Concerned About Starting a Family Without Long Term Propecia Studies

Hello doctors.

I’m 34 and started using Propecia at the first sign of hair loss six years ago. The results have been fantastic and I have experienced no side effects. My wife and I are planning on starting a family soon and even though I’ve read on your site and others that it’s safe to keep taking propecia, I do have my concerns. I am also concerned on the lack of long term propecia studies. If I just want to maintain my current hair, or at least slow down the loss of it, do you think switching from Propecia to Rogaine foam would do the trick? Or would all the hair I’ve kept because of being on Propecia still fall out in less than a year?

Thank you very much.

Propecia has a very short half life of 4 to 6 hours, which is the time it takes half of the drug to be cleared from your blood stream. Therefore, it should be out of your system in one day. There is no evidence to suggest that it would affect your fertility or have an impact in conceiving a child. The results of studies on the drug crossing from your semen to your wife are (according to what I read in the research papers done by the drug company) almost nill. For those patients who are still wary of whatever side effects it may possibly have on their unborn child, I generally recommend that you do not take Propecia for one week prior to the act of conceiving, during your wife/girlfriend’s very fertile period, which is about a week long. This should not have any deleterious effects with your hair loss.