farther past the five-year mark, my hair will start to slide again. I know the peak effectiveness -- in terms of haircount measured against baseline, is at two years -- and it slides on the graphs after then. So I'm still apprehensive, and really hoping for advances in all the cloning, etc., just so I have some more options. But finasteride has definitely gotten me closer to the date when these technologies will be a reality. I know I could add topicals if things go downhill again, but the one time I tried them (a two-month span with topical spironolactone before I gave it up), I was terrible at adhering to the regimen. I don't know if I could stand doing the minoxidil once or twice a day, so a one-pill-a-day routine has worked out really well for me thus far.
I'm not trying to be a Finasteride Evangelist, but I did just want to mention that it's worked for me over a reasonably long time period. I think people on this site get frustrated sometimes because people who have success stop thinking about their hair so much, and hence stop visiting this site and posting about their experiences. I used to check HairLossTalk.com discussions several times a day, back in late 2000 through early 2002, but now I come here very seldom. I just don't worry about my hair as much, except for the occasional annoying moment when I'm combing it and wishing that even the minor temple/vertex thinning were gone.
Anyway, good luck everyone! Glad to read all these other success stories in here, and congrats to those who've found effective regimens.
