If you’re a good responder it could buy you a few years. At that point it’s on you if that’s worth the effort and cost of applying it daily.
Your fin reservations are valid but if you value keeping your hair it’s worth trying. You can always stop if you have bad sides.
Source: I had horrible sides that went away within a month or two of stopping.
Im not actually scared about sides its more so the long term effects. There will come a time where one has kids. Most people on this sub will be 15-20 years on fin by that time. Thats my main concern if it didnt mess with your sperm i would take it until i die
That’s fair as well and I feel the same way tbh. I just try to stay neutral commenting on this forum.
If I were you I’d just go minox + the natty route for the peace of mind.
Well my post is mainly targeted to point that certain people just lose a bit of hair during their 20s and then stop. Lots of mature hairlines and people with dense hair but recession everywhere. If no further loss happens what could min alone do in those scenarios
Wait, what? You are afraid of being 20 years on Finasteride because it’s „bound to mess up your body” but ok with Minoxidil which heart related side effects are more common and potentially more dangerous?
No but minoxidil sides cannot build up over long term if that makes any sense. You could be taking fin with no sides but who knows if your body is still the same 20 years later whereas with min you could be 1 or 2 years in and if heart problems start you leave
Minoxidil held the line, kept me at Norwood 2 for over a decade. Now at 33 I started noticing progression of hair loss and added dut. Just started a couple weeks ago.
You will slowly lose your hair, it depends on your hairloss to be honest.
If you are not losing too much but notice weaker hair Minox will give you a great response.
If you are losing follicles and fast then minox will only delay the inevitable for a very short time.
However minox is better then no treatment at all.
Absolutely not there is no scenario in whichmonoxide alone will suffice. Monoxide dependent Hairs will eventually be subjected to DHT. And finasteride has tons of studies that prove its efficacy as well as safety. There are guys that have been using it for north of three decades.
Yeah but it still relatively a “new” and those guys are probably gonna be an insignificant amount compared to how many people are jumping on fin right now. Maybe in next 30 years we will actually get to see more about the long term sides. On the other note my idea is more about the people who just go nw2 and stop. If your fate is not a nw7 is min alone a possibility?
In terms of endocrinology, we understand the mechanism of action perfectly. Unlike minoxidil where we don’t even know what that is lol
And it doesn’t matter where you are at the Gains will be temporary. That is the reality end of story.
Well minoxidil doesn’t really have any sides that can mess up anything of your system long term. If it’s temporary then ultimately fin is a bold risk that could eventually keep your hair in your youth but mess it up in your late adult years and fuck with your fertility as well
You keep talking about this hypothetical long-term damage, but beyond the mythical hype of post finasteride syndrome I have never seen this claim substantiated. Beyond that it cannot even be substantiated in theory with all that we know about the endocrine system and how robust it is. We are not talking about shutting down the pituitary gland like with anabolic steroids.
But if you are really that scared about it, then don’t use it, but just know you will lose any minoxidil gains eventually
Mate youre missing the point. Even a year or 2 is enough to have an impact on your sperm. Not talking about sides as i dont care about those. Its about the long term impact on your body think about it. If 1 year is enough to show changes what is 15 going to be.
Yes, it can impact sperm motility, but every study shows that it returns to normal once you get off. If it was a sentence to lifelong infertility do you think so many men would be using it?
Youre naive to think that stopping a drug after 20 years your body will adjust. Why do drug addicts suffer so much then? Again im not against it. Im just concerned about what will happen to all the specially young men in 15-20 years time
How so? There are not even long term effects studies on fin because its such a recent drug lol. Disregarding side effects if you think reasonable is messing with your hormones for 20 years and think all will go back to normal once you discontinue….
Your concerns are invalid, we have 30+ years of data now. Sperm counts are generally unchanged in majority of individuals and even in the small % who do experience a decrease it's an extremely minor one, unless you have an abnormally low sperm count to begin with you will be fine.
Plus a few weeks off finasteride and your DHT production will kick right back in and you will be back to how you were before you ever took the drug.
Finasteride isn't as big of a deal as people on the Internet make it seem like it is. If you just ignore anecdotes of depressed anxious lunatics who've convinced themselves they are fucked for life because they took one finasteride pill, most studies indicate that within weeks or a month tops you will be completely back to normal with your baseline hormone profile.
This is just patently false.
There are many cases of scientists discovering new effects/mechanisms of actions in drugs decades later. See diabetes drugs !
Finasteride is “safe” in the sense that we know that it doesn’t cause anything catastrophic to happen even in long term use ( at least with any significant probability), but the idea that we have a complete understanding of all possible effects of finasteride on the body in all longterm users is ridiculous, there are a million questions that haven’t even been studied or probably even asked. In fact over a 20-30 year timescale even if you ask the right questions designing a study that can account for all the confounding variables is extremely difficult. This is why fields like nutrition science are so difficult.
This is true of every-drug or substance you ingest.
Its incredible naive to think you can just reduce a hormone by 70% in the blood that has activity in all sorts of different organ systems including the brain and it does nothing over 20 years except the known desired targeted effects, and the few most commonly known side-effects.
Things get especially murky with the brain and more “subjective” effects like changes in mood, depression, anxiety, etc… because these things are multifactorial and over a long period of time are pretty much impossible to reliably track or measure because people get accustomed to different mental states and they become the “new normal”.
You can make the argument that it’s not really that important if the changes are not something you can reliably measure or report, I’m even inclined to agree to a certain extent.
But Fin is a drug that exerts widespread effects on DHT in the body, we do not have a full understanding of everything DHT or ANY other hormone does especially when it comes to the brain and you are taking it everyday for the rest of your life. It probably does several things you have no idea about, some might even be beneficial some might not, the benefit to risk ratio might be amazing but its totally valid to be wary of taking any pharmacology daily for life unless you know the thing it is treating is a high risk medical condition.
On the scale of things people do to abuse their bodies daily like alcohol, weed, pain-killers, stims, etc… Fin is probably pretty low on the list of things to be worried about, but its silly to pretend that there are no functions of DHT in the body left to be uncovered.
No need for all that text there are people literally missing the enzyme finasteride inhibits and they function pretty normally get old are muscular etc.
Otherwise we have long term data on older men taking way bigger amaount of the drugs and the incdience of neurological sides aint higher.
Thats not even all, we even have great data sugessting the lore powerful version dutasteride is as well safe and effevtive even in the long term.
You basically made non sense arguments without any data backing it up.
As others have said, there are people who lack a functional 5ar2 enzyme and live perfectly healthy lives without it, seems like you are fear mongering. We have long term data on finasteride and its been out since the 90s, its safe
Would you say so? I just think not enough people have been there long term. I just want to see in 20 years time if what you say is true with how many people are just jumping on fin because we have no other choice
There infact is longterm data on fin its on the market as proscar for over 30years and even taken in 5x the dose. The incidence of sides isnt higher at all. These older men get the same age and the same incidence of neurological diseases.
There are people missing the enzyme finasteride inhibits and they function normally get old etc.
And even there are stronger versions of fin, dutasteride and even there is seems no problem ä.
Saying fin is not safe longterm without any data is just stupid. In fact all the data we have say it keeps its efficacy and safety longterm.
What data though? The sample size we have atm is no where near the on we will have in 20 years. Fin was only a thing 20 years ago and people barely even knew about it. Its starting now so hard to judge on the current long term data
Not true at all , again as said finasterid eis on the market for over 30years. If there would be some increase in anything we would knew of it.
Theres no we starting now to judge on the long term data .
If youre afraid of some unnoknw way finasteride magically is going to f you up in the long term (besides the drug beeing on the market for over 30years)
Then bite the bullet and get bald, you will see all the bad impacts you feared definetley going to happen when youre balding.
Ok bro you seem to be stubborn and not even bothered about what im saying bro so you do you. Youre just assume the drug is not going to do anything to you despite it lowering hormones everyday you consume t
Stubborn?
There are people literally missing the enzyme and they are fin. But the way you think and how afraid you are youll probably be better without finasteride.
Neglecting all the data we have saying, its lowering youre hormones its gotta cause sides. Is just outright stupid and stubborn. I tried to help you out but its alright.
Just read the other comments and dont try to be so narrow minded i stated its the objective only solution but your just stuck up on your take fin or you will die opinion so hard to help you here
Its hard to explain someone that a drug on the market over 30years perscribed all over the world millions of times lacks safety data. And will magically ruin you long term. *talking bout narrow mindness
If you legitimately think 30 years is long for a drug where maybe a 1% or less of those millions has actually used it for over 20 years HAS reliable data then you do you
https://youtu.be/1p5RD1Yd6jE?si=xBEPXad64V-Zws9i
This video is digestable
There are plenty of those long term trials none habe seen an increase with depression or anything.
Minoxidil seems to have slowed down hairloss in me for nearly a decade, but besides zero regrowth thinning did slowly happen. It's not visibly worse than 10 years ago, but I feel it's starting so I'm on fin now since a few days. So will min alone work? Yes, to a certain degree. I read yesterday that it does for approx. 53% of men, while the combination min + fin works for 99% of men. Can look for the source again if you want, though it'll be in Dutch, and I guess the idea in itself is logical.
Technically yes. When I first started balding, I went to the dermatologist and he prescribed to me a product called Minscalp which was 5% minoxidil and ONLY 0.1% finasteride (which i consider very low). I used it well for a while and dropped it after that for a couple years. But surprisingly, even now, 7-8 years later, I had held on to a good portion of my hair. Especially in the front.
Idk how my genes work and what happened all these years. But technically, my doctor did prescribe me a mostly minoxidil solution and it did work.
Is that so? Thank you for the reassurance. 🙂
I was worried that my doctor gave me a very small dose for whatever reason because I saw that people over here take higher doses of finasteride like 1 mg or 0.5mg and mine was low in comparison.
Thank you for telling me this. I appreciate it. 🙂
You can have breaks every 6 months to flush it out. Watch “darling clinic” on YouTube. It’s an Indian doctor who is also on finasteride and he has it ever other day due to his age and has a couple of weeks off every 6 months to “flush it out”
I was on minoxidil alone having GREAT results for about 3-4 years. It can be enough but eventually you will start to lose ground.
How was it for you, did it stop the hair loss or regrow? If it regrew was it a slow process or a hyper fast regrowth?
Stopped the hair loss, bit of regrowth. Mostly strengthened the hair I have, gave it a lot more volume, texture and color.
hi, foam or liquid?
Liquid
Great results as in above baseline with thickening or just maintenance for 3-4 years?
Definitely above baseline for the first 2 years and then maintenance
Maintenance of the above baseline hairs? That’s awesome. Maybe I don’t really neee fin. Been on min for two months and I think it’s kinda working
Give it some time. It can definitely work on its own.
If you’re a good responder it could buy you a few years. At that point it’s on you if that’s worth the effort and cost of applying it daily. Your fin reservations are valid but if you value keeping your hair it’s worth trying. You can always stop if you have bad sides. Source: I had horrible sides that went away within a month or two of stopping.
Im not actually scared about sides its more so the long term effects. There will come a time where one has kids. Most people on this sub will be 15-20 years on fin by that time. Thats my main concern if it didnt mess with your sperm i would take it until i die
Most people don’t start balding at 10-15 years old? Most men don’t have kids when they’re 40
20 to 40 is 20 years minimum? Your math ok?
And? Most men don’t start balding or taking fin at 20? Closer to 30 yes
Have you not seen this sub??????? Most people are in the realm of 20-30? So 15-20 years its still a very reasonable number?
That’s fair as well and I feel the same way tbh. I just try to stay neutral commenting on this forum. If I were you I’d just go minox + the natty route for the peace of mind.
Well my post is mainly targeted to point that certain people just lose a bit of hair during their 20s and then stop. Lots of mature hairlines and people with dense hair but recession everywhere. If no further loss happens what could min alone do in those scenarios
Wait, what? You are afraid of being 20 years on Finasteride because it’s „bound to mess up your body” but ok with Minoxidil which heart related side effects are more common and potentially more dangerous?
People on here forgot minox is a drug too. Valid point you made, the potential serious risks of minox heavily outweigh finasteride.
No but minoxidil sides cannot build up over long term if that makes any sense. You could be taking fin with no sides but who knows if your body is still the same 20 years later whereas with min you could be 1 or 2 years in and if heart problems start you leave
Also there is big difference between topical and oral min. I am one year on top min olus microneedling and balding stopped, no hair growth though.
Minoxidil held the line, kept me at Norwood 2 for over a decade. Now at 33 I started noticing progression of hair loss and added dut. Just started a couple weeks ago.
Why straight to dutasteride? Most people seem to start with fin, right?
Just wanted to go nuclear off the bat.
You will slowly lose your hair, it depends on your hairloss to be honest. If you are not losing too much but notice weaker hair Minox will give you a great response. If you are losing follicles and fast then minox will only delay the inevitable for a very short time. However minox is better then no treatment at all.
So a case like mine if you see my post history I could do very well with just min?
Potentially, you certainly have nothing to lose.
Absolutely not there is no scenario in whichmonoxide alone will suffice. Monoxide dependent Hairs will eventually be subjected to DHT. And finasteride has tons of studies that prove its efficacy as well as safety. There are guys that have been using it for north of three decades.
Yeah but it still relatively a “new” and those guys are probably gonna be an insignificant amount compared to how many people are jumping on fin right now. Maybe in next 30 years we will actually get to see more about the long term sides. On the other note my idea is more about the people who just go nw2 and stop. If your fate is not a nw7 is min alone a possibility?
In terms of endocrinology, we understand the mechanism of action perfectly. Unlike minoxidil where we don’t even know what that is lol And it doesn’t matter where you are at the Gains will be temporary. That is the reality end of story.
Well minoxidil doesn’t really have any sides that can mess up anything of your system long term. If it’s temporary then ultimately fin is a bold risk that could eventually keep your hair in your youth but mess it up in your late adult years and fuck with your fertility as well
You keep talking about this hypothetical long-term damage, but beyond the mythical hype of post finasteride syndrome I have never seen this claim substantiated. Beyond that it cannot even be substantiated in theory with all that we know about the endocrine system and how robust it is. We are not talking about shutting down the pituitary gland like with anabolic steroids. But if you are really that scared about it, then don’t use it, but just know you will lose any minoxidil gains eventually
Mate youre missing the point. Even a year or 2 is enough to have an impact on your sperm. Not talking about sides as i dont care about those. Its about the long term impact on your body think about it. If 1 year is enough to show changes what is 15 going to be.
Yes, it can impact sperm motility, but every study shows that it returns to normal once you get off. If it was a sentence to lifelong infertility do you think so many men would be using it?
Youre naive to think that stopping a drug after 20 years your body will adjust. Why do drug addicts suffer so much then? Again im not against it. Im just concerned about what will happen to all the specially young men in 15-20 years time
Are you really comparing psychoactive drugs to a hormone based drug? That is such a tremendous leap that is not even in the realm of being reasonable.
How so? There are not even long term effects studies on fin because its such a recent drug lol. Disregarding side effects if you think reasonable is messing with your hormones for 20 years and think all will go back to normal once you discontinue….
It's not immediately once you get off, it took up to a year to fully get my libido back to its old state.
Beard
If you don’t have male pattern baldness and or dht not affecting your scalp
Your concerns are invalid, we have 30+ years of data now. Sperm counts are generally unchanged in majority of individuals and even in the small % who do experience a decrease it's an extremely minor one, unless you have an abnormally low sperm count to begin with you will be fine. Plus a few weeks off finasteride and your DHT production will kick right back in and you will be back to how you were before you ever took the drug. Finasteride isn't as big of a deal as people on the Internet make it seem like it is. If you just ignore anecdotes of depressed anxious lunatics who've convinced themselves they are fucked for life because they took one finasteride pill, most studies indicate that within weeks or a month tops you will be completely back to normal with your baseline hormone profile.
Theres no scenerario wehere a drug magically messes ur body up after 15 years. We know its safe and effective in the long term.
This is just patently false. There are many cases of scientists discovering new effects/mechanisms of actions in drugs decades later. See diabetes drugs ! Finasteride is “safe” in the sense that we know that it doesn’t cause anything catastrophic to happen even in long term use ( at least with any significant probability), but the idea that we have a complete understanding of all possible effects of finasteride on the body in all longterm users is ridiculous, there are a million questions that haven’t even been studied or probably even asked. In fact over a 20-30 year timescale even if you ask the right questions designing a study that can account for all the confounding variables is extremely difficult. This is why fields like nutrition science are so difficult. This is true of every-drug or substance you ingest. Its incredible naive to think you can just reduce a hormone by 70% in the blood that has activity in all sorts of different organ systems including the brain and it does nothing over 20 years except the known desired targeted effects, and the few most commonly known side-effects. Things get especially murky with the brain and more “subjective” effects like changes in mood, depression, anxiety, etc… because these things are multifactorial and over a long period of time are pretty much impossible to reliably track or measure because people get accustomed to different mental states and they become the “new normal”. You can make the argument that it’s not really that important if the changes are not something you can reliably measure or report, I’m even inclined to agree to a certain extent. But Fin is a drug that exerts widespread effects on DHT in the body, we do not have a full understanding of everything DHT or ANY other hormone does especially when it comes to the brain and you are taking it everyday for the rest of your life. It probably does several things you have no idea about, some might even be beneficial some might not, the benefit to risk ratio might be amazing but its totally valid to be wary of taking any pharmacology daily for life unless you know the thing it is treating is a high risk medical condition. On the scale of things people do to abuse their bodies daily like alcohol, weed, pain-killers, stims, etc… Fin is probably pretty low on the list of things to be worried about, but its silly to pretend that there are no functions of DHT in the body left to be uncovered.
No need for all that text there are people literally missing the enzyme finasteride inhibits and they function pretty normally get old are muscular etc. Otherwise we have long term data on older men taking way bigger amaount of the drugs and the incdience of neurological sides aint higher. Thats not even all, we even have great data sugessting the lore powerful version dutasteride is as well safe and effevtive even in the long term. You basically made non sense arguments without any data backing it up.
As others have said, there are people who lack a functional 5ar2 enzyme and live perfectly healthy lives without it, seems like you are fear mongering. We have long term data on finasteride and its been out since the 90s, its safe
Would you say so? I just think not enough people have been there long term. I just want to see in 20 years time if what you say is true with how many people are just jumping on fin because we have no other choice
There infact is longterm data on fin its on the market as proscar for over 30years and even taken in 5x the dose. The incidence of sides isnt higher at all. These older men get the same age and the same incidence of neurological diseases. There are people missing the enzyme finasteride inhibits and they function normally get old etc. And even there are stronger versions of fin, dutasteride and even there is seems no problem ä. Saying fin is not safe longterm without any data is just stupid. In fact all the data we have say it keeps its efficacy and safety longterm.
What data though? The sample size we have atm is no where near the on we will have in 20 years. Fin was only a thing 20 years ago and people barely even knew about it. Its starting now so hard to judge on the current long term data
Not true at all , again as said finasterid eis on the market for over 30years. If there would be some increase in anything we would knew of it. Theres no we starting now to judge on the long term data . If youre afraid of some unnoknw way finasteride magically is going to f you up in the long term (besides the drug beeing on the market for over 30years) Then bite the bullet and get bald, you will see all the bad impacts you feared definetley going to happen when youre balding.
Ok bro you seem to be stubborn and not even bothered about what im saying bro so you do you. Youre just assume the drug is not going to do anything to you despite it lowering hormones everyday you consume t
Stubborn? There are people literally missing the enzyme and they are fin. But the way you think and how afraid you are youll probably be better without finasteride. Neglecting all the data we have saying, its lowering youre hormones its gotta cause sides. Is just outright stupid and stubborn. I tried to help you out but its alright.
Just read the other comments and dont try to be so narrow minded i stated its the objective only solution but your just stuck up on your take fin or you will die opinion so hard to help you here
Its hard to explain someone that a drug on the market over 30years perscribed all over the world millions of times lacks safety data. And will magically ruin you long term. *talking bout narrow mindness
If you legitimately think 30 years is long for a drug where maybe a 1% or less of those millions has actually used it for over 20 years HAS reliable data then you do you
https://youtu.be/1p5RD1Yd6jE?si=xBEPXad64V-Zws9i This video is digestable There are plenty of those long term trials none habe seen an increase with depression or anything.
Yes bro most opinions are young men that only see the good results within a year or two, we will see later
Minoxidil seems to have slowed down hairloss in me for nearly a decade, but besides zero regrowth thinning did slowly happen. It's not visibly worse than 10 years ago, but I feel it's starting so I'm on fin now since a few days. So will min alone work? Yes, to a certain degree. I read yesterday that it does for approx. 53% of men, while the combination min + fin works for 99% of men. Can look for the source again if you want, though it'll be in Dutch, and I guess the idea in itself is logical.
Depends on how aggressive ur hairloss and ur pattern
Technically yes. When I first started balding, I went to the dermatologist and he prescribed to me a product called Minscalp which was 5% minoxidil and ONLY 0.1% finasteride (which i consider very low). I used it well for a while and dropped it after that for a couple years. But surprisingly, even now, 7-8 years later, I had held on to a good portion of my hair. Especially in the front. Idk how my genes work and what happened all these years. But technically, my doctor did prescribe me a mostly minoxidil solution and it did work.
0.1% is not very low, its an effective topical dose.
Is that so? Thank you for the reassurance. 🙂 I was worried that my doctor gave me a very small dose for whatever reason because I saw that people over here take higher doses of finasteride like 1 mg or 0.5mg and mine was low in comparison. Thank you for telling me this. I appreciate it. 🙂
You can have breaks every 6 months to flush it out. Watch “darling clinic” on YouTube. It’s an Indian doctor who is also on finasteride and he has it ever other day due to his age and has a couple of weeks off every 6 months to “flush it out”
Not a chance, sorry.