Reader’s Advice — Stop Freaking Out About Stuff You Read on Forums
I respect the fact that you advise using the medications first and clearly state the benefits of using Propecia. If I would not have read your blog I would have just tried Rogaine per my dermatologist. The information is just not out there to use this kinda of treatment / prevention. I was shocked to see some of the great results people have using this as a treatment alone. All you see or hear are the terrible things. I had no idea the drug even regrew hair for most people. Especially for men like me who are 30 with minimal thinning.
Anyway, I was scared to death to take this medicine. I am sure some people have had problems. People also have problems with cars, smoking, and beef. I am close to 90 days on treatment thus far and couldnt tell I have even taken it. The only side I have is feeling alot less stressed knowing I am at least on the proper medicine.
I think your blog is important and I truly believe there is so much misinformation online. Growing older and having some degree of hair loss is normal. I just had my hair cut this morning. I was again told I have tons of hair and this is all in my mind. Granted I dont have the same hair I did when I was 16. Men freak out.., I of course am one of them.
The absolute worst thing I have ever done for myself was trolling the internet. I cant believe I read and re-read these internet forums ( I am sure you are aware of the sites), where people talk about their experiences on these drugs and experimental treatments. I should have known that people who have great results on these drugs certainly do not write about it on hair loss forums. Lets me honest, have you ever had a great steak then written an online review of the place that cooked it? Its few and far between. Propecia is not a silver bullet. However, it is FDA approved and has undergone a battery of clinical tests over several years.
My main point here is, yes people need to do their due diligence in taking medicine. You would not buy a car without test driving it. No one writes anything positive. But be certain, if you have a bad experience you will tell everyone.
Thanks for your frank opinions. We have published many comments and some photos of people who have received wonderful benefits from Propecia over the years; however, seemingly just like on the TV news, you mostly only hear the bad news. The good news isn’t reported very often, because bad news sells and grabs the attention of the audience.
Your comment about reviewing a great steak is spot on. If your food wasn’t prepared to your satisfaction, you’re probably more likely to let people know how dissatisfied you are. As I’ve written before, those that feel wronged by something are generally the most vocal. Everyone else will just continue to live their lives.
This is true. And it is so tough for young men with all the hysteria that is out there.
The bottom line is that…you’ve got to go with the good research. You just have to. Because it is better information than all the rest.
For example, if you just went with your feelings, you would never get on an airplane. Because it all just seems crazy. How can flying in a giant tin tube with wings be safe?
But still, in reality, you have to go with the data. And the data shows that flying in a giant tin tube with wings is a very safe way to travel, much safer than trains and automobiles.
But this requires you to think with your mind and not your heart, your feelings.
And it is the same thing with finasteride. People on forums say all this crazy stuff, just like my cousin says crazy stuff about flying and will never fly.
But the fact is that if you want to make a sound judgement…you have to go with the good studies, the data, the placebo controlled experiments.
The best way we limited human beings can acquire KNOWLEDGE.
And time and time again, these studies show a very low incidence of sexual side effects, under 1%.
And of that under 1%, half of that population that has the side effects cleared up after like 6 months.
That fact is that it is a very small risk. Very small, just like when we get on a planes, trains, and automobiles.
Some people want 0% risk in life, and for those people…no, don’t take finasteride. And don’t take aspirin either. And forget having a glass of wine.
But for those who are willing to take a very small risk to enhance the quality of their lives, I say go for it. Take advantage of what modern science offers us to improve the quality of our lives.
Just like we do with trains, planes, and automobiles (and gas stoves).
You cannot compare taking an anti-androgen like Finasteride to having the occasional glass of wine or taking aspirin for a headache. The key word here is ANTI-ANDROGEN, which you have to take every day for the rest of your life, if you want to keep your hair that is.
In all seriousness, does anybody (who isn’t clouded by the whole hairloss stress thing or has a vested interest) think blocking/reducing the single most potent male hormone (DHT) in the human body is actually a good thing long term?
I completely understand that Dr Rassman has a business to run & taking Propecia makes his transplants work & look better, but surely, with his best common sense head on, he must agree on some level at least, privately.
Do I think it is a good thing long term? Well…not really. I also don’t think that eating a tomato every day is a good thing long term.
But it is not a bad thing. And the only thing one has to establish is that it is not a bad thing long term.
And all the data we have so far indicates that in most cases, in over 99% of the cases, taking finasteride is not a bad thing.
No, it will not produce health. It will not lower your cholesterol or make you live longer. But it also will not do bad for you in the long term. That is what the data and our best knowledge indicate.
Now…stepping into a tin tube and flying through the air sounds ABSOLUTELY INSANE and not anything any normal person would want to do, short term or long term!
Except…actually it is. It is just fine. It is just fine and reasonable to step into a tin tube and fly across the entire earth. With just a few inches of tin protecting you from all that danger.
Ahh! This sounds insane!
It is called air travel. And as insane as it looks to the caveman and the primitive human being (the caveman would probably think the plane is a giant monster or something) it is…actually safe.
How do we know that? Because of our feelings? NO! (try telling that to my cousin. His feelings always tell him air travel is unsafe! And so did the latest report on TV! See, the plane crashed! Therefore it is unsafe! I will never fly on a plane!)
We know that because of our reason and our assessment of the information, the data. Planes are a very safe way to travel.
But you have to be governed by your head, by your reason, by a proper assessment of the data. You have to be like a robot. You have to think, not feel.
Feelings are the way of the caveman, the dark ages. It is what kept mankind living terrible lives for so long, until the enlightenment. Feelings led men to pray to the gods to cure diseases, rather than utilizing science and thought and reason.
We have to see that…in the end, we will have to make our decisions based on our judgment about information, about data. That is the best the human being can do. We cannot be sure about anything beyond that. The best we can do is make a rational assessment about something, and then make a decision.
And we can make our assessment about the safety and efficacy of finasteride, and of rogaine for that matter, from the well done studies, the placebo controlled studies, the best in terms of evidence for judgment we limited human beings can do…
Or we can just revert to our fears, or feelings, what this one or that one said on the internet, our belief that something is unsafe…well…because its just gotta be!
That is the decision we will have to make in the end. Will we be men of though or of feelings? Will we be men who follow ritual and tradition, or men of science? Will we live according to our minds or our feelings?
I must go with science. I must go with the well done, placebo controlled studies. Not because I think their evidence is perfect, but because I simply think that information is better than the other just emotional, feelings based information that is out there.
It is simply the better of the two data sources. So therefore, I go with A.
Chemically reducing androgens is currently the best treatment we have for baldness. It’s far from ideal but the side effects are mostly exaggerated. Much like the synthetic hormones in female contraceptives – it’s not ideal by any means but you have to balance it against what you want to live with.
It’s obvious to everyone that the eventual ‘cure’ for baldness won’t be a blunt instrument like finasteride, why would it be? But it’s what we have now and it works well enough for enough men with minimal problems over a 20 year period (about the longest we could have experience of it so far).
I’ll continue to take it until a better option comes along.
Ditto Paul ditto.
Now I must say, I do not necessarily blame anyone for being so risk averse. That is their personal choice. Again, I am not kidding, I really do have a cousin who will-not-fly. He will not. You can talk to him all day about the statistics and reason and this and that but he is not having it!
No, he prefers to drive everywhere. He has even driven half way across country on vacations.
And you know what? He is just fine. He is just fine! He is happy, he has gotten to see the country another way. He just won’t fly.
And that is his choice.
I see his choice as irrational, as he is actually taking on a bit more risk by driving than by flying. And I have been able to see places more efficiently that he has. I have visited Europe and the way I see it, I don’t think he ever will. But he is ok with that, and that is all cool!
And to be fair, I have seen some very impressive results as of late on some forums of some guys who have decided not to take finasteride and have just gotten hair transplants.
Check this one out:
https://www.baldtruthtalk.com/showthread.php?t=13520
And check out the SMP clinic associated with Dr. Rassman and the very fine work they are doing thickening up the look of thinning hair with just SMP, without any hormonal treatments:
https://www.scalpmicropigmentation.com/gallery_thin.htm
I have also read several very plausible posts around the web about some men having very good results with just minoxidil alone. There are some posters who report having held onto their hair for 10-20 years, with minimal if any loss, with just minoxidil. You just have to be very diligent and disciplined about your regimen.
So to those who don’t want to take propecia…I am not ragging on you. And I respect your super risk averse strategy, although I do not choose it for myself.
And I also think you are forgoing propecia’s ability to halt hair loss and keep you from reaching those Norwood 6 and 7 stages that may just be too much to treat successfully without it.
But I must say, I do think that, if you think about it…many MPB sufferers these days…not all, but many, maybe half or more, can have very nice results without propecia if they are willing to have realistic expectations, get high quality hair transplants, style their hair in a way that maximizes the look of fullness, utilize smp + concealers if need be to further add to the look of fullness, and use minoxidil diligently.
I have been on Propecia since 2005 and the only side effect has been a lighter wallet since I paid $75 a month for the stuff for eight years until Dr. Reddy’s started making their Fin earlier this year. People, just look at the double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials which had FDA oversight, not random, anonymous crackpots on message boards.
Well, I’ve taken Finasteride for 2 years, so it’s not like I was adverse to the risk. In fact I knew nothing of any of the side effects. It was a prostate drug that worked for hairloss was all that I knew, initially anyway.
I was one of the people saying what a great drug it was, as far as I was concerned I had no side effects whatsoever & certainly didn’t read about them on internet forums. About 18 months into taking Fin I started to feel fatigued every day, my libido had lowered to the point where I wase’nt really interested in sex anymore & I had noticed that my thoughts were constantly clouded & I couldn’t think straight. Erections were just about still there.
I ruled out everything before I even thought about Propecia, so on a hunch I decided to stop it for a few weeks. Hey presto dramatically improvements in all areas. As an experiment I tried taking the drug on and off several more times as I was loathe to stop taking it (vanity is a terrible thing) same results, goodbye Fin.
The point is, these things creep up on you very slowly until one day you just realise “I’m not myself anymore”
This could be 6 weeks or 6 years or never.
Everybody is different though, but for quite a large percentage of people it would seem, this is the reality. A lot of people do seem to do fine on the drug admittedly.
I will say as far as I’m aware I have no persistent side effects, but this also seems to be a reality for many.
Personally, my quality of life is far more important to me than keeping hair.