Should I Take Less Finasteride If I Have Side Effects?
What if I take Propecia for a while and then get side effects? Do I just stop taking it or should I take less of it?? I havent had any issues yet but I just want to know what I should do if I have good effects from Propecia and then see bad effects down the road. Thanks
One of my patients (age 43) spoke to me about the developing sexual side effects of Propecia. He has been on the drug for 10 years and his libido seemed to slowly reduce over the past year or two. While it is possible that the libido change was influenced by his age, I recommended that he reduce the finasteride dose to 0.25mg.
The idea was that if that reduced his sexual side effects to a level he is satisfied with, he can up the dose to 0.5mg. He did this over a two month course (one month of 0.25mg and one month of 0.5mg). Now the sexual side effects he has had in the past at the 1mg level, have disappeared. He hasn’t reported any benefits from the medication disappearing, which was one of his biggest concerns. It’s only been a couple of months, though.
I’m not suggesting this is the proper course for everyone, and you should talk to your prescribing doctor about changes to your medication.
What do you mean when you write ” He hasn’t reported any benefits from the medication disappearing, which was one of his biggest concerns.” This is clearly a typo and could go either way.
The benefit he could experience from the ‘medication disappearing’ is the reversal of side-effects which we would hope would be the case. The resumption of hair loss due to a decrease in the dose is also possible, but probably not a ‘benefit’ as you claim.
He has not reported a decrease in the positive results (halting of the hair loss), which was his concern. There is no typo, just a poorly worded sentence. I hope this clears it up.