If Propecia Loses Effectiveness, Can I Take a Break and Restart It Later?

Hi, can you tell me if Propecia stops working over time, if you take a break for say a year will it work again? Does Avodart have this problem of losing its effect over time as well?

Thank you

Propecia (finasteride) does not work like that. It doesn’t require a lunch break. If Propecia loses effectiveness over time, you’ll have to try something else. I wouldn’t say that it stops working, because if you get off the medication altogether (like the extended break you’re talking about), you will see permanent reversal of the gains you saw from the medication. Any hair that was retained will fall out.

Avodart (dutasteride) doesn’t have the history that finasteride has, as it just became available in 2002 for prostate treatment. Propecia has been an available hair loss treatment since early 1998 and Proscar was out in mid 1992, so more patient data can be found (regardless of whether it is verified or valid — and I say that only because these are not closed studies, but reader anecdotes and forum chatter). Even though the hair loss treatment clinical trials of dutasteride have concluded in Korea, no results are public yet so the data isn’t there from that end either. So in other words, I couldn’t say if it’ll lose effectiveness over time (keeping in mind that finasteride still works great for many of my patients that have been on it for 10 years+), but my guess is that it will function similar to finasteride in many respects.