What happens if I take finasteride when I didnt need it?

[ihatethis]

Alrite so my hair shedding is just driving me insane. I can see my scalp alot more than I could, and its just frustrating me. Can diffuse hair thinning even be anything other than male pattern baldness? I'll be seeing a derm the day after tomorrow. I'll get a few blood tests to check if its something to do with any hormonal imbalance, vitamin diffeciency, etc. If not, im not going to WAIT to see if this was a phase caused by stress, and regret not getting on finasteride.

What would happen if I did use finasteride, and all the hair shedding was caused due to Telogen Effluvium? I dont have a problem taking the pill EVERYDAY for the rest of my life But could it do me more harm than good?

Any advice is much appreciated..

 

[Todd]

Regardless of wether you need it or not; what happens when you take finasteride is that your alpha reductase activity is surpressed and DHT levels in serum and skin drops.

However, for any real, physiological effect to take place, you have to take this drug for an extended period; taking just one pill one time does nothing but temporarily lowering DHT, only to let DHT levels rise again later.

There are concerns in the medical community as to wether healthy young men should surpress alpha reductase activity. Men with enlarged prostate cancer have unusually high DHT levels, so in their case, finasteride is doing the body a favour.

However, 1mg/day- although lowering DHT- does not seem to do that much damage to a healthy male; remember, you are LOWERING DHT levels, not removing it completely. The body usually adapt to this change within weeks (that is, side effects, if any, usually wears off). Men still remain men, with sufficient libido, facial hair and sperm production.
In some men, inhibiting alpha reductase even increases serum testosterone.

If you don't need finasteride, and your hair loss is due to some other pathological mechanism that isn't affected by DHT; my guess is nothing happens.
Maybe libido decreases for a while, but that is it.
And no, you won't loose more hair when you quit taking it, because if you don't need it, then your hairloss clearly isn't androgenetic, and your hair isn't affected by androgens anyway.