I will be moving to a different country and I need to carry my year’s supply of finasteride with me. I have two questions:
1-Does Finasteride get ruined by the ionized radiation?

2-Any device on carrying it safely in carry on luggage?

I do not know how ionizing radiation can affect Propecia (finasteride). I would be more worried about my own body being affected by ionizing radiation. If you are worried about ionizing radiation affecting Propecia, invest in a lead box.

I do not know of any special device to carry Propecia aside from the medication bottle it comes in. I would think that is sufficient for travel.

Hello,
I’ve been reading your blog for a long time and really appreciate the time you take to help inform people about hair loss. I’m 22 years old and have some extensive MPB-caused hair loss (started balding around age 18). I have seen numerous dermatologists and have been prescribed Propecia for the hair loss. However, I always have negative side effects when I take Propecia (pain in testicles and frequent urination), and have been unable to take the medication for more than a week before having to stop. I have even tried lower does (.5mg and .25mg) and still had the side effects, so I know that I cannot use Propecia

However, my question is related to Dutasteride – especially because of the new report you recently put on the blog. While I understand that the proper/safe dosage for taking Dutasteride is unclear at this point, I was wondering if you think that someone (like myself) who has had negative side effects from Propecia, would be likely to have negative side effects from Dutasteride?

Does having negative side effects from Propecia make it likely to have similar negative side effects from Dutasteride, or do the medications work differently and create different responses in patients? I would like to try a small dosage of dutasteride, and that is why I am writing to you with this question.

Thanks so much for your help!

Dutasteride is similar to Propecia (finasteride) in its mechanism of action, so if you have side effects from one you would likely have the same side effects from the other.

Of note, dutasteride has a HIGHER percentage of side effects than Propecia. How that translates between one person taking the two medications and its side effect profile is not clear. It would be an assumption that you would have more side effects if you switch from Propecia to dutasteride.

I’m turning 26 years old soon and been on Propecia for 4 years now starting in mid July. For over 2 years I been cutting generic fin in 4 pieces and have saved tons of money. If you are cutting fin you are taking a slightly higher dose can it give you side effects? Because when cutting those pills the dose can be sometimes from like 1mg to maybe 1.5mg it’s hard to cut it accurately! And even if you do you be still taking 1.25mg!

Unless the pieces are perfectly symmetrical and you didn’t lose any crumbs in the cutting process, you probably aren’t getting a full 1.25mg finasteride dose — and like you said, splitting it accurately is difficult.

But let’s assume you’re getting an average of 1.25mg per day. I suppose taking that dose by cutting a 5mg tablet can theoretically give you a slightly higher risk of side effects than taking a premade 1mg finasteride pill (Propecia)… but in practice, we have not seen this.

A comment received from the recent post about Propecia and free testosterone levels –

doctor…as an athlete, this is something about propecia which interests me greatly – but there just doesn’t seem to be enough information available about it.

Would there be anything to stop doctors like yourself taking bloodwork of patients before and during finasteride use so that you (as someone in a position who sees finasteride users daily) could report back to us – so we could make informed decisions taking into account not only our hair, but other matters also of interest to us like hormone levels?

Would really appreciate a response. Thanks.

This can be done, but insurance may not cover these tests. If someone wants to pay for the tests out of pocket, it would be in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And even if these tests were free, what would we do with the results? What significance or interpretations would come from the tests?

If you look in the literature, I am sure there have been similar studies done before Propecia or finasteride was approved by the FDA. You need to know what you’re looking for before searching for data points.

Okay, so let’s face it, hair loss sucks, hair loss does make a man less attractive by a noticiable amount. There’s no avoiding it. Propecia is an effective medication at stopping hair loss and regrowing hair. Is it really safe though? I have my doubts. One could say that anti propecia blogs are full of men who had problems in the first place and that most normal men wouldn’t be on these blogs in the first place. But the other day, I stumbled upon this article written by none other then Men’s Health magazine. Here is the link.

The full article is not available online but the first page does a good job of describing what the article will talk about. Now Men’s Health is no subtle underground publication it is read by millions of men. I’m no doctor but when you block DHT by using Finasteride which also happens to alter how your endocrine system functions, things probably won’t go well, hormones are emotional regulators and DHT is a powerful male androgen. Obviously hair loss is slighty devestating at worse and dissapointing at best but is it worth sucking out the life of an increasing number of men just for hair? Men want hair to appear as if they are full of life and virility so isn’t it ironic that propecia kills that motivation for many men?

The basis for the article in Men’s Health seems to be the tale of a guy with side effects from Propecia. Then it references a study that says sexual side effects occurred in men 45 to 78 years old when taking 5mg of finasteride (to treat their prostate problems). That is 5 times the dose for treating hair loss, and the prostate problems themselves can lead to libido issues without any medication involved. The article fails to mention that.

The rest of the article is a story about a man named “Charles K”. There isn’t much science here, but rather, a story about an unknown man.

Dear Dr. Rassman,

I am a 31 year old male who has been on Propecia for 5 years. After getting bloodwork done, it was discovered that while my Total Testosterone was high, the percentage of Free Testosterone was proportionately low.

Then, I discovered an article from an Egyptian medical journal entitled “Effect of Oral Finasteride on Serum Androgen Levels and Androgenic Alopecia in Adult men”, which found that all men in the experimental group experienced a decline in free testosterone after taking Propecia relative to no change for those taking a placebo. Were you aware of this? Does this not add to the growing body of literature showing how dangerous Propecia really is?

The main point of why Propecia (finasteride 1mg) works is because it changes DHT hormone levels. DHT is the result of testosterone catabolism (it is a byproduct of testosterone metabolism). So to say Propecia affects testosterone in some way is valid, but I cannot say what this really means. The study you refer to included only 30 men and it does not go on to state what the implication is or what the significance is of the findings.

For those interested, the study can be found here (PDF file).

These are the type of articles that can cause confusion and add fuel to the never-ending debate on Propecia depending on how you parse the information presented. Anyone can quote articles and infer what they want, but the real meaning or significance is unclear. At least this is interesting reading. Let the debates begin… or rather, continue!