Hi there,
I have been taking propecia for years. it was a miracle drug for me -- i was losing my hair when i was 19! i have lots of male relatives who lost their hair at the same age within a year. i am now 32, and i have all my hair!! yet, all this time, i had thought...i'm just getting older, things are not working quite as well. in fact, thinking back, i had lost my morning erections a long time ago and had pretty lousy quality erections otherwise. i recently had experiences with a new sexual partner that made me question whether this medicine was harmless or not, and then reviewed some of the medical literature. i then went to speak to my own doctor and he was certain it was the propecia. incidentally, i am a physician as well.
the medical literature directly looking at propecia is mixed. some say yes, others say its a 'nocebo' effect -- ie you think you lose your drive because you're on the med. however, i then came across an article which stunned me.
here is the background -- men with sickle cell anemia will get painful, damaging (ie penis can become permanently painfully scarred) erections called 'priapism' due to sickle blood cells getting 'stuck' in the small vessels during erections. so, a group of physicians in brazil tried to see what happened if they used Finasteride/Propecia to 'decrease' the number of erections these men had. guess what - it WORKED! they started at 5mg, and then tapered to 1 mg after 120 days, and there was a very significant decrease in episodes of priapism. 1mg, of course is the propecia dose. personally, i cannot see how this article would be anything other than clear and obvious evidence that propecia can cause erectile dysfunction, and certainly in a lot more than 2% of men, because all of these men had improvements.
in other words, in simple english, patients with sickle cell anemia may now get propecia to help them to NOT get erections as frequently so that they can NOT get priapism. ie this drug's so called 'imaginary' side effect is very, very real.
it is this paper that made me decide to stop taking the medication. i have no decided that i will just have to go bald until there is something better in the technology to help me. to each his own, and i do not blame anybody who is under 30, and definitely not under 25, from trying anything to save his hair -- but be warned. my recommendation is to try the medicine -- it is a definite miracle for hair, but if you see side effects, i would not continue unless you don't need to use your equipment for a while!
last thing i'll say is how terrible it is that society is so anti bald.
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here is the article for those who know how to look these things up:
Rachid-Filho D, Cavalcanti AG, Favorito LA, Costa WS, Sampaio FJ.
Souza Aguiar Municipal Hospital, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Urology. 2009 Nov;74(5):1054-7. Epub 2009 Jul 17.
Treatment of recurrent priapism in sickle cell anemia with finasteride: a new approach
this is a very reputable medical journal.
comments welcome
I have been taking propecia for years. it was a miracle drug for me -- i was losing my hair when i was 19! i have lots of male relatives who lost their hair at the same age within a year. i am now 32, and i have all my hair!! yet, all this time, i had thought...i'm just getting older, things are not working quite as well. in fact, thinking back, i had lost my morning erections a long time ago and had pretty lousy quality erections otherwise. i recently had experiences with a new sexual partner that made me question whether this medicine was harmless or not, and then reviewed some of the medical literature. i then went to speak to my own doctor and he was certain it was the propecia. incidentally, i am a physician as well.
the medical literature directly looking at propecia is mixed. some say yes, others say its a 'nocebo' effect -- ie you think you lose your drive because you're on the med. however, i then came across an article which stunned me.
here is the background -- men with sickle cell anemia will get painful, damaging (ie penis can become permanently painfully scarred) erections called 'priapism' due to sickle blood cells getting 'stuck' in the small vessels during erections. so, a group of physicians in brazil tried to see what happened if they used Finasteride/Propecia to 'decrease' the number of erections these men had. guess what - it WORKED! they started at 5mg, and then tapered to 1 mg after 120 days, and there was a very significant decrease in episodes of priapism. 1mg, of course is the propecia dose. personally, i cannot see how this article would be anything other than clear and obvious evidence that propecia can cause erectile dysfunction, and certainly in a lot more than 2% of men, because all of these men had improvements.
in other words, in simple english, patients with sickle cell anemia may now get propecia to help them to NOT get erections as frequently so that they can NOT get priapism. ie this drug's so called 'imaginary' side effect is very, very real.
it is this paper that made me decide to stop taking the medication. i have no decided that i will just have to go bald until there is something better in the technology to help me. to each his own, and i do not blame anybody who is under 30, and definitely not under 25, from trying anything to save his hair -- but be warned. my recommendation is to try the medicine -- it is a definite miracle for hair, but if you see side effects, i would not continue unless you don't need to use your equipment for a while!
last thing i'll say is how terrible it is that society is so anti bald.
-----------
here is the article for those who know how to look these things up:
Rachid-Filho D, Cavalcanti AG, Favorito LA, Costa WS, Sampaio FJ.
Souza Aguiar Municipal Hospital, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Urology. 2009 Nov;74(5):1054-7. Epub 2009 Jul 17.
Treatment of recurrent priapism in sickle cell anemia with finasteride: a new approach
this is a very reputable medical journal.
comments welcome
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