The most fundemental finasteride questions...

[damien_p_watermelon]

I've been looking at all the finasteride posts (loads!) and for the most part these following questions have been answered, but not in one place, so far as I can tell.

These questions are:

1.
What does finasteride actually do? Does it stop loss or grow hair or both?

2.
How many people get side effects and what are they?

If anyone can answer from their own experinece I think that would be a really great way to measure the general feeling around finasteride on the forum.

Cheers.

 

[TheHandsomeLurker]

1. Finasteride interrupts the five alpha reductase pathway, which is what turns testosterone into DHT, DHT being what binds to hair follicles to down regulate them (or something like that -- the science hadn't been completely worked out yet). In most men with genetic hair loss, DHT is believed to be a culprit, and in most cases Finasteride is considered an effective treatment for preventing further loss and slowly regrowing some hair over time.

2) Varies by study. Some studies found rates of side effects no higher in the variable group as the control, and there are others on either side.

But all of this varies by person. Right now, there is no way to predict how you as an individual will respond to Finasteride. Maybe you're a unicorn and it'll regrow all your hair, and maybe you're the worst candidate and it'll chemically castrate you. Both situations seem extremely unlikely. Odds are that it'll just prevent further hair loss, and based on the numbers it seems unlikely that you'll experience side effects. But again, there is no way to say that with anything resembling certainty.

 

[dreamermerlin]

It isd good for stopping further loss, it doesn't do that much, or nothing at all, for regrowth.

 

[damien_p_watermelon]

I want to know what the people who use it have experienced.