Hello Dr Rassman
I have studied about hair loss and decide new method for regrowth hair. Appreciate to know your idea

1. Every day morning use one Finpecia tablet
2. 20 drop of (3 progesterone + 90 isopropyl alcohol + 10 water) every day for 6 month

And what‘s your idea for decrease or increase progesterone dose during 6 month? Thank you

Sorry, but I have no idea why are doing what you are doing. Finpecia is a generic Propecia made by Cipla (not for sale in the United States). That alone should show you benefits.

Hello Dr R

As other chaps have commented – you operate an informative website but can you answer or provide referal to those who perhaps can. You cant know everything and yield a scalpel as well

Here is my situation. I am almost 40 years of age, been on finasteride since 2000, almost a decade. No significant side-effects and kept the majority of my hair. Probably in the next year or two, I shall conceive a child (hopefully a boy) but a healthly child is the main thing.

My questions to you

1. If finasteride has no real toxicological effect – why hasnt Merck released a study showing men who have been on the drug produce healthy children of either sex. I mean more the hormonal imbalance the drug does than the toxic effect. Hormones do play important roles even if that one causes hair loss.
2. Half life of the drug is cleared within a couple weeks or so. But how long would it take for the hormone levels to reach what they were prior to ever taking the drug in the first place
3. Is it possible to test for certain hormones to guage their levels to quantify this OR is this futile

My biggest fear is that the use of the drug would jeopardize having a healthly baby and also lessen the chance of having a male one!

Thanks for your unbiased opinion.

The half life of finasteride is about 4-6 hours so it is almost completely gone in 24 hours. There may be some tissue fixation that occurs and I would expect that it would take 1 or 2 weeks to clear that (just a guess). I can not comment on why Merck does or does not do something like gathering the statistics that go beyond safety and effectiveness (FDA requirements). You can write Merck and ask them directly.

I do not believe that there is any evidence of sex gender preferences conceived when a man is on finasteride. There is no evidence that babies are anything but normal when the father is on finasteride. We know, however, that this drug is dangerous for women who are pregnant particularly in the first trimester.

Hi,

I have been taking Propecia for 3 days and have noticed that my erections seem softer and do not last as long. Is it too soon for me to be experiencing such alleged side effects? Your response would be greatly appreciated.

There are many possibilities. The power of suggestion is sometimes more powerful than drug or side effects. If you think you are going to have a sexual side effect (after reading all the horror stories on the Internet) you will likely have a side effect. The real world sexual depression with Propecia is about 1 to 2 percent and may take weeks to appear. The real world power of suggestion (or placebo effect) is much higher.

Dr. Rassman,

I have relatively dense brown hair. I am using minoxidil to restore a hairline that is visibly receeding. However, whenever I lightly scratch my scalp after having used product containing minoxidil, I notice little hairs attached to my fingernail. They are normally about a half inch in lenghth, fine, and clear.

I thought, perhaps, that it was an anomaly. However, with repeated runs of my fingernails over my scalp, I continually pick up one or two of these strange, small hairs. This has been occurring as long as I have been using minoxidil (a year or two.)

Are these vellus hairs that are falling out? Is this a sign of an unhealthy scalp?

I don’t know what these little hairs are. If I looked at them under the microscope, I might know, but in the meantime you should just stop scratching them. Leave them alone! Let’s see what happens when they grow out.

Doctor,

When quiting minoxidil do the dependent hairs fall out all around the same time,say within the same few weeks? Or do they fall out a little at a time over months? And when would it be safe to assume all dependent hairs are out? After 3 months?

If you restart minoxidil after 3 or 4 months what are the odds of salvaging any lost hairs, going by what you’ve seen in your practice?

You say that minoxidil and propecia work differently, but if DHT eventually overtakes minoxidil as you say then why wouldn’t Propecia protect minoxidil dependent hairs if you stopped minoxidil. Since it’s really DHT that’s causing the hair to fall out?

Thanks..

BTW, I appreciate that a transplant surgeon advocate 2 drugs that could be considered your competition.

I practice good medicine and always give the best, safest, and least invasive solutions for hair loss. If medication can solve the problem, I’d rather a patient go that route. Surgery should never be the first resort.

There is no rule with regard to hair loss from withdrawal of either finasteride or minoxidil. Generally the hair is lost slowly over 3-4 months, and not all at once. Restarting the medication never gets you exactly back to where you were, but if you realize you made a mistake and want to get back on the drug, you should see benefits from that point on. The action of minoxidil (Rogaine) and finasteride (Propecia) is different so when you withdraw either, the other medication will not prevent the hair loss that can occur. Minoxidil is a drug that grows hair as a side effect, while Propecia blocks the effect of DHT. A person on minoxidil can still lose hair from DHT influences, and that is not blocked by minoxidil. Stopping minoxidil will result in the loss of those hairs grown from it — but that is due to stopping the medication, not DHT.

Can a potential natural supplement not be a DHT blocker in vitro (in a petri dish) but be a DHT blocker in vivo (in the body)?

Also, if Propecia only blocks about 70% of type II 5 alpha reductase, why doesn’t it block the rest if finasteride is meant to block 5ARII?

Is MPB only about blocking DHT or is there more to the story? For example, if we could block 100% of DHT, would our hair loss be blocked?

The things we see in petri dishes and live animal subjects do differ, however, I would want to know specifically what you are asking (a directed question of course).

There is more to balding than DHT alone, but the more of the receptor that is blocked, the better the drug will work. That is why many people like dutasteride as the block gets up to 85% or more, but as I’ve pointed out — at what price? If you became sterile from a high DHT block (I am not saying that it will happen, but lets say hypothetically) the outcome is priceless (negatively speaking).

Hello Doctor,

I wanted to share something. I’m sure you are familiar with the product called Procede. I believe you have even written about it before and thought it was some sort of coloring agent. Information on the product is very sketchy and nobody seems to know how it is even supposed to work. Until recently, the ingredients were never even posted on their website and the company has always been extremely vague about its mode of supposed action.

I just discovered the ingredients are now posted. I have pasted them below. The product seems really weird and the list of ingredients seems alarming. One of the main ingredients is actually a depilatory agent and the other is used for shrinking varicose veins. Obviously, the product does not seem to be a coloring agent as suspected.

Can you please look at the ingredients and tell us what you think the makers had in mind in formulating this product. What route do you think they were going for to achieve the claimed results? By what action do you think this product is supposed to work by and what do you see it actually doing?

A Formula #1 Ingredients:
Deionized Water, Thioglycolic Acid, Monoethanolamine, Cetyl Alcohol, Stearyl Alcohol, Mineral Oil, Polyquaternium-6, Ethyl Alcohol 1.4%, Ceteareth-12, Methyl Salicylate, Salicylic Acid, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Lactic Acid, Glycolic Acid, Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Papain, Citric Acid, Tartaric Acid.

Formula #2 Ingredients:
Deionized Water, Sodium Bromate, Cetyl Alcohol, Mineral Oil, Cetearyl Alcohol, Ceteareth-20, Urea, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.

I am not a chemist, and I really cannot comment on if those ingredients will grow hair. I’m not seeing anything proven to grow hair in there, though. I can tell you there is no cure for hair loss. Even the best medications we have (Propecia and Rogaine) still have limitations. As the ingredients you listed as being in Procede are not controlled by the FDA, you are at the mercy of the manufacturer unless you decide not to use is (which is still in your power).