Confused about finasteride.

[JJacobs152]

Spoke to my local pharmacy, they have 5mg and 1mg finasteride. Is the 5mg fin more effective in treating the hair loss compared to the 1mg? Also, what is Proscar? Is that just the generic form of Propecia?

Secondly, what about dutasteride? Was reading about it and seems to be competitive blocker for both type I and II 5alpha-reductase, whereas finasteride only blocks 1 form of the enzyme.

[Buster]

The 5mg pill, which I think is called Proscar, is cut into fourths to be taken (a fourth) daily. It is cheaper than buying the 1mg pills.

[unk]

Hey JJ.

It is confusing, and i'm still working it out.

Propecia and Proscar are both Merck branded, not generic, with propecia being 1 mg finasteride, whereas proscar contains 5 mg.

Recommended dose by Merck is 1mg, but if you read around the forum, a lot of people are now not recommending that, based on the fact that finasteride has an almost flat dose-response curve. That mean's that after a certain dose, increasing the dose provides very little extra pharmacological effect, which in this case is DHT inhibition. Obviously the reason that is important, is a) cost, and b) people are reporting less side effects at lower doses.

I know that 0.2mg inhibits serum DHT almost the same as 1mg and 5mg, and someone quoted that 0.05mg inhibits scalp DHT equal to 5mg, which is what we are actually interested in.

Personally, I took 0.5mg for 18 months, but I have side effects. I am now taking 0.2mg every other day, and going to try and get less than 0.1mg daily from cutting my 1mg pill. Whatever you do dude, 5mg is going to be harder to cut than 1mg, so if you want to take the drug, I would recommend buying 1mg pills and starting at a very low dose and seeing how you tolerate it in terms of any side effects. A pill cutter from the pharmacy costs a few bucks!

[JJacobs152]

Hey JJ.

It is confusing, and i'm still working it out.

Propecia and Proscar are both Merck branded, not generic, with propecia being 1 mg finasteride, whereas proscar contains 5 mg.

Recommended dose by Merck is 1mg, but if you read around the forum, a lot of people are now not recommending that, based on the fact that finasteride has an almost flat dose-response curve. That mean's that after a certain dose, increasing the dose provides very little extra pharmacological effect, which in this case is DHT inhibition. Obviously the reason that is important, is a) cost, and b) people are reporting less side effects at lower doses.

I know that 0.2mg inhibits serum DHT almost the same as 1mg and 5mg, and someone quoted that 0.05mg inhibits scalp DHT equal to 5mg, which is what we are actually interested in.

Personally, I took 0.5mg for 18 months, but I have side effects. I am now taking 0.2mg every other day, and going to try and get less than 0.1mg daily from cutting my 1mg pill. Whatever you do dude, 5mg is going to be harder to cut than 1mg, so if you want to take the drug, I would recommend buying 1mg pills and starting at a very low dose and seeing how you tolerate it in terms of any side effects. A pill cutter from the pharmacy costs a few bucks!

Are you a pharmacist or in medical school? Only asking bc of your knowledge about flat-dose response curve.

Taking .2mg/day. I'm more annoyed by the fact of having to cut the pill into those increments. Seems like it's a waste of time, don't you agree? Additionally, what s/e are you noticing? Anything different from the reported s/e, and do you recall around what time period you started noticing them? Lastly, do you have any pictures to show your progress?

Sorry for all the questions. I started Minox this year, I wish I added Propecia to the regiment. At this point I would've been 10 months into the regiment and probably would've seen a good amount of progress.

[unk]

hehe, I did some pharmacology as a biomedic, how about you?



Alright so i've never posted pics on this forum, always thought it would be pretty embarrassing. I also apologise for the fragmented pictures, as you may have worked out yourself it all depends on your haircut, your angle, your light settings - all in all it's not perfect, so i'm not even sure what my pictures tell me . I can tell you aside from the photos that i've filled in the temples a little, and when I do take photos, I see a less scalp spots shining back at me. But if you ask me, any results I've achieved are likely to be from minox, since fin rarely regrows, just reverses some miniaturisation marginally, better for halting further progression. Also, I don't have a picture since 12 months, and I was going to take one now, but my last self-haircut I went overboard with the thinning scissors at the back trying to "balance" it out, so now I can see all kinds of scalp at the back in photos. If we're in contact I'll show you in a months or two, but it's fairly similar to the 11 month mark I'd say, if not the same. Hey I'd be interested if you have pictures to see how you've done with just minox.



The cutting isn't ideal, but once you're in a routine I think you come pretty used to it. I mean, the minoxidil regime is way more hassle if you ask me. I cover the fin when i'm taking my vitamin and fish oils, get it out the way first thing in the morning. Oh btw, if you decide to cut the pills, you need a plastic/sandwich type bag for the pieces ("Great!" you're probably thinking, haha) to prevent oxidisation.

The "sides" i've noticed are hard to pin down, but they mainly correlate with reducing the normal effects of DHT (libido, erectile function, semen production). I'll try to spare you too many details, but I visit porn less than half as frequently now, though I still have a healthy interest in women, and I've had no problems during sex. Those spontaneous erections no longer occur, and infrequent morning wood - neither of these things bother me, in fact they are more convenient. I would say it takes more to get hard, more to stay hard, but again no real problem, i'm no candidate for Viagra put it that way. Semen volume and quality I think is reduced, though it fluctuates, probably because I've toyed around with the dose a lot, it's hard for me to make any conclusions related to dose. On that note, I forced some blood work out of my doc last week, though they were very reluctant to do anything. My testosterone is adequate, but my FSH (responsible for sperm production) was at the bottom of the range, which is extremely concerning. I'm phoning my doctor about it tomorrow, but no matter what she says, i'm lowering the dose and asking for another test.

Asides from the almost expected effects of lowering DHT might bring, some times over the 18 months I get a disconcerting testicle ache, though it's going to take me a lot more serious tracking to tell you why and when that happens. I think it happened at 1mg, and I think it happened when I started/restarted the drug after a 2 week break. For now, it's very infrequent, and I'm hoping It never happens with a low dose.

Well I feel your pain JJ, but what i've learnt is that treating it helps me to forget about it. I went from thinking about it all day, to being able to forget about it. As much as I like to help others, I know that coming to the forum and reading the horror stories is a very bad idea. Perhaps all my side effects are caused by the fact that I had read them before? I don't think so, but there's probably a psychosomatic influence whether I think there is or not. For me, spencers show provides me with the one hour hair loss information I need to hair a week If you know what I mean, whilst making me laugh and feel not too bad about the whole thing.

Sorry for the extremely long post, let me know your thoughts.

Unk

[JJacobs152]

Thanks for the awesome and informative post. Also in the medical field myself, studying for my boards as we speak. Don't advertise it too much or like to give people I'm in another field.

I guess beggers can't be choosers in the fact that fin works well against DHT, but being a competitive antagonist - I guess that explains why it takes so longer for it to take action, compared to RU which is a non-competitive and results can be seen around the 6mth margin.

For the cutting, I'll probably just cut all the pills when I'm taking a break one day, and throw them in a ziploc bag, so I won't have to deal with it again. As for the s/e - I am a strong believer in that what you read you can get. As you mentioned, if 1 person mentioned getting ED, I'm sure many will. Just a psychological problem. As for your FSH levels to be low, that's interesting. Sounds like a problem with the pituitary - how did the GnRH levels and ACTH levels come in?

[unk]

Ah congrats man, best of luck! You shouldn't feel pressure telling people, you still don't know anything right? You can go with that! haha.

To tell you the truth, I haven't done my due diligence with RU. I just hear about a legit compound being hard to obtain, then you gotta dissolve it yourself - I mean cutting pills is bad enough, let alone setting up a little home lab. However a topic deserves backing, and I don't know what's the deal with it. As an outsider not knowing anything about its situation, it seems very odd that it doesn't have a big company buying in, unless it's tied to an existing patent or something. But I'm not gonna pretend to understanding trade law.

Well i'm from the UK, where the health service is public. The backlash of that is that general problems have to go through your GP, and they have limited budgets and whatnot so it's pretty hard to even get a referral to a specialist, and when you do, you're on a waiting list.

I saw a couple of GP's about hair loss, and they fobbed me off, clueless about there being FDA medication, and they made it clear they don't prescribe anything for hair loss. So I went to another GP complaining of low libido and fatigue, and asked them for total T/free-T levels, general bloods, full hormone panel. The first test came back as "all normal". So I asked for a printout of the results, and there was nothing but blood counts. I told them and then they took another sample, this time coming back with another "normal". Printout shows total T, FSH, fasting glucose - and that's it. I think I'm going to have to ask for an endo referral, preferably someone with an interest in hair loss. Though I'm not expecting much. I haven't actually had a diagnosis of MPB yet, though by now I can be fairly sure.

You might have a problem storing pills smaller than 0.2, they are a little crumbly. I have to cut a pill as little as often.