Finasteride use does result in lower free testosterone relative to total testosterone. If your on-finasteride hormone levels are causing problems it indicates that your baseline levels were low. The good news is this is not normal for young men and can typically be corrected with lifestyle changes.
Correct me if I am wrong (I am just assuming here) but if finasteride inhibits testosterone from converting to DHT, then surely there's going to be MORE free testosterone in the body?
Testosterone ... comes into contact with 5AR... ooops... nope, not bonding with me, I prefer to have sex with finasteride... so piss off... get back into the body on your own...
For example, gyno... erm... man boobs... are reported to occur and this is surely a direct effect from the free testosterone from turning into oestrogen?
It's hard to take the internet as gospel. People will generally report the negative effects of anything rather than the positive. It's blindingly obvious that people never say "it is working as it is meant to". Only those with problems say something, usually online, which means that products gain a bad reputation. I am sure if you searched for most drugs you'll find lots of horror stories... finasteride is quite special because some men report limp dicks and we all think with our dick so it's a huge issue. Our willies are important and we seem to define our manliness with them, so of course people are going to report about bad experiences online, with relative anonymity. I wouldn't dare tell anyone if I experienced a floppy c***... in person, at least. I wouldn't have much of an issue reporting it on these forums...
But, how can we trust drug companies? They're going to use the best results they seen as marketing, and will ignore any sh*t results. They exist to make money and can corrupt data, but my feelings are that if finasteride was so bad why hasn't any government banned it? Red Bull was banned in a few European countries for a while!
Testosterone ... comes into contact with 5AR... ooops... nope, not bonding with me, I prefer to have sex with finasteride... so piss off... get back into the body on your own...
For example, gyno... erm... man boobs... are reported to occur and this is surely a direct effect from the free testosterone from turning into oestrogen?
It's hard to take the internet as gospel. People will generally report the negative effects of anything rather than the positive. It's blindingly obvious that people never say "it is working as it is meant to". Only those with problems say something, usually online, which means that products gain a bad reputation. I am sure if you searched for most drugs you'll find lots of horror stories... finasteride is quite special because some men report limp dicks and we all think with our dick so it's a huge issue. Our willies are important and we seem to define our manliness with them, so of course people are going to report about bad experiences online, with relative anonymity. I wouldn't dare tell anyone if I experienced a floppy c***... in person, at least. I wouldn't have much of an issue reporting it on these forums...
But, how can we trust drug companies? They're going to use the best results they seen as marketing, and will ignore any sh*t results. They exist to make money and can corrupt data, but my feelings are that if finasteride was so bad why hasn't any government banned it? Red Bull was banned in a few European countries for a while!
wstef said:
finasteride raises total T and lowers free T, but that doesn't tell the whole story because the sum of free T and T that is bound to albumin is considered 'bioavailable'.
It's not uncommon for free T to actually be too high relative to total T, especially in people that start balding at a young age. Absolute values aren't as important as ratios when it comes to hormones.
AfroSamurai said:
I'm on Propecia myself which is similar to finasteride for about a month. To be honest so far I haven't felt much different - no head aches or ball ache problems.
If anything my sex drive has decreased very slightly - but to be honest I had an over active sex drive in the first place so a decreased one is a welcome change for me - in general I can get much more done in the day than before I was on the pill.