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  1. #1
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    Default Propecia losing it's efficacy after 20 plus years

    Hey everyone,

    I've been reading this site for some time. I have been obsessed with hair loss since I was 14-years-old (I am now 40). My maternal grandfather was completely bald. My father is a NW 1.5-2 at the age of 70. Two of my three younger brothers were completely bald in their 20s. I started taking propecia twenty years ago when a friend of mine told me I was thinning in my crown region. She was probably pointing out a cowlick, but this prompted me to see a dermatologist, who started me on propecia.

    I have basically taken propecia daily for the last twenty years. There is little doubt in my mind that it has curbed my hair loss. I recently saw Dr. Shapiro for consideration of a hair transplant to fill in my temples, and he felt I didn't need a hair transplant. He characterized my hair as a Norwood 1. To this end, I do feel that I have lost a significant amount of hair over the past six months, including the two months since I was seen by Dr. Shapiro. The hair is miniaturized, and my hairline has receded. I would call it a Norwood 1.5-2 to be honest. I went through a tremendous amount of stress the last 3-6 months which may be contributing to my hair loss, but I am concerned the hairs I am finding are miniaturized and I am seeing diffuse thinning. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I firmly believe nobody knows your hair like you do.

    I joined this blog for a couple of reasons. First, I felt my experience on propecia may be useful to some of you. Second, I am having some issues now that I would like some advice on.

    I never had issues with libido while taking propecia. However, it did drastically impact my sperm count, morphology, and motility. My wife and I had difficulty having children, and I had a formal sperm analysis. My sperm count while on propecia was about 17 million (normal is 20-200 million). My morphology and motility were significantly abnormal. The urologist I met with told me to come off of propecia for 2-3 months and then be retested. I did so and my sperm count increased to 40 million. My motility improved, but my morphology remained abnormal. My sperm DNA fragmentation index was normal. Ultimately, we had twin boys via in vitro fertilization, and I immediately went back on propecia. To this end, I will say that we had a female fertility issue, so it's unclear to me if I could have conceived a child on propecia or not. I did see very mild hair loss while I was off propecia that started about three weeks after I was off the drug.

    When I was off of propecia I did realize a few things. Propecia clearly blunted my orgasms, as the orgasms I had while off the drug were profound relative to when I was on the drug. It also reduced the size of my erect penis by about 1-2 inches. Fortunately, I was fairly large to begin with. I'm not tooting my own horn here, but I'm just trying to be as informative as possible for all of you. One weird symptom I had on propecia was I would intermittently get this eerie feeling I was dying when I would sleep at night. Indeed, this feeling would wake me up from a cold slumber, and was really freaky. I haven't had this feeling for over a year now.

    I am now 40 years old and I have noticed that my hairline has been receding slowly the last several years. However, as above, I've recently noticed rapid hair loss in the context of several other symptoms. First, my crown has been intermittently tingling and my scalp feels oilier than normal. My libido, which has always been excellent, has been on overdrive of late. My face has been very oily and I've been developing sebaceous gland hyperplasia on my nose and face at what I feel is a relatively rapid pace. I can't help but wonder if my testosterone level is elevated at this juncture due to inhibition of DHT production, but this seems odd so late in the game. Has anyone else experienced anything along these lines?

    For the experts in the audience, I am wondering if I should change my propecia to dutasteride at this time? I don't want to take minoxidil, and nizoral caused a massive shed for me within days. I would love to hear from people who were on propecia and made such a switch due to propecia no longer working. I would also love to hear from people who have been on dutasteride/avodart for some time. In addition, I would like to know if anyone else has developed oily skin/enlargement of their oil glands while on the drug.

    I am not a dermatologist or hair transplant doctor. I would be willing to share my propecia experience with any and all of you. I can tell you that I feel it has worked for me for nearly twenty years. Take care...

  2. #2
    Senior Member HTsoon's Avatar
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    You couldn't have children normally due to propecia?? This is concerning and unsettling, did you confirm with your urologist if it was the propecia or maybe you were just born with less sperm?

    Edit: I just read it was a female fertility issue.

  3. #3
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    No that's not right. As I said, we had a major female fertility issue, which was probably the culprit. Yet, our IVF specialist wanted to ensure we optimized our chances at getting pregnant by dealing with my issues as well.

  4. #4
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    Oh, and it was definitely propecia that impacted my sperm. As i said, after only two months off the drug, motility and count normalized. There is no question the drug can adversely affect sperm.

  5. #5
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    Wow u lost 1-2 inches of length.. considering im small average size if i lost 2 inches due to propecia my penis would be useless.. are you sure your loss of length was from propecia or just genreal aging?

    I am scared for life now

    Btw did you say you lost size while ON propecia or while you went OF propecia

  6. #6
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    wow Reading your story has put me off 100% to even try finasteride for a third time..just not Worth it in the "long run"...im just 5,5 to 6 inches cant afford to lose length and all the other stuff u told... just wanna ask did you have ANY sort of Eye problems while on finasteride for the last 20 years? no dryness? no blurriness or worse Eye sight? no blocked Eye glands nothing? I get severely dry Eyes just a month into finasteride I know I cant tolerate this drug...

  7. #7
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    yea cause that shit is TOXIC to ur body! and its not the end all be all either of course ur gonna start losing ur hair its not some magic pill that keeps ur hair forever it simply slows down the process but the penis shrinking size thing has absolutely nothing to do with propecia that retarded sounding

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by King0 View Post
    Wow u lost 1-2 inches of length.. considering im small average size if i lost 2 inches due to propecia my penis would be useless.. are you sure your loss of length was from propecia or just genreal aging?

    I am scared for life now

    Btw did you say you lost size while ON propecia or while you went OF propecia
    My erect penis was 1 to 2 inches smaller on propecia

  9. #9
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    I did have occasional blurred vision but that was generally fatigue. I did not have other eye issues.

  10. #10
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    For the experts in the audience, I am wondering if I should change my propecia to dutasteride at this time?
    That's usually what people do in your case, yeah, or increase the propecia dosage.

    As for the symptoms of increased libido, oily skin and scalp...those when seen together are usually accused of being symptoms of reflex hyperandrogenicity caused by propecia. Unfortunately, so is everything else, because everybody's understandably fearful that they're taking a drug that's actually making their hair worse. As for why it's happening now after all this time, who really knows, but you wouldn't be the first.

    I wish I could make a suggestion but that's something that doesn't seem to happen commonly enough to know what the best course of action is...

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