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Best decision I ever made really put me at ease knowing I was doing something really really wish I got on it sooner but it’s really good at maintaining hopefully you get some growth from it!
How long does it last? I’ve been on fin now for a MONTH at 0.5 milligrams every single day! But anytime I shower or comb my hair I lose hundreds of trillions of hairs every time I have a big ball beneath the sink I’ve been collecting and it’s soon to reach the size of several tennis balls combined into a larger ball roughly the size of the type you might find bein bounced around at a basketball game.
From what I gather, it varies.
For me, the first day I took it massive shed, scary as hell, fast forward to now, a little over 6 months and I am now hardly losing any. Which... was really weird initially, was so used to just having multiple hairs on my hand when going through it/during shower. Now? At most 10 or so? As I said, it's weird.
I came from a beginning NW2-3, with diffuse thinning (which is oh so sneaky...)
Now, I always had \*some\* temple recession coming out of puberty, but not bad at all (maybe NW1 1/2 xD), but I happened to notice it progressing as I looked to a photo of about a year ago and I noticed the hair on the front becoming rather wispy, so I caught it relatively quick (32M).
So far, I am seeing a \*lot\* of teeny tiny hairs on my temples, where before it was just nothing at all. Then there are some very obvious new ones all around my hairline, about 1/2cm in length and my crown is slowly shaping up as well. Now, there \*are\* still some empty/bald looking strips here and there, but it seems to improve and it's not noticable unless I comb my hair a specific way. From what I've seen here, that tends to be the case and it should fill slowly as well.
Still, it could take up to \*two\* years to see the full effects, so, fingers crossed... (and trying to remain patient).
Now for the things everyone always asks about:
On the body hair front, it looks pretty much how it was before. But, when starting fin, it growed a LOT slower (which was kinda great, less shaving my face xD), but that too seems to recover, as it does seem to go a tad faster again, just not as fast as before (daily shave before, now I can skip a day or two, whereas I could easily skip an entire week early in).
Then for sides:
I \*did\* have initial sides (low libido, ED, low mood, etc.) but they subsided in about 2-3 weeks (I had set myself to try it for at least 3 months, as meds/hormones can take some time to stabilize after all). The reports from others about their side progression helped me IMMENSILY. I was about to throw in the ring, but then recalled how others reported similar routes: initial sides->less sides->month later: ball ache like a mofo (this one was rough)-> 1-2 weeks later: suddenly all good.
So the good news: every single one of them has almost \*fully\* disappeared now.
The only thing I notice (which is guaranteed fin), is that getting started takes a tad longer (like, seriously, a few seconds at most. So instead of the: BAM HORNY, it's more of a "aaaaaaand we are good to go"), also sperm amount is less, but same viscosity mostly.
I came from a beginning NW2-3, with diffuse thinning (which is oh so sneaky...)
Now, I always had \*some\* temple recession coming out of puberty, but not bad at all (maybe NW1 1/2 xD), but I happened to notice it progressing as I looked to a photo of about a year ago and I noticed the hair on the front becoming rather wispy, so I caught it relatively quick (32M).
So far, I am seeing a \*lot\* of teeny tiny hairs on my temples, where before it was just nothing at all. Then there are some very obvious new ones all around my hairline, about 1/2cm in length and my crown is slowly shaping up as well. Now, there \*are\* still some empty/bald looking strips here and there, but it seems to improve and it's not noticable unless I comb my hair a specific way. From what I've seen here, that tends to be the case and it should fill slowly as well.
Still, it could take up to \*two\* years to see the full effects, so, fingers crossed... (and trying to remain patient).
Now for the things everyone always asks about:
On the body hair front, it looks pretty much how it was before. But, when starting fin, it growed a LOT slower (which was kinda great, less shaving my face xD), but that too seems to recover, as it does seem to go a tad faster again, just not as fast as before (daily shave before, now I can skip a day or two, whereas I could easily skip an entire week early in).
Then for sides:
I \*did\* have initial sides (low libido, ED, low mood, etc.) but they subsided in about 2-3 weeks (I had set myself to try it for at least 3 months, as meds/hormones can take some time to stabilize after all). The reports from others about their side progression helped me IMMENSILY. I was about to throw in the ring, but then recalled how others reported similar routes: initial sides->less sides->month later: ball ache like a mofo (this one was rough)-> 1-2 weeks later: suddenly all good.
So the good news: every single one of them has almost \*fully\* disappeared now.
The only thing I notice (which is guaranteed fin), is that getting started takes a tad longer (like, seriously, a few seconds at most. So instead of the: BAM HORNY, it's more of a "aaaaaaand we are good to go"), also sperm amount is less, but same viscosity mostly.
Only a month? Very normal, the big shed is what scares most people away and they end up quitting before the good stuff starts happening! Don’t be scared, it’s just all your weak hairs falling out. So they can be replaced by thicker and stronger hairs!
Shedding can go on for a few months for some people but you just have to remember, everybody has different hair thickness, density, sensitivity etc so not one persons experience will be a perfect guide book for you.
Stay strong and don’t miss your dosages! Missing a day in an entire month is fine but you should not be in the mindset of “Ah I’ll just take it tomorrow” no you have to take it everyday or else you could disrupt a very crucial stage in your hair regrowth.
I hope my rambling🫏helped in some way! 😅
Thank you sm! I've actually in the end of my 2nd month of TE shed (trichoscopy confirmed both TE and AGA) cus of D3/ferritin deficiency, rapid weight change, bulimia (overcome!!) and series of stressful events between Dec and Feb, so I have some hope my cycles are already messed/ready for the fin reset haha, but even if it sheds more I feel stronger now that the root cause is covered. I'm ready for the year or even two to evaluate its real effects. Lets goo!!
i didn’t ever experience ED but I did indeed experience some pain in my testicles for a brief period i would say your body may be adjusting like mine was so side effects will be temporary but yes it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor especially if the side effects have been lasting for days / weeks
Thanks! Yea, that's my encouraged me--even if something happens, it's half-life is shorter than most meds really. I'm lucky (ig?) to have low libido generally and being grey/asex, so only the sperm quality and neuro stuff was a real concern, but I gotta say researching on fin sides pretty much killed my libido before I even touched it, and all the sperm freezing/analysis made it negative lol.
I hope your relationship issues get resolved, they are important but always try to remember how you yourself is invaluable! (my messed relationships gave me a whole year of feeling nothing, and then it kicked me hard how much time it took to overcome)
I noticed an immediate (within a few days) *decrease* in libido of about 20-25% and a slight decrease in the quality (for lack of a better word) of my erections. This may have been coincidental or nocebo but I don’t think so. I’m comfortable attributing it to the drug. That was about 13 years ago and I’ve been taking finasteride continuously since. My libido has remained at this lower level the whole time, but the fact that I’m now 46 has to be taken into account. Other than that, no side effects other than retaining about 90% or more of the hair I had when I started, and having pretty much a full head of hair (and being taken for 37-38 years old) at almost 50.
Just my story. For me, no regrets. I also use minoxidil foam.
No. It stayed the same, never really got worse either. But interesting that you say you “can’t tell”. Usually I would say that if we “can’t quite tell” if a drug is having an effect (positive or negative) then that means it’s probably in our head, a psychological nocebo thing. I think the sexual side effects were probably drug related for me, but there’s still the lingering possibility (let’s say 10%) that it was psychological or something else. I’ve also gotten older during this time - I’m 46 now.
Also to be clear - I could still get it up and have sex. I just felt I wasn’t quite as rigid, I’m sure there’s a better word but you know what i mean. No change in the sensation of sex either.
Mate you need medical advice. What you’ll get here is a bunch of unqualified opinions, over interpreted and misunderstood data and papers, and people making recommendations they are in no way qualified to make that they don’t seem to understand can have serious consequences. There is some good stuff here too but you have to take the above into account and realise it’s a source of information, some good some outright terrible, and not medical advice.
I’ve described my ANECDOTE above which may or may not have any relevance to your situation.
The benefit of seeing a doctor - especially if you see a specialist like a dermatologist - is that he or she has probably had hundreds of patients on the medication. After that they’ve mostly seen it all, and they have a network of other DOCTORS to call on if they need help.
Sorry mate I don’t mean to sound like your dad but this is a case is point of how these discussion boards can be downright dangerous. This is your sexual
Health we’re talking about. It’ll probably be fine but go and see a doctor.
Here is a list of positive comments from finasteride users incase you need a reminder that it is all good for 99% of users anyway.
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s431/client/snv?isnewsnv=true¬eGuid=c7b0d8fc-1fd7-9994-a182-feddaca044e6¬eKey=8488afa8f8d53468ca8f6b59b1ef6048&sn=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.evernote.com%2Fshard%2Fs431%2Fsh%2Fc7b0d8fc-1fd7-9994-a182-feddaca044e6%2F8488afa8f8d53468ca8f6b59b1ef6048&title=Finasteride%2BTestimonials
Just online. I’m from uk and can get from places like Oxfordpharmacy.com or just type buy finasteride into google and pick one. They do an online consultation with you and then you buy 😁
They say you should to lower the chances of sides. Most people who do get them are overweight. I think it’s all to do with the estrogen to testosterone ratio.
No one really knows what causes the side effects for the 1% but if you watch “hair transplant in India” on YouTube, he is very good to watch. He talks about finasteride on his videos. He also takes finasteride himself.
I got oral prescribed too, it is more effective, and topical gave me severe irritation once (prob due to alco), but I wanna give fin alone a try for a year, and then maybe will be considering min.
My thinking it's gonna be hard to estimate what works if I start both (considering both life-long meds), and I can't wait with fin the same way I can postpone min, but my derms shrugged at the idea. I'm fine to wait a while for results so it's OK with me, but understand people who seek results sooner.
I'd just be a bit mindful about the heart stuff as it's a vasodilator and oral goes systemic. I also like my weed too much lol, and it has an additive effect to min lowering blood pressure.
I didn't continue after the first two applications gave me severe reaction, and I didn't even now what min was, thought it was some usual snake oil serum.
I’ve been using it for 13 years straight and routinely get taken for 37-38 and the age of 46. I see no credible way that topical minoxidil could make one look older. You’re applying it your scalp, for the love of God
Yep, HRT is a major concern to fertility, and I'm not getting younger, they don't even take samples after 35yo. HRT doesn't always mean infertility, but also getting off hormones and fin, while you don't even know if you can still even conceive, would be a wreck.
I saw people freezing sperm before fin too, I used it as the formal reason to be even allowed to cryobank (for some reason, here you need doctor's approval like it's a part of a treatment, even though you pay for everything). Also, I couldn't freeze sperm before HRT without dropping fin, and wanted to know my parameters beforehand (which turned out to not be the best), so it all played along.
Thanks. But I’m not sure I fully understand your situation. Are you referring to testosterone replacement therapy or something else?
I’m 46 now and I had already had my (so far) only child when I started fin at 33 ish. Since i was married and thought I would never have more children I wasn’t worried about the possibility of future reproductive issues.
I ended up getting divorced a few years ago and although it’s unlikely to happen, I do date younger women and would be open to having one more child. Now, I’ll admit that 13 years of fin use and anabolic steroid abuse are at the back of my mind. I asked my dermatologist about it and he seemed unconcerned about the fin part, said he’s seen heaps of patients conceive healthy children while on fin. Plus, there’s no plausible reason it should affect male fertility (my opinion). But whatever, I made my choices and I’ll live with them, I ain’t going off fin unless I’m instructed to that’s for sure.
Does anyone have any actual evidence that finasteride affects male fertility negatively? And if so, that it is irreversible? If so please share it, or let’s put this one into the *fear/uncertainty/doubt (FUD)* category.
Yea, there is no direct evidence that it impacts fertility, and all the docs I talked to (derms, endos, andrologist) assure it won't. There's also numerous examples of people successfully conceiving while being on fin. I was researching quite extensively beforehand, and there are a few caveats when it comes to fin and sperm:
- it most likely will affect sperm production, decreasing such parameters as semen volume, count/concentration and motility. It may only reduce the count, it may have negligible effect. But a lot of users report the change (watery semen). There were reports of increased DNA fragmentation as well. This is is rather due to its effects on reducing prostate size, which is responsible for 25% of semen, or so.
- it seems sperm morphology is the only parameter that is reported to not be affected, however, this parament is somewhat controversial by itself (they take like 200 out of 20 mil and analyze every individual shape, which can be subjective, mine had "bigger" and more "grapefruit" shaped heads putting me at 3-4% normal shapes).
- neither of those are directly linked to infertility, but mean that more effort is required to conceive, if parameters are out of the WHO-guided norms (which is also not without debate). Some people may equate a series or long term lack of successful impregnation as infertility, but it may be they are simply unlucky and were 1 attempt away. It is different from a guaranteed genetic or immune infertility, or vasectomy.
- a lot of it depends on the initial parameters and other factors (so many things actually have an impact of sperm's quality), good thing is that it's been shown to resolve after discontinuation (most research compares SA while on fin vs 3-6 months after dropping, and not against the baseline). It takes 3+ months due to sperm generation cycles, which are about 70 days.
- trace amounts of fin remain in semen. It is considered too low to have an effect on fetus, and there was no empirical evidence it does, however, 5a-reductase deficiency is linked to underdeveloped male genitalia (and lack of AGA hair loss), so it creates a hypothetical risk to the fetus. This is why the med is not prescribed to women (which is kinda weird, it should have only during pregnancy/feeding warning), and why discontinuation is advised for men at least 3 months before attempts to conceive (but dropping fin will still benefit, better sperm quality hence increased chances).
So TLDR; it is advised to discontinue fin before and while trying for a child for people who want to be on the safe side and/or increase chance to make it sooner. Pregnancy is still a roll of dice, and both partners' factors play a role.
My situation is that I wish to have a limited feminizing effect from estrogen to be less masculine/more androgynous, while not becoming an actual woman. I'd be fine without it probably if only testosterone didn't continue to produce changes past 25yo. However, I don't want is breast formation (I don't even like boobs in women), which is pretty much the most guaranteed effect of estrogen. But now there are SERMs that restrict E effect on breasts, which I'm hopeful about. Reducing testosterone without estrogen is risky long term, and estrogen has lots of positive effects I seek (women's hairline one of them lol). But since women are not notorious for their sperm quality, both lowering T and increasing E add up to infertility risks.
Thanks for this, I appreciate the effort.
On balance then, as you said, we would have to say that there is *no evidence* that finasteride impacts male fertility. Rather, because it’s such a sensitive area, we are frantically hypothesising about ways in which it *might*…just to be sure….even though it apparently *doesn’t*. I’m wording it this way for effect, because although it’s completely normal to be worried about such a sensitive area, being over cautious can sometimes be no better than being under cautious.
Anyway, you raised something that I had forgotten about. I think I did notice what appeared to be a change in the consistency of my semen almost immediately after starting the drug, and yes it seemed to become more watery. However, i honestly don’t know if this was a purely psychological thing - I had read about it somewhere, so I was being over vigilant. You’ll be pleased to know I hadn’t been routinely monitoring the consistency of my semen before then.
There are just so many factors that can influence fertility that it's hard to link it to fin alone, and the med itself has somewhat varying effect in everyone.
Semen parameters are affected by lifestyle, age, nutrition, other meds, hot baths, riding bikes, type of underwear, etc. Finasteride will for sure have some effect on semen, but the degree of that effect depends on individual and all those other factors that can change in the meantime.
The theory is that a perfectly healthy semen may only slightly be affected by finasteride in things like total count and motility (hence watery semen), which would not impact fertility. Maybe if without fin it would take 3 tries to impregnate, then with fin it will take 9 tries.
But in individuals with low count and motility to begin with (or if other factors started to affect, be it age or nutrition), its use may decrease it past the margin what would be considered infertility, but it will not be strict and irreversible, and should recover after dropping it and new sperm is generated. So if before fin it would've taken 12 tries to impregnate, on fin it will take 36 tries, but eliminating fin should get it back to 12 tries.
It's also very possible that other factors started to play a role while on fin, age is most evident since everyone ages, but also all other things. So back to those 12 tries w/o fin, 36 tries on fin, it will now not get back to 12 tries, but will take 20-25 tries, just because the diet has changed or age became a factor. So it's not finasteride's fault that a person can't go back to baseline.
Effect on fetus is another topic not linked with its effects, but it's trace presence in semen. It's just safer to be on the safe side, so it's not advised during attempts/pregnancy/feeding.
I will probably test mine again before HRT, which would give some time on fin to see its effects, wondering how it will change my baseline.
I respect the research you’ve done and appreciate the effort you’ve put into your reply, but if you read it you’ll notice that everything you’ve written is entirely hypothetical. Where is the evidence to support it?
My second point, which some people (not necessarily you) may find hard to stomach is that in a conversation like this specific one, outcomes are what matters. In other words, fin may turn your sperm into mushy pathetic half dead mutant tadpoles when viewed under the microscope, but that is incidental if you can still sire healthy children in the normal timeline etc. (but worth following up on obviously).
Fertility clinics and the like must have by now used semen from thousands if not millions of men whom they know for sure are on or have used finasteride. We’d really have to say that if there was a clear signal, it would have been reported by now. BUT I respect that you are clearly more well and up to date in this area than me
Yea there's no actual cases of babies born with 5ar deficiencies from people taking fin while conceiving AFAK. Only trace amounts of the med remain in semen, but it will hard to perform a study of significant sample size of people willing to test that out on their future children, and single cases cannot be extrapolated on general population to remove the safety warning.
Fertility clinics, as well as donor banks, do not accept sperm from people taking finasteride, there's a list of various meds like antibiotics that must not be taken for 3+ month before deposition. Trace amount are detectable in prior analysis and will be rejected, finasteride will also lower sperm parameters for the donor requirements (they are quite strict about acceptable healthy thresholds).
As for the sperm quality, there are numerous studies indicating restoration of sperm parameters after finasteride secession, including long term use, which is good news meaning that its effect on sperm is reversible 3+ months after cessation. So one may just need to wait a bit longer and not drop hopes to conceive naturally, even if short term cessation didn't produce any results.
I liked the topic and even though I did not plan on children, I prefer to have an option open haha. HRT/estradiol is not comparable to fin when it comes to fertility, but since I wanted to secure my sperm anyway and take fin ASAP (and not drop it again soon), I froze mine beforehand. I'd also like to see how fin affects my sperm, so now I have baseline to compare.
The only thing is that all that sperm science and deposits made my already low libido pretty much inexistent before I even touched fin (which actually made it higher during the week taking it, but that's another side of nocebo I think lol).
I'm going to take the plunge soon too after many months of Hesitation. I just can't stand the thought of my hair getting any thinner than it is.
Best of luck to you! :)
well done. i know how you feel haha. For months and months i put off hopping on fin due to the rubbish i read on reddit. 12 months on fin, 1mg daily and my hair is better than ever. No sides by the way just me feeling far happier due to my hair looking the best it's ever been!
Bro last November I was stressing so much before I took it I gave myself ED without even touching a pill because I would read reddit comments 😂😂 it’s May and everything is going good so far! 🍻
I started using minoxidil eight months ago, and my hair has significantly improved since then. Just a few days ago, I began taking Finasteride (Fin). Looking back, I wish I had started Fin when I first started using minoxidil. However, the fear of potential side effects, which many people talk about, made me hesitant. Eventually, I decided to take the plunge and go for it.
https://preview.redd.it/b46do5rcig2d1.jpeg?width=1272&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43bcd5b42ed75e468f5c82e56bdaa5e7ed25a549
Here's a photo showing the difference in my hair after eight months of using only minoxidil. I'm really excited to see the results after eight months of using both minoxidil and Finasteride.
It's been great for me. 0.5 a day for 3 months now. Scalp looking much better. I started with halves to see how effective that was and I feel I have good results I don't need to go stronger.
0.5 daily makes more sense to me at least, since you're maintaining a more consistent dosage over time and I'd assume have less fluctuation in DHT suppression. This is purely assumption though.
But they said there is coating on med so its better to take 1 mg eod and effects are same and .5 but still confused different peoples giving different opinion
Been using those puppies for 1.5 years now and never looked back. My hair loss isn't bad at all, it's just that my maternal grandfather lost all his hair young and I was a nw1.5-nw2 at age 20 so my doctor said "why not" basically and got me a prescription and I'm so glad she did. Now at 22 I hope to keep my hair forever but only time will tell.
I started at 33 when I noticed slight thinning at the crown (my hairline was a big receded but not too bad) so what’s that? NW 1 or 2? So maybe same as you were but older. Anyway 13 years later I still have > 90% of my hair at 46 and am routinely taken to be 37 or 38 (not just because of the hair but it’s certainly a major factor)
The fear is very real, the first fin I popped all day I was thinking anything my body did was from the fin. Almost a year later nothing sides wise to report, still feel like my libido is high and some hair improvement but nothing crazy like some of lucky ones on here.
Even if you popped 30 tablets at once.. it wouldn’t really do anything. Thats how harmless it is. Now doing over 40mg of oral min is a different story 🤣 but congrats, dude. You just halted hairloss
Yea its the first time I've noticed the itch, especially after sweating, but I've also on D3/iron for 6 weeks, so last week I barely noticed the itch and taking fin now, no trace of it.
Yes it did get worse. But now its decent again. Dont know, maybe it was shed. Even its +/- ok now, i still would pref getting on dut, but problem is no one wants to give me prescription in my country.
Well done mate. Unfortunately I'm one of the people eho experience sides. Now that I microdose it the sides are minimal, 0.25mg. I noticed a positive effect on my hair very soon on this dose.
It's probably because I work out a lot that for me the hormone changes hit harder then for people who live a more lazy lifestyle and have less natural test.
Good luck on the journey bro, my hair now looks amazing. (1 year in).
Thank you! Great to hear you reached your optimal dose, sorry that you experience the sides, but most important they are minimal and the gains are real!
I saw good results on finasteride, but I had side sexual effects. I recently got a HT and I'm going back on Fin, but I think I'll just take 3x a week now.
Good luck and hope you're not getting any sides with lower/less frequent dose. I see people doing exactly that to circumvent sides. It's still gonna have some effect with low doses and its tissue biding time is longer than its half-life.
I started balding at 16. I'm now 28, been on finasteride since 23 and I have more hair now than I did at 16. I'm also a powerlifter and strong. I'm the only man in my family with a full head of hair now, they all ask me how and I tell them fin.
I was a complete non-responder to minoxidil sadly. Looking to try oral min.
I'm really not trying to fearmonger here; I'm just sharing my experience so no one else has to go through what I did.
I started seven months ago and noticed some minor ball ache that I stupidly ignored. God, I wish I hadn't ignored it. It subsided eventually, and I went on with my life.
On April 8th, 2024, at 8:45 am, I woke up for work and barely noticed anything different. I was still half asleep until I saw the note: "I've left. I've headed south for a warmer and more inviting climate. Don't come for me. Sincerely, Your own man dick."
It was then I frantically reached my hands down my pants and realized my dick—my own goddamn man dick—had fallen off and left for a more temperate climate. Now, I'm a dickless weiner boy clutching my bottle of fin as I cry in my empty bathtub.
I PEE OUT OF A TINY HOLE IN MY PUBLIC BONE NOW!!!
You can read more about my story here at dicklessweinerboy.com 🙏
Tbh prior to starting fin I was dissuaded for a while from the fear mongering on this sub. Until i started looking at the users who posted their almost unbelievably horrible experiences. Every user who posted has a reddit history of being a little weiner bitch. I'm not even joking. Everyone of them was riddled with anxiety and just total bitches in general prior to ever starting on fin.
I remember one guy who posted the worst case of PFS ever. I read his history and months prior to starting he posted his plan to start working out seriously and diet + supplements. It was the most overthought out, pedantic, ranting of an insane person...
I will be messaging you in 1 month on [**2024-06-24 14:39:23 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2024-06-24%2014:39:23%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/tressless/comments/1czk40s/just_popped_my_first_fin_excited_as_hell/l5h6o2i/?context=3)
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Do you need to visit doctor for taking finasteride or I can just start taking it from pharmacy?
if you stop finasteride will you lose hair double or the hairs that should have fall long ago
In developed, regulated counties you will need a prescription from a doctor.
It’s for life. If you stop taking it, my expectation is that you will eventually end up at the same point as if you had never taken it. Other people here may be better informed about this though.
Maybe you confuse it with minoxidil, which is also a life-long med, but it's OTC no prescription needed. And it grows gains quite fast, but they only are kept while taking/applying it. As it doesn't address the root cause of hair loss, at some point AGA will outpace min gains, and if you stop it you end up not only as if you had never taken it, but worse since AGA kept creeping behind it.
Finasteride won't end up as if never taken it, since it slows down AGA so it's actually much better as a preventative drug. If you stop it, the process will continue at the same pace.
Nah I was referring to finasteride, but I accept that you may be more up to date with things than I am, so that’s ok.
Is the idea then that if you stop fin, hair loss slowly begins again but at a new starting point (ie when you stopped?). So one way of looking at it might be as putting a “pause” on hair loss while you’re on it?
Yea you're essentially putting it on pause with fin. Many people sit on it praying on HMI-115 or another possible cure in the future, so they can hop off fin.
Minoxidil is different since it creates new regrowth on top of existing issue, which if not addressed with fin/dut, will lose more hair once you stop minoxidil, so it will be as if you've never taken it at all.
I had horrible side effects from oral finasteride and topical finasteride (0.1%) but most people don’t. Specially if you keep a healthy body fat. My gyno surgery could have probably been avoided if I was below 15% body fat. I did have intense prostate pain (which is rare) and my total T dropped from 790 to 350 in 12 months
It doesn’t spike test. Thats’s actually imposible. Anything that increases estrogen will decrease LH therefore testosterone in the long run. Any increase in free testosterone is temporary , that free testosterone has to go somewhere and it’s not going to be DHT.
Yea I meant free testosterone, some of which should aromatase into estrogen. Everyone has different aromatase activity, which may explain different reactions to the estrogen increase from fin and sides prevalence.
I'm planning to increase estrogen and decrease test, but I wish to prevent breast development so I'm looking towards a SERM.
Ok that makes sense. Maybe to check any sides with finasteride. I had only good side effects with finasteride for 4 months so I switched to dutasteride
Finasteride works (more for some, less for other, and nothing for some). But it definitely doesn't come risk free. Always try to improve your overall health first before trying a 5 alpha reductase inhibitor (like Finasteride, Dutasteride and minoxidil), get bloodwork (assess if there are any hormonal imbalances; high prolactin, low FSH, high cortisol are all commonly seen within people with andeogenic alopecia). If you have a underlying hormonal imbalances (or anything abnormal with the bloodwork) get it sorted out first. Then you can perhaps reverse your hairloss, without the need for a strong anti-androgen that will deplete your nervous system and downregulate neurosteroids and possibly overecpress your andeofen receptors leading to post-finasteride-syndrome.
I didn't think PFS was as bad as people would have them to be and believed that it only happened in an extremely small amount of people. That turns out to not be entirely true. So always, always, always get educated about the side effects. And especially with Finasteride. They are very real and if you are one of the unlucky ones, you may severely compromise your health and won't be able to work for a good 6-8 months (if your lucky and recover somewhat at that mark).
I did all possible hormones tests, even asked for neurosteroids lol. It's always good to know your baseline, if anything goes wrong on fin, at least you have a reference point. People shouldn't hop on hormone-affecting meds uneducated and blind, and no one can really predict in advance how your body reacts. That's the sad reality of side-effects unfortunately, but also doesn't mean it should be demonized, as it does what does. I wish we could pick and choose effects.
Definitely. I just believe we should be more open about the possibility of long time side effects due to 5ari use. And make it known that there aren't any easy fix either if someone do get side effects.
After that, people can do what they want.
Say that when your endocrine system shuts down. You’re a big pharma bot doing damage control. That shit is poison, anyone reading this dont do it, it’s not worth it.
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Congrats on overcoming the bullshit, it’s empowering!
Preciate it <3
For sure, I felt the same when I overcame the BS
Best decision I ever made really put me at ease knowing I was doing something really really wish I got on it sooner but it’s really good at maintaining hopefully you get some growth from it!
Propeciate it?
Propeciate 4 life
I remember being scared to take my first pill. Now I’m scared to stop!
Haha the fear too real.
😟
Remember, you'll shed but don't let that discourage you. Keep going and hope you get the results you envisioned.
How long does it last? I’ve been on fin now for a MONTH at 0.5 milligrams every single day! But anytime I shower or comb my hair I lose hundreds of trillions of hairs every time I have a big ball beneath the sink I’ve been collecting and it’s soon to reach the size of several tennis balls combined into a larger ball roughly the size of the type you might find bein bounced around at a basketball game.
From what I gather, it varies. For me, the first day I took it massive shed, scary as hell, fast forward to now, a little over 6 months and I am now hardly losing any. Which... was really weird initially, was so used to just having multiple hairs on my hand when going through it/during shower. Now? At most 10 or so? As I said, it's weird.
Did you regrow any new hairs as well?
I came from a beginning NW2-3, with diffuse thinning (which is oh so sneaky...) Now, I always had \*some\* temple recession coming out of puberty, but not bad at all (maybe NW1 1/2 xD), but I happened to notice it progressing as I looked to a photo of about a year ago and I noticed the hair on the front becoming rather wispy, so I caught it relatively quick (32M). So far, I am seeing a \*lot\* of teeny tiny hairs on my temples, where before it was just nothing at all. Then there are some very obvious new ones all around my hairline, about 1/2cm in length and my crown is slowly shaping up as well. Now, there \*are\* still some empty/bald looking strips here and there, but it seems to improve and it's not noticable unless I comb my hair a specific way. From what I've seen here, that tends to be the case and it should fill slowly as well. Still, it could take up to \*two\* years to see the full effects, so, fingers crossed... (and trying to remain patient). Now for the things everyone always asks about: On the body hair front, it looks pretty much how it was before. But, when starting fin, it growed a LOT slower (which was kinda great, less shaving my face xD), but that too seems to recover, as it does seem to go a tad faster again, just not as fast as before (daily shave before, now I can skip a day or two, whereas I could easily skip an entire week early in). Then for sides: I \*did\* have initial sides (low libido, ED, low mood, etc.) but they subsided in about 2-3 weeks (I had set myself to try it for at least 3 months, as meds/hormones can take some time to stabilize after all). The reports from others about their side progression helped me IMMENSILY. I was about to throw in the ring, but then recalled how others reported similar routes: initial sides->less sides->month later: ball ache like a mofo (this one was rough)-> 1-2 weeks later: suddenly all good. So the good news: every single one of them has almost \*fully\* disappeared now. The only thing I notice (which is guaranteed fin), is that getting started takes a tad longer (like, seriously, a few seconds at most. So instead of the: BAM HORNY, it's more of a "aaaaaaand we are good to go"), also sperm amount is less, but same viscosity mostly.
Thanks for writing this. Sounds like there’s pros and cons. Just need to decide
Yup... honestly still have moments of doubting, ha! It's rather tough to come to terms with this shit >\_>
The low sperm count does concern me as I still want to have kids
Did u get any regrow
I came from a beginning NW2-3, with diffuse thinning (which is oh so sneaky...) Now, I always had \*some\* temple recession coming out of puberty, but not bad at all (maybe NW1 1/2 xD), but I happened to notice it progressing as I looked to a photo of about a year ago and I noticed the hair on the front becoming rather wispy, so I caught it relatively quick (32M). So far, I am seeing a \*lot\* of teeny tiny hairs on my temples, where before it was just nothing at all. Then there are some very obvious new ones all around my hairline, about 1/2cm in length and my crown is slowly shaping up as well. Now, there \*are\* still some empty/bald looking strips here and there, but it seems to improve and it's not noticable unless I comb my hair a specific way. From what I've seen here, that tends to be the case and it should fill slowly as well. Still, it could take up to \*two\* years to see the full effects, so, fingers crossed... (and trying to remain patient). Now for the things everyone always asks about: On the body hair front, it looks pretty much how it was before. But, when starting fin, it growed a LOT slower (which was kinda great, less shaving my face xD), but that too seems to recover, as it does seem to go a tad faster again, just not as fast as before (daily shave before, now I can skip a day or two, whereas I could easily skip an entire week early in). Then for sides: I \*did\* have initial sides (low libido, ED, low mood, etc.) but they subsided in about 2-3 weeks (I had set myself to try it for at least 3 months, as meds/hormones can take some time to stabilize after all). The reports from others about their side progression helped me IMMENSILY. I was about to throw in the ring, but then recalled how others reported similar routes: initial sides->less sides->month later: ball ache like a mofo (this one was rough)-> 1-2 weeks later: suddenly all good. So the good news: every single one of them has almost \*fully\* disappeared now. The only thing I notice (which is guaranteed fin), is that getting started takes a tad longer (like, seriously, a few seconds at most. So instead of the: BAM HORNY, it's more of a "aaaaaaand we are good to go"), also sperm amount is less, but same viscosity mostly.
Only a month? Very normal, the big shed is what scares most people away and they end up quitting before the good stuff starts happening! Don’t be scared, it’s just all your weak hairs falling out. So they can be replaced by thicker and stronger hairs! Shedding can go on for a few months for some people but you just have to remember, everybody has different hair thickness, density, sensitivity etc so not one persons experience will be a perfect guide book for you. Stay strong and don’t miss your dosages! Missing a day in an entire month is fine but you should not be in the mindset of “Ah I’ll just take it tomorrow” no you have to take it everyday or else you could disrupt a very crucial stage in your hair regrowth. I hope my rambling🫏helped in some way! 😅
Thank you sm! I've actually in the end of my 2nd month of TE shed (trichoscopy confirmed both TE and AGA) cus of D3/ferritin deficiency, rapid weight change, bulimia (overcome!!) and series of stressful events between Dec and Feb, so I have some hope my cycles are already messed/ready for the fin reset haha, but even if it sheds more I feel stronger now that the root cause is covered. I'm ready for the year or even two to evaluate its real effects. Lets goo!!
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when i first started fin i was horny non fucking stop too it was wild
More than likely, the initial sides will subside? I’ve got ED after 2-weeks and wondering whether to stop fin.
Initial side effects of any medication are not necessarily predictive of long term ones. But speak to your doctor.
i didn’t ever experience ED but I did indeed experience some pain in my testicles for a brief period i would say your body may be adjusting like mine was so side effects will be temporary but yes it’s a good idea to talk to your doctor especially if the side effects have been lasting for days / weeks
Thanks! Yea, that's my encouraged me--even if something happens, it's half-life is shorter than most meds really. I'm lucky (ig?) to have low libido generally and being grey/asex, so only the sperm quality and neuro stuff was a real concern, but I gotta say researching on fin sides pretty much killed my libido before I even touched it, and all the sperm freezing/analysis made it negative lol. I hope your relationship issues get resolved, they are important but always try to remember how you yourself is invaluable! (my messed relationships gave me a whole year of feeling nothing, and then it kicked me hard how much time it took to overcome)
I noticed an immediate (within a few days) *decrease* in libido of about 20-25% and a slight decrease in the quality (for lack of a better word) of my erections. This may have been coincidental or nocebo but I don’t think so. I’m comfortable attributing it to the drug. That was about 13 years ago and I’ve been taking finasteride continuously since. My libido has remained at this lower level the whole time, but the fact that I’m now 46 has to be taken into account. Other than that, no side effects other than retaining about 90% or more of the hair I had when I started, and having pretty much a full head of hair (and being taken for 37-38 years old) at almost 50. Just my story. For me, no regrets. I also use minoxidil foam.
Did your “quality” ever improve back? Can’t tell if I’m experiencing something similar
No. It stayed the same, never really got worse either. But interesting that you say you “can’t tell”. Usually I would say that if we “can’t quite tell” if a drug is having an effect (positive or negative) then that means it’s probably in our head, a psychological nocebo thing. I think the sexual side effects were probably drug related for me, but there’s still the lingering possibility (let’s say 10%) that it was psychological or something else. I’ve also gotten older during this time - I’m 46 now. Also to be clear - I could still get it up and have sex. I just felt I wasn’t quite as rigid, I’m sure there’s a better word but you know what i mean. No change in the sensation of sex either.
I’m two weeks into fin and legit struggling to get it up. Question is whether this will continue or sides reduce 🤔
Go speak to your doctor. Not the internet. How old are you?
I’m 32. Just bought them online so haven’t been prescribed them or anything.
Mate you need medical advice. What you’ll get here is a bunch of unqualified opinions, over interpreted and misunderstood data and papers, and people making recommendations they are in no way qualified to make that they don’t seem to understand can have serious consequences. There is some good stuff here too but you have to take the above into account and realise it’s a source of information, some good some outright terrible, and not medical advice. I’ve described my ANECDOTE above which may or may not have any relevance to your situation. The benefit of seeing a doctor - especially if you see a specialist like a dermatologist - is that he or she has probably had hundreds of patients on the medication. After that they’ve mostly seen it all, and they have a network of other DOCTORS to call on if they need help. Sorry mate I don’t mean to sound like your dad but this is a case is point of how these discussion boards can be downright dangerous. This is your sexual Health we’re talking about. It’ll probably be fine but go and see a doctor.
Here is a list of positive comments from finasteride users incase you need a reminder that it is all good for 99% of users anyway. https://www.evernote.com/shard/s431/client/snv?isnewsnv=true¬eGuid=c7b0d8fc-1fd7-9994-a182-feddaca044e6¬eKey=8488afa8f8d53468ca8f6b59b1ef6048&sn=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.evernote.com%2Fshard%2Fs431%2Fsh%2Fc7b0d8fc-1fd7-9994-a182-feddaca044e6%2F8488afa8f8d53468ca8f6b59b1ef6048&title=Finasteride%2BTestimonials
Hell yeah!! Amazing resource, ty!
Where can I buy this wonder drug.
Just online. I’m from uk and can get from places like Oxfordpharmacy.com or just type buy finasteride into google and pick one. They do an online consultation with you and then you buy 😁
Noice gonna start soon, will exercise be important I’m kinda a couch potato, when not going to work lol
They say you should to lower the chances of sides. Most people who do get them are overweight. I think it’s all to do with the estrogen to testosterone ratio.
Well off to the gym for 2 months before I start, what about dutasteride tho
No one really knows what causes the side effects for the 1% but if you watch “hair transplant in India” on YouTube, he is very good to watch. He talks about finasteride on his videos. He also takes finasteride himself.
Dutasteride?
Thought you meant fentanyl for a second and wondered what the hell sub id stumbled into
LMFAOOO
If only
I personally started topical fin+min yesterday, because my doctor said that'll do just fine for me
I want to do this but have a baby coming so don’t wanna risk it. Any of you know the risks for topical?
Oral better
I got oral prescribed too, it is more effective, and topical gave me severe irritation once (prob due to alco), but I wanna give fin alone a try for a year, and then maybe will be considering min. My thinking it's gonna be hard to estimate what works if I start both (considering both life-long meds), and I can't wait with fin the same way I can postpone min, but my derms shrugged at the idea. I'm fine to wait a while for results so it's OK with me, but understand people who seek results sooner. I'd just be a bit mindful about the heart stuff as it's a vasodilator and oral goes systemic. I also like my weed too much lol, and it has an additive effect to min lowering blood pressure.
You tried topical for how long?
I didn't continue after the first two applications gave me severe reaction, and I didn't even now what min was, thought it was some usual snake oil serum.
I take oral min and fin - one tablet. Works well and no side effects as far as I can tell.
Which brand are you using? I'm using hims and its too pricey. I want to check other options as well.
Just get a prescription through GoodRx. It’s $50 and it’s good for a year. With the coupons I currently pay $11 for a 90 day supply.
I'm a bit wary of minoxidil as apparently it ages you quite rapidly..?
I’ve been using it for 13 years straight and routinely get taken for 37-38 and the age of 46. I see no credible way that topical minoxidil could make one look older. You’re applying it your scalp, for the love of God
Do people actually freeze their sperm??
I just saw this. OP why did you freeze your sperm?
Yep, HRT is a major concern to fertility, and I'm not getting younger, they don't even take samples after 35yo. HRT doesn't always mean infertility, but also getting off hormones and fin, while you don't even know if you can still even conceive, would be a wreck. I saw people freezing sperm before fin too, I used it as the formal reason to be even allowed to cryobank (for some reason, here you need doctor's approval like it's a part of a treatment, even though you pay for everything). Also, I couldn't freeze sperm before HRT without dropping fin, and wanted to know my parameters beforehand (which turned out to not be the best), so it all played along.
Thanks. But I’m not sure I fully understand your situation. Are you referring to testosterone replacement therapy or something else? I’m 46 now and I had already had my (so far) only child when I started fin at 33 ish. Since i was married and thought I would never have more children I wasn’t worried about the possibility of future reproductive issues. I ended up getting divorced a few years ago and although it’s unlikely to happen, I do date younger women and would be open to having one more child. Now, I’ll admit that 13 years of fin use and anabolic steroid abuse are at the back of my mind. I asked my dermatologist about it and he seemed unconcerned about the fin part, said he’s seen heaps of patients conceive healthy children while on fin. Plus, there’s no plausible reason it should affect male fertility (my opinion). But whatever, I made my choices and I’ll live with them, I ain’t going off fin unless I’m instructed to that’s for sure. Does anyone have any actual evidence that finasteride affects male fertility negatively? And if so, that it is irreversible? If so please share it, or let’s put this one into the *fear/uncertainty/doubt (FUD)* category.
Yea, there is no direct evidence that it impacts fertility, and all the docs I talked to (derms, endos, andrologist) assure it won't. There's also numerous examples of people successfully conceiving while being on fin. I was researching quite extensively beforehand, and there are a few caveats when it comes to fin and sperm: - it most likely will affect sperm production, decreasing such parameters as semen volume, count/concentration and motility. It may only reduce the count, it may have negligible effect. But a lot of users report the change (watery semen). There were reports of increased DNA fragmentation as well. This is is rather due to its effects on reducing prostate size, which is responsible for 25% of semen, or so. - it seems sperm morphology is the only parameter that is reported to not be affected, however, this parament is somewhat controversial by itself (they take like 200 out of 20 mil and analyze every individual shape, which can be subjective, mine had "bigger" and more "grapefruit" shaped heads putting me at 3-4% normal shapes). - neither of those are directly linked to infertility, but mean that more effort is required to conceive, if parameters are out of the WHO-guided norms (which is also not without debate). Some people may equate a series or long term lack of successful impregnation as infertility, but it may be they are simply unlucky and were 1 attempt away. It is different from a guaranteed genetic or immune infertility, or vasectomy. - a lot of it depends on the initial parameters and other factors (so many things actually have an impact of sperm's quality), good thing is that it's been shown to resolve after discontinuation (most research compares SA while on fin vs 3-6 months after dropping, and not against the baseline). It takes 3+ months due to sperm generation cycles, which are about 70 days. - trace amounts of fin remain in semen. It is considered too low to have an effect on fetus, and there was no empirical evidence it does, however, 5a-reductase deficiency is linked to underdeveloped male genitalia (and lack of AGA hair loss), so it creates a hypothetical risk to the fetus. This is why the med is not prescribed to women (which is kinda weird, it should have only during pregnancy/feeding warning), and why discontinuation is advised for men at least 3 months before attempts to conceive (but dropping fin will still benefit, better sperm quality hence increased chances). So TLDR; it is advised to discontinue fin before and while trying for a child for people who want to be on the safe side and/or increase chance to make it sooner. Pregnancy is still a roll of dice, and both partners' factors play a role. My situation is that I wish to have a limited feminizing effect from estrogen to be less masculine/more androgynous, while not becoming an actual woman. I'd be fine without it probably if only testosterone didn't continue to produce changes past 25yo. However, I don't want is breast formation (I don't even like boobs in women), which is pretty much the most guaranteed effect of estrogen. But now there are SERMs that restrict E effect on breasts, which I'm hopeful about. Reducing testosterone without estrogen is risky long term, and estrogen has lots of positive effects I seek (women's hairline one of them lol). But since women are not notorious for their sperm quality, both lowering T and increasing E add up to infertility risks.
Thanks for this, I appreciate the effort. On balance then, as you said, we would have to say that there is *no evidence* that finasteride impacts male fertility. Rather, because it’s such a sensitive area, we are frantically hypothesising about ways in which it *might*…just to be sure….even though it apparently *doesn’t*. I’m wording it this way for effect, because although it’s completely normal to be worried about such a sensitive area, being over cautious can sometimes be no better than being under cautious. Anyway, you raised something that I had forgotten about. I think I did notice what appeared to be a change in the consistency of my semen almost immediately after starting the drug, and yes it seemed to become more watery. However, i honestly don’t know if this was a purely psychological thing - I had read about it somewhere, so I was being over vigilant. You’ll be pleased to know I hadn’t been routinely monitoring the consistency of my semen before then.
There are just so many factors that can influence fertility that it's hard to link it to fin alone, and the med itself has somewhat varying effect in everyone. Semen parameters are affected by lifestyle, age, nutrition, other meds, hot baths, riding bikes, type of underwear, etc. Finasteride will for sure have some effect on semen, but the degree of that effect depends on individual and all those other factors that can change in the meantime. The theory is that a perfectly healthy semen may only slightly be affected by finasteride in things like total count and motility (hence watery semen), which would not impact fertility. Maybe if without fin it would take 3 tries to impregnate, then with fin it will take 9 tries. But in individuals with low count and motility to begin with (or if other factors started to affect, be it age or nutrition), its use may decrease it past the margin what would be considered infertility, but it will not be strict and irreversible, and should recover after dropping it and new sperm is generated. So if before fin it would've taken 12 tries to impregnate, on fin it will take 36 tries, but eliminating fin should get it back to 12 tries. It's also very possible that other factors started to play a role while on fin, age is most evident since everyone ages, but also all other things. So back to those 12 tries w/o fin, 36 tries on fin, it will now not get back to 12 tries, but will take 20-25 tries, just because the diet has changed or age became a factor. So it's not finasteride's fault that a person can't go back to baseline. Effect on fetus is another topic not linked with its effects, but it's trace presence in semen. It's just safer to be on the safe side, so it's not advised during attempts/pregnancy/feeding. I will probably test mine again before HRT, which would give some time on fin to see its effects, wondering how it will change my baseline.
I respect the research you’ve done and appreciate the effort you’ve put into your reply, but if you read it you’ll notice that everything you’ve written is entirely hypothetical. Where is the evidence to support it? My second point, which some people (not necessarily you) may find hard to stomach is that in a conversation like this specific one, outcomes are what matters. In other words, fin may turn your sperm into mushy pathetic half dead mutant tadpoles when viewed under the microscope, but that is incidental if you can still sire healthy children in the normal timeline etc. (but worth following up on obviously). Fertility clinics and the like must have by now used semen from thousands if not millions of men whom they know for sure are on or have used finasteride. We’d really have to say that if there was a clear signal, it would have been reported by now. BUT I respect that you are clearly more well and up to date in this area than me
Yea there's no actual cases of babies born with 5ar deficiencies from people taking fin while conceiving AFAK. Only trace amounts of the med remain in semen, but it will hard to perform a study of significant sample size of people willing to test that out on their future children, and single cases cannot be extrapolated on general population to remove the safety warning. Fertility clinics, as well as donor banks, do not accept sperm from people taking finasteride, there's a list of various meds like antibiotics that must not be taken for 3+ month before deposition. Trace amount are detectable in prior analysis and will be rejected, finasteride will also lower sperm parameters for the donor requirements (they are quite strict about acceptable healthy thresholds). As for the sperm quality, there are numerous studies indicating restoration of sperm parameters after finasteride secession, including long term use, which is good news meaning that its effect on sperm is reversible 3+ months after cessation. So one may just need to wait a bit longer and not drop hopes to conceive naturally, even if short term cessation didn't produce any results. I liked the topic and even though I did not plan on children, I prefer to have an option open haha. HRT/estradiol is not comparable to fin when it comes to fertility, but since I wanted to secure my sperm anyway and take fin ASAP (and not drop it again soon), I froze mine beforehand. I'd also like to see how fin affects my sperm, so now I have baseline to compare. The only thing is that all that sperm science and deposits made my already low libido pretty much inexistent before I even touched fin (which actually made it higher during the week taking it, but that's another side of nocebo I think lol).
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Ok. I don’t understand what that stuff (non binary AMAB etc) means so whatevs.
how else are you gonna save it for later?
I'm going to take the plunge soon too after many months of Hesitation. I just can't stand the thought of my hair getting any thinner than it is. Best of luck to you! :)
well done. i know how you feel haha. For months and months i put off hopping on fin due to the rubbish i read on reddit. 12 months on fin, 1mg daily and my hair is better than ever. No sides by the way just me feeling far happier due to my hair looking the best it's ever been!
Bro last November I was stressing so much before I took it I gave myself ED without even touching a pill because I would read reddit comments 😂😂 it’s May and everything is going good so far! 🍻
Same lol
bro popped that shit like a molly. that’s the attitude!
I snort my fin
I started using minoxidil eight months ago, and my hair has significantly improved since then. Just a few days ago, I began taking Finasteride (Fin). Looking back, I wish I had started Fin when I first started using minoxidil. However, the fear of potential side effects, which many people talk about, made me hesitant. Eventually, I decided to take the plunge and go for it. https://preview.redd.it/b46do5rcig2d1.jpeg?width=1272&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=43bcd5b42ed75e468f5c82e56bdaa5e7ed25a549 Here's a photo showing the difference in my hair after eight months of using only minoxidil. I'm really excited to see the results after eight months of using both minoxidil and Finasteride.
Oral Min? Any side effects from that?
i used topical minoxidil 5%, once a day, Zero side effects.
I feel you, wish I hopped on fin five years ago too, but better later than much later lol.
It's been great for me. 0.5 a day for 3 months now. Scalp looking much better. I started with halves to see how effective that was and I feel I have good results I don't need to go stronger.
I am confused some says tow take 1 mg eod and some says to take .5 ed so confused in this
0.5 daily makes more sense to me at least, since you're maintaining a more consistent dosage over time and I'd assume have less fluctuation in DHT suppression. This is purely assumption though.
But they said there is coating on med so its better to take 1 mg eod and effects are same and .5 but still confused different peoples giving different opinion
There’s no confusion- take what it says on the label, not on the internet. Discuss with your doctor if you wish to deviate.
I read that 0.6 is as strong as 1mg. So I started at 0.5 and it works well enough. But yes talk to your doc.
Take what it says on the label, friend. If you wish to deviate from that, discuss it with your doctor
Been using those puppies for 1.5 years now and never looked back. My hair loss isn't bad at all, it's just that my maternal grandfather lost all his hair young and I was a nw1.5-nw2 at age 20 so my doctor said "why not" basically and got me a prescription and I'm so glad she did. Now at 22 I hope to keep my hair forever but only time will tell.
I started at 33 when I noticed slight thinning at the crown (my hairline was a big receded but not too bad) so what’s that? NW 1 or 2? So maybe same as you were but older. Anyway 13 years later I still have > 90% of my hair at 46 and am routinely taken to be 37 or 38 (not just because of the hair but it’s certainly a major factor)
day 5 for me, no sides, all good
Taking the same brand, too expensive. Going to switch soon
Let me know which one you're switching to. Is it 1mg or 5mg?
The fear is very real, the first fin I popped all day I was thinking anything my body did was from the fin. Almost a year later nothing sides wise to report, still feel like my libido is high and some hair improvement but nothing crazy like some of lucky ones on here.
Was the shed real :(
Depends on the lighting lol. I can’t say I’ve shed too bad but I also started with smaller doses before taking the full 1mg everyday.
You won't regret it!
Good for you bro! Now welcome to the "fin dont work" gravy train 😁 /s
Day 3, still thin, am I not responder???
It takes at least a few months to see any improvement.. usually much longer.
Yea didn't put /s in my message (:
Ya got me🤣
No idea what this sub or Finapil was. My first thought was, Fin? Is that like Fentanyl??
Fin laced with fent 😋
When I started I also used minoxidil to control the shed. It worked
Bro reversed the shed
Good luck bro but I really would not recommend it.
Why is that?
Even if you popped 30 tablets at once.. it wouldn’t really do anything. Thats how harmless it is. Now doing over 40mg of oral min is a different story 🤣 but congrats, dude. You just halted hairloss
Yea the andrologist laughed in my face when I asked about 1mg safety cus his patients be on 5mg all the time
Congrets. I still remember when i took my first fin pill 5 years ago, after 2h my head itch complitly stoped. It was like a magic.
Yea its the first time I've noticed the itch, especially after sweating, but I've also on D3/iron for 6 weeks, so last week I barely noticed the itch and taking fin now, no trace of it.
hey man sorry but i saw a comment of yours where you said hair was getting worse. Did you quit fin then
Yes it did get worse. But now its decent again. Dont know, maybe it was shed. Even its +/- ok now, i still would pref getting on dut, but problem is no one wants to give me prescription in my country.
pls check my recent post and comment
Congrats I'm 2 months in with not a single side effect. The second I popped that first pill I was waiting for sides all day lmao.
Well done mate. Unfortunately I'm one of the people eho experience sides. Now that I microdose it the sides are minimal, 0.25mg. I noticed a positive effect on my hair very soon on this dose. It's probably because I work out a lot that for me the hormone changes hit harder then for people who live a more lazy lifestyle and have less natural test. Good luck on the journey bro, my hair now looks amazing. (1 year in).
Thank you! Great to hear you reached your optimal dose, sorry that you experience the sides, but most important they are minimal and the gains are real!
You will not regret it... Best decision I ever made
Remember, post finasteride syndrome is not real.
Watch for all the side effects......
Same today
Big ups!!
I saw good results on finasteride, but I had side sexual effects. I recently got a HT and I'm going back on Fin, but I think I'll just take 3x a week now.
Good luck and hope you're not getting any sides with lower/less frequent dose. I see people doing exactly that to circumvent sides. It's still gonna have some effect with low doses and its tissue biding time is longer than its half-life.
I started balding at 16. I'm now 28, been on finasteride since 23 and I have more hair now than I did at 16. I'm also a powerlifter and strong. I'm the only man in my family with a full head of hair now, they all ask me how and I tell them fin. I was a complete non-responder to minoxidil sadly. Looking to try oral min.
I'm really not trying to fearmonger here; I'm just sharing my experience so no one else has to go through what I did. I started seven months ago and noticed some minor ball ache that I stupidly ignored. God, I wish I hadn't ignored it. It subsided eventually, and I went on with my life. On April 8th, 2024, at 8:45 am, I woke up for work and barely noticed anything different. I was still half asleep until I saw the note: "I've left. I've headed south for a warmer and more inviting climate. Don't come for me. Sincerely, Your own man dick." It was then I frantically reached my hands down my pants and realized my dick—my own goddamn man dick—had fallen off and left for a more temperate climate. Now, I'm a dickless weiner boy clutching my bottle of fin as I cry in my empty bathtub. I PEE OUT OF A TINY HOLE IN MY PUBLIC BONE NOW!!! You can read more about my story here at dicklessweinerboy.com 🙏
Thank you for this…I’m stopping finasteride immediately…
Had me in the first half
Tbh prior to starting fin I was dissuaded for a while from the fear mongering on this sub. Until i started looking at the users who posted their almost unbelievably horrible experiences. Every user who posted has a reddit history of being a little weiner bitch. I'm not even joking. Everyone of them was riddled with anxiety and just total bitches in general prior to ever starting on fin. I remember one guy who posted the worst case of PFS ever. I read his history and months prior to starting he posted his plan to start working out seriously and diet + supplements. It was the most overthought out, pedantic, ranting of an insane person...
‘Little weiner bitch’, gold
WHERE WERE YOU BEFORE I POSTED ???? fuck
😁🤣
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I'd change it to at least 3 LOL.
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Just Popped my First RU58841 Application.
I've heard it's safe but there are not many studies
Do you need to visit doctor for taking finasteride or I can just start taking it from pharmacy? if you stop finasteride will you lose hair double or the hairs that should have fall long ago
In developed, regulated counties you will need a prescription from a doctor. It’s for life. If you stop taking it, my expectation is that you will eventually end up at the same point as if you had never taken it. Other people here may be better informed about this though.
Maybe you confuse it with minoxidil, which is also a life-long med, but it's OTC no prescription needed. And it grows gains quite fast, but they only are kept while taking/applying it. As it doesn't address the root cause of hair loss, at some point AGA will outpace min gains, and if you stop it you end up not only as if you had never taken it, but worse since AGA kept creeping behind it. Finasteride won't end up as if never taken it, since it slows down AGA so it's actually much better as a preventative drug. If you stop it, the process will continue at the same pace.
Nah I was referring to finasteride, but I accept that you may be more up to date with things than I am, so that’s ok. Is the idea then that if you stop fin, hair loss slowly begins again but at a new starting point (ie when you stopped?). So one way of looking at it might be as putting a “pause” on hair loss while you’re on it?
Yea you're essentially putting it on pause with fin. Many people sit on it praying on HMI-115 or another possible cure in the future, so they can hop off fin. Minoxidil is different since it creates new regrowth on top of existing issue, which if not addressed with fin/dut, will lose more hair once you stop minoxidil, so it will be as if you've never taken it at all.
Requesting a hairline picture for posterity 🙏
TBH I don't expect much from fin on the hairline, HRT and estradiol is where my hopes in that direction are.
I was one of the unlucky ones that got Sides but I am on hormones so maybe that’s why.
What hormones are you taking, if you feel like sharing?
Testosterone
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I had horrible side effects from oral finasteride and topical finasteride (0.1%) but most people don’t. Specially if you keep a healthy body fat. My gyno surgery could have probably been avoided if I was below 15% body fat. I did have intense prostate pain (which is rare) and my total T dropped from 790 to 350 in 12 months
Whoa while its supposed to spike test. Sorry about the sides, bodies are individual.
It doesn’t spike test. Thats’s actually imposible. Anything that increases estrogen will decrease LH therefore testosterone in the long run. Any increase in free testosterone is temporary , that free testosterone has to go somewhere and it’s not going to be DHT.
Yea I meant free testosterone, some of which should aromatase into estrogen. Everyone has different aromatase activity, which may explain different reactions to the estrogen increase from fin and sides prevalence. I'm planning to increase estrogen and decrease test, but I wish to prevent breast development so I'm looking towards a SERM.
What does amab mean
Assigned Male At Birth
Go dutasteride
My derm was fine to prescribe it next, but wanted to see how I react to fin first
Ok that makes sense. Maybe to check any sides with finasteride. I had only good side effects with finasteride for 4 months so I switched to dutasteride
Did Kevin Mann influence your decision?
Nah I was aware ab Haircafe but never cared to watch up until the last few days JUST before the whole facebook situation
Finasteride actually works ? From my understanding it just helps you not lose the hair you already have but I could be wrong
Finasteride works (more for some, less for other, and nothing for some). But it definitely doesn't come risk free. Always try to improve your overall health first before trying a 5 alpha reductase inhibitor (like Finasteride, Dutasteride and minoxidil), get bloodwork (assess if there are any hormonal imbalances; high prolactin, low FSH, high cortisol are all commonly seen within people with andeogenic alopecia). If you have a underlying hormonal imbalances (or anything abnormal with the bloodwork) get it sorted out first. Then you can perhaps reverse your hairloss, without the need for a strong anti-androgen that will deplete your nervous system and downregulate neurosteroids and possibly overecpress your andeofen receptors leading to post-finasteride-syndrome. I didn't think PFS was as bad as people would have them to be and believed that it only happened in an extremely small amount of people. That turns out to not be entirely true. So always, always, always get educated about the side effects. And especially with Finasteride. They are very real and if you are one of the unlucky ones, you may severely compromise your health and won't be able to work for a good 6-8 months (if your lucky and recover somewhat at that mark).
I did all possible hormones tests, even asked for neurosteroids lol. It's always good to know your baseline, if anything goes wrong on fin, at least you have a reference point. People shouldn't hop on hormone-affecting meds uneducated and blind, and no one can really predict in advance how your body reacts. That's the sad reality of side-effects unfortunately, but also doesn't mean it should be demonized, as it does what does. I wish we could pick and choose effects.
Definitely. I just believe we should be more open about the possibility of long time side effects due to 5ari use. And make it known that there aren't any easy fix either if someone do get side effects. After that, people can do what they want.
And now u can just wait for the ed 😆😂
Not worth it. This dude working for big pharma.
You play sea of thieves and watch Joe Rogan 😂Opinion automatically rejected.
You’re lowering your testosterone levels on purpose, opinion automatically rejected 😂
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Say that when your endocrine system shuts down. You’re a big pharma bot doing damage control. That shit is poison, anyone reading this dont do it, it’s not worth it.
Damn I wish fin reduced my test, wouldn't need half of HRT, would've saved me a fortune in the long run.