I Have More Body Hair Now Since Taking Propecia

Dr. Rassman, this is in regard to body hair and propecia.
I have been taking propecia for about 1 year now, and I definitely have more body hair. I even get a little hair growing around my ears which I did not have before and I have to trim my nasal hair frequently. The Hair on my arms, legs and chest is definitely longer. I am okay with it though (even though it is rather unusual for black people).

Propecia (finasteride 1mg) is taken for the treatment of male pattern baldness on the scalp. There aren’t official statements or side effect reports that indicate that Propecia affects body hair. I do hear on occasion that Propecia decreases body hair, and some of our readers have commented that they actually lost body hair from Propecia use. Your case would be the opposite.

If I had to make a guess, I would tend to think Propecia decreases body hair since it decreases DHT (dihydrotestosterone) levels. DHT is responsible for genetic hair loss in men with the genes that predispose them for balding, but DHT is also responsible for some of secondary male sex characteristics like the growth of body hair, nose hair, ear hair, etc. Thus, it makes sense that decreasing DHT will decrease body hair… but this seems to be an uncommon effect.

In a private communication with a doctor that will remain nameless, he told me he saw a set of identical twins, one on finasteride and the other not on the drug. The twin on finasteride had distinctly less body hair than the twin who wasn’t taking it. Not that this conclusively proves anything, since obviously your situation is the opposite and you’re seeing increased body hair growth, but it is food for thought.