My Crown Has Thinned More in the 9 Months I’ve Taken Finasteride

I attended one of your in-person consultations/transplant observation sessions about 9 months ago and it was very informative. I was told by Dr. Pak that the amount of hair that I had remaining did not put me in a position to really need a transplant at this time (possibly some work on my hairline). He did prescribe me finasteride, which I have been diligently taking for nearly 9 months.

The problem is that I seem to have thinned in the crown area considerably in the past 9 months – could I be having an adverse affect to finasteride? I have also heard about “shedding” periods or thinning due to your body trying to compensate for the reduction of DHT caused by finasteride – should I stay the course or could my body be reacting adversely to fin? One thing to note, I also went through a similar thining period 14 years ago (in college) when I started using minoxidil and Nioxin shampoo(I was also working out alot, sticking to a heavy protein diet) – when I got off, I seemed to have regrown or gotten thicker hair.

Your insight would be appreciated. Thank you.

You are our patient, so please call our office at 310-553-9113 if you’d like to speak with a doctor. We are available to you!

In general Propecia (finasteride) does not cause hair loss and if you have seen hair loss while you are on it, it is probably related to the speed of your genetic hair loss… not the Propecia itself. Your genetic predisposition is what causes hair loss. There is no drug that absolutely stops this process, and I always try to stress this point when I meet with the patients one to one.