Why is propecia not OTC?

[techprof]

fairtaxnow,
do you find it difficult to see a doctor and get a script for finasteride or dutasteride?
I didn't have any problems doing that.

OTC is inconsistent. nizoral 2% is otc in canada, australia etc, but prescription only in the US.
minox5% is prescription only in canada.

I don't think we will ever see finasteride or dutasteride otc.

 

[Bryan]

Do we know for sure that sides are simply related to the 5ar inhibition and do NOT come from the finasteride chemical itself?

Oh, at the levels this drug is typically used (the milligram range), it's obvious that the MAIN potential by far for side-effects is just from the DHT reduction itself. But if you start going to an extreme like taking GRAM quantities of the drug, then obviously there's a distinct possibility that things might start happening that have nothing at all to do with DHT reduction.

Bryan

 

[Bryan]

Ah yes, I would agree with you that logically this would make sense. But logical reasoning does not always apply to science. Logically people seem to think that taking 0.25mg of finasteride means your results are 25% as effective as taking 1mg. Science proves this otherwise.

I disagree with your use of the word "logical" in this example. It's not "logical" AT ALL for a lay person to assume that a dose of 0.25 mg would be 25% as effective as a dose of 1 mg. It's a SUPPOSITION by such a person, based purely on a lack of knowledge of the way in which enzyme inhibitors work in the body.

Bryan

 

[Guest]

Do we know for sure that sides are simply related to the 5ar inhibition and do NOT come from the finasteride chemical itself?

Oh, at the levels this drug is typically used (the milligram range), it's obvious that the MAIN potential by far for side-effects is just from the DHT reduction itself. But if you start going to an extreme like taking GRAM quantities of the drug, then obviously there's a distinct possibility that things might start happening that have nothing at all to do with DHT reduction.
Bryan

Ah, just the man we've been waiting to hear from on this. So therefore if 0.25mg is upwards of 90% as effective as 1mg that means you'd be 90% as likely to get sides as you would with 1mg? I guess its the psychological factor when people say they reduce their dosage down to 0.25mg and the sides go away.

Though you did also acknowledge that at HIGHER doses it could be the drug itself that causes the sides rather than the effect the drug produces that causes the sides. I read a post lately that stated you had suggested some people have even taken 90mg of finasteride and did not experience any sides? NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT TAKE 90MG OF finasteride, OR AMOUNT REMOTELY CLOSE TO THIS!

 

[Guest]

fairtaxnow,
do you find it difficult to see a doctor and get a script for finasteride or dutasteride?
I didn't have any problems doing that.

OTC is inconsistent. nizoral 2% is otc in canada, australia etc, but prescription only in the US.
minox5% is prescription only in canada.

I don't think we will ever see finasteride or dutasteride otc.

Techprof,

Where did you gather this from? I don't need a script, I get my finasteride TTM (through the mail :wink and don't need a prescription either. My doctor would've given me a prescription for propecia (after yelling OH MY GAAAWD! when telling her I bought Finax from an online pharmacy) but I cannot justify wasting that much money on propecia when generics are available with a purchase online.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly about OTC being inconsistent? Oh I guess it is inconsistent from country to country but I was just talking about the U.S. Nizoral 2%, I can't imagine why that also shouldn't be available OTC in the U.S.

 

[Bryan]

Many people think this when they first come to the sites. In fact, during the trials the doctors were surprised at the leveling out of effectiveness regardless of the dose.

Cassin, can you provide a reference showing that doctors were "surprised" at the leveling out of the effectiveness of finasteride at different doses? I've read a ton of finasteride studies, and I've never seen that expressed anywhere. The only way a doctor would be "surprised" by it is if he had no familiarity at all with the pharmacokinetics of finasteride, or how enzyme inhibitors generally work in the body. I strongly doubt that any doctors were "surprised" by it.

Bryan

 

[Bryan]

OTC is inconsistent. nizoral 2% is otc in canada, australia etc, but prescription only in the US.
minox5% is prescription only in canada.

To show just how silly a lot of these restrictions are, consider the fact that anybody can walk into a drugstore and buy all the bottles they want of 200 mg tablets of ibuprophen (either name-brand or generic). But to get tablets of 600 mg of ibuprophen, you have to get a doctor's prescription! But there's absolutely nothing to stop anybody from merely taking 3 of the OTC 200 mg tablets to get EXACTLY the same dose as the prescription version!!!

Bryan

 

[bubka]

OTC is inconsistent. nizoral 2% is otc in canada, australia etc, but prescription only in the US.
minox5% is prescription only in canada.

To show just how silly a lot of these restrictions are, consider the fact that anybody can walk into a drugstore and buy all the bottles they want of 200 mg tablets of ibuprophen (either name-brand or generic). But to get tablets of 600 mg of ibuprophen, you have to get a doctor's prescription! But there's absolutely nothing to stop anybody from merely taking 3 of the OTC 200 mg tablets to get EXACTLY the same dose as the prescription version!!!

Bryan

they do that so you get the warm fuzzy feeling of getting an Rx script to take home

 

[Bryan]

Ah, just the man we've been waiting to hear from on this. So therefore if 0.25mg is upwards of 90% as effective as 1mg that means you'd be 90% as likely to get sides as you would with 1mg?

Sure. It's only common sense.

I guess its the psychological factor when people say they reduce their dosage down to 0.25mg and the sides go away.

Most likely, unless they do happen to be a bit of an "outlier" whose response (in the form of DHT reduction) just happens to start dropping-off at a somewhat higher level of the drug than what it does in most people.

Though you did also acknowledge that at HIGHER doses it could be the drug itself that causes the sides rather than the effect the drug produces that causes the sides. I read a post lately that stated you had suggested some people have even taken 90mg of finasteride and did not experience any sides? NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT TAKE 90MG OF finasteride, OR AMOUNT REMOTELY CLOSE TO THIS!

Yes. You can read about it in the package insert for Proscar (and probably Propecia). Early test-subjects took 80 mg/day of finasteride for two or three months, with no ill effects. They also took as much as 400 mg of the drug (!) in single doses; again, with no ill effects. Stumptailed macaques were given a daily dose of 1 mg/kg/day, which converted into my own body weight (I weigh about 100 kg) would be 100 mg a day. The animals took that dose for about a year and a half, if I recall correctly. Again, with no ill effects.

So it continues to amuse me that so many people are so used to hearing about the typical doses that are prescribed routinely, they start to think of larger doses than that as being somehow horrifyingly DANGEROUS or outrageous!

Bryan

 

[Cassin]

Many people think this when they first come to the sites. In fact, during the trials the doctors were surprised at the leveling out of effectiveness regardless of the dose.

Cassin, can you provide a reference showing that doctors were "surprised" at the leveling out of the effectiveness of finasteride at different doses? I've read a ton of finasteride studies, and I've never seen that expressed anywhere. The only way a doctor would be "surprised" by it is if he had no familiarity at all with the pharmacokinetics of finasteride, or how enzyme inhibitors generally work in the body. I strongly doubt that any doctors were "surprised" by it.

Bryan

No I cannot, sorry. I tried to find it.

This wasn't a study. It was a link somebody posted on here for a dermatology website. If I remember right it was an interview with a dermatologist about hair loss and propecia. I simply remember the dermatologist stating the doctors during the trials were surprised at how little the results changed at various doses of finasteride. Results being both hair count and hair weight.

I even remember you posted quite a bit in the thread.

 

[abcdefg]

Science does not work well in the context of the human body. Certainly no one can say testing, modeling, or proving things is at all simple or even practical in the human body. Simple processes take complex systems of differential equations to model. Thats why science is so slow with this stuff. I mean it takes a million dollar study just to test if something is actually true or not. The body takes year 2000 science and puts us back to 3rd grade guess and check math.

 

[AquaNet]

isn't melatonin a hormonal drug, melatonin is OTC.

 

[abcdefg]

Bryan so do you think that overall, with an understanding of how propecia works that it is safe? If you had a 20 year old balding son would you encourage him to use propecia? I know you said if you were younger like 20 you would consider using it. Im always curious what the good chemistry guys think of propecia. Like bryan and docj.

 

[bubka]

Bryan so do you think that overall, with an understanding of how propecia works that it is safe? If you had a 20 year old balding son would you encourage him to use propecia? I know you said if you were younger like 20 you would consider using it. Im always curious what the good chemistry guys think of propecia. Like bryan and docj.

yes its safe, but for balding post puberty men only, you cannot have OTC drugs that could cause almost certain birth defects

 

[Guest]

Bryan so do you think that overall, with an understanding of how propecia works that it is safe? If you had a 20 year old balding son would you encourage him to use propecia? I know you said if you were younger like 20 you would consider using it. Im always curious what the good chemistry guys think of propecia. Like bryan and docj.

yes its safe, but for balding post puberty men only, you cannot have OTC drugs that could cause almost certain birth defects

Yet a beverage, and little white sticks that you puff on, are also OTC and "could cause almost certain birth defects".

How can you "could" cause something "almost" certainly?

 

[bubka]

a male fetus needs dht to fully develop, enough said, quit being a pain in the ***

 

[Guest]

a male fetus needs dht to fully develop, enough said, quit being a pain in the ***

I never said a male fetus didn't need DHT to fully develop. I will repeat what I said for you as a quote:

Yet a beverage, and little white sticks that you puff on, are also OTC and "could cause almost certain birth defects".

Not to mention other OTC items that can cause birth defects. I still haven't seen any real valid reason why finasteride couldn't be OTC other than politics and $$$$.

 

[bubka]

a male fetus needs dht to fully develop, enough said, quit being a pain in the ***

I never said a male fetus didn't need DHT to fully develop. I will repeat what I said for you as a quote:

Yet a beverage, and little white sticks that you puff on, are also OTC and "could cause almost certain birth defects".

Not to mention other OTC items that can cause birth defects. I still haven't seen any real valid reason why finasteride couldn't be OTC other than politics and $$$$.

wft other OTC causes almost certain birth defects, and very detrimental ones like finasteride then?

 

[Guest]

I just told you! Certain beverages that people enjoy, and little sticks of dried up little plants with white paper around it!!

If a woman is going to take finasteride when she's pregant than she is doing us a favor by eliminating that gene-pool from being able to reproduce! (Boy w/out a penis)

 

[bubka]

I just told you! Certain beverages that people enjoy, and little sticks of dried up little plants with white paper around it!!

If a woman is going to take finasteride when she's pregant than she is doing us a favor by eliminating that gene-pool from being able to reproduce! (Boy w/out a penis)

not only are you dumb by your rational here of comparing the chances of birth defects to alcohol and cigarettes (which can cause them, though it has to be consistent) but you are pretty sick too, do you even know that women are usually pregnant for a few weeks before they even know it, i guess those stupid women who don't know should have their sons eliminated from the gene pool then...? you are a sicko, good luck with that "fair tax" too lol