Learn Your Propecia Facts, Dr Rassman!

Dear Dr Rassman,
It seems that you have been lying through your teeth lately. Everyday on your blog it seems that a new case of propecia induced shedding begins and you ignore them all and essentially say the patient is wrong. I feel that it is your duty before you prescribe to patients to warn them that this could occur (and may not ever stop) as it happened to me after you prescribed propecia. It’s been a year and my hair shed more rapidly than ever before as a result of the drug. You generally say that it’s probably just mpb, but trust me shedding that happens this rapidly doesn’t just start one day especially right after beginning propecia in all these cases. I think it’s time to do research. I understand that it’s the best drug we have out there to stop mpb but you need to be aware of what this drug does before you give it to your patients. This drug has made my hair fall out in clumps which never happend before i began “treatment.” Please learn your facts.

You are angry without basis. I agree that shedding is a real reported event, but it is less common than not shedding. The hair lost in the ‘shed’ should be hairs that are pushed out of anagen and into telogen. The cycling of hair here is a positive thing, because the new hair cycle will probably let out a thicker hair than the miniaturized hair thickness found prior to the shed. This, of course, is theory.

In all of my years using and prescribing finasteride, I have not seen one case where the shedding occurs on a massive scale and then reverses once the drug is stopped. This means to me that your theory is full of holes and that what you are experiencing is accelerated balding, not uncommon in young men with aggressive genetic alopecia. I would like to know if you continue to take the drug or have stopped it? Most people who stop it really get big time hair loss.

I would conclude that your anger is misdirected.