Hello,

I’ve read a good deal of your responses to many questions and a lot of them are pretty negative about the product they are questioning. I am a firm believer in reality regardless how excruciatingly painful it might be to hear the truth. But I wanted to ask since you seem so skeptical about all the hair products I’ve seen asked about (propecia, proceria, provillus) what do you recommend? Is there any help out there? Or are we just doomed to losing hair?

I am a big fan of Propecia (finasteride) and minoxidil, as they are FDA approved and proven to treat hair loss. I’ve seen both of them work, with particularly good results from Propecia (finasteride 1mg).

Some medications have minoxidil in them and may work to regrow hair, but if that is the case, I am sure if you look at the costs per dose you might be surprised at how expensive they turn out to be. Since minoxidil is available as an over the counter generic medication, many products include it as the active ingredient with a variety of other vitamins and such that don’t add much besides a new name and higher price.

you suggest switching to proscar. doesnt that pose two problems? 1. it would be ripping the insurance companies off. 2. doctors would have to write false perscriptions for prostate problems, when they were really writing it for hair loss.

as well if its off the market, wouldnt it be for good reason? why would yo advocate a ‘work around’?

When I write prescriptions for Proscar or generic finasteride to treat hair loss, I write in the instructions that the drug be cut into quarters. If the pharmacy contacts the insurance company to authorize the medication for that, it is between the patient and his insurance company. I NEVER put a ICD-9 code that implies prostate disease, as the prescription does not require this on it. I do nothing that is illegal.

As for “if” it is pulled from the market, that’s a completely hypothetical situation and unlikely.

Hello,

I don’t know if you are aware about the french situation of propecia, but on the news these days they are talking about the permanent side effects, and a potential permanent erectile dysfunction. The equivalent of the FDA here, AFSSAPS, is talking about a reevaluation. The drug might be forbidden in 2013.

Here is the article, in french

Do you know any others countries where the drug is forbidden ?

Regards.

I ran that link through Google Translate so I could read it, but I didn’t find anything new there that we haven’t covered before. It says they will reassess the medication next year, which could mean there will be a change to the product label or there will be no changes at all. Any action to ban finasteride would impact men with prostate problems and would be unlikely.