Everything Looked Fine A Year After Stopping Propecia — A Year After That, It Was Bad
Hi,
2 questions – first, when I previously used Propecia, 12 months after I quit, my hairline and frontal region, my areas of concern, didn’t look or feel different. 24 months after quitting, it looks much worse…I thought all hair is lost 12 months post quitting, does this mean that my recent loss is unrelated to quitting the medication?
Second, I am thinking of getting back on Propecia for the hairline, I am a NW 3, just looking to get back some of the loss in the last 12 months, is this doable?
Thanks!
It’s interesting that the Propecia held for a year… or at least, the hair stayed for a year after discontinuing the medication. That is unusual. I suspect that hair loss was really a start-up of a new hair loss process, but I really do not know or have any way to know for sure.
You can restart the Propecia and see what happens. Usually there will be some benefits, but the full benefit you originally got will probably not occur the second time around. Talk to your prescribing doctor.
quitting propecia is a bad idea, but then again propecia is only an indirect treatment for hairloss. DHT is what binds to the androgen receptors and causes fibrosis which miniaturizes and ultimately kills the hair follicles. Taking propecia clearly will partially shield your follicles from this damage. Ideally, one would remove or deactivate the androgen receptors with genetic or medical down regulating agents….there are currently experimental ways to do this, but i’d imagine genetic treatments are difficult to gain access to and may have side effects. All of the experimental treatments that downregulate the Androgen Receptor or degrade it are worth a try in my opinion and may enable one to quit finasteride without having bad results for our hair. unlike the doctors on here who won’t tell you this, in my opinion and the opinon of Dr. Alan Jacobs, MD (New York Endocrinologist) finasteride is highly likely to decrease FH and LSH, causing Testosterone to decline slightly after years of using propecia. You can still have testosterone in the normal male range but not necessarily optimal for maximum masculine performance. I would say taking finasteride for 5 years may cause a Testosterone blood test in ng/dL drop of 100 or so. Quitting propecia is a personal choice. It may be good for you if you want higher testosterone levels, but then again the hair will likely thin unless you are replacing finasteride with some other effective medication like RU58841 or perhaps ASCJ9. Alternatively, you could use androgel while staying on propecia, but this may also cause more hair loss even though you are on finasteride. As you can see, hair loss is a true b*tch. Even if you have perfect T levels, you still would have a rough ride due to the stigma of hair loss and the facts many people are trained through our modern society to treat people with thinning hair poorly….BUT, you can still become confident. Knowledge and bravery are the key to fighting any medical predicament, and with hair loss, it may take bravery and perseverance to find a treatment that works for you. STICK to treatments within the scientific community. If you are going to use experimental compounds…YOU MUST run at least NMR spectra or MS techniques at a university chemistry department to verify identity of what you are using on your scalp. You may have to mix the medicines yourself.