Is It Necessary to Take Avodart Daily?

hi dr, i just read on your site that you say avodart lasts 3 months in your system, i take it every day, is this necessary?

also i read that propecia will only be effective for 7 yrs,did i understand that correctly?

The point of having FDA clearance on the use of a drug for a particular condition is that the dose is defined. For Avodart in hair loss, the answer is that no one knows for sure. In theory, you should not need to take it daily. Will once a month do it? Frankly, I don’t know. This issue was raised at a recent hair meeting where dermatologists and hair experts from around the world addressed this. There was no general agreement on what the dose schedule should be. It was clear that the different doctors recommended different frequencies from once a day, twice a week, every other week, once a month. No one recommended less frequently than once a month, but that does not speak well for the general kn0wledge that is generally available to us.

Propecia continues to work, I suspect, for years. The 7 year issue is not that it stops working at 7 years, but that the data has not been published on patients followed for more than 7 years on the drug — even though the drug has been on the market longer than that. I am certain that the drug will continue to work, but you must keep in mind that genetic hair loss in men is a progressive process and that eventually the progression of the process will prevail over the effects of the drug. But if after 7 years you were to stop the drug, most men will experience a massive hair loss which is what I call ‘catch up hair loss’, meaning that all of the hair that Propecia saved would fall out in a few months time.