Starting Finasteride (a beginners guide and success story) - BaldTruthTalk.com
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  1. #1
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    Default Starting Finasteride (a beginners guide and success story)

    Hi All,

    I'm writing this post because when I starting losing my hair 2 years ago, I promised myself that if the treatments ever started working, I would put my experience out there to give all of you who are just starting this horrible journey some hope.

    First off, I am not a trichologist (hair specialist) or a dermatologist. All of this is purely anecdotal and based on my own experience. Having said that, I think the most important thing for anyone who is just starting out to know, is that it really can work. There are so many threads on these forums about the side effects and how it doesn't work, and my heart does go out to the people for whom finasteride doesn't work, but at the end of the day - for most people it does. It seems to be that when it starts working, people get on with their lives and don't worry about hair loss forums anymore. Do not wait to get on finasteride, do it as soon as soon as you can and stop worrying about sides. If you get sides, stop taking it, but I can promise that if you wait to get on it and then start taking it later you will regret it wholeheartedly.

    The second piece of information I'd like to put out there is about how long it takes to start working. I have been on fin now for 1 and half years, and it only just started working. Now, that goes against all anecdotal evidence on these forums, and that caused me so much stress because i thought that if after a year it wasn't working, i was done for. However, in the last month and a half, I have seen an almost complete halt in hair loss. Weirdly, over the last 2 years, there were 4 separate isolated weeks where the hairloss seemed to halt, but it always returned (which is of course pretty crushing). The point I'm making is to not pay too much attention to what other people say specifically about their own fin experience - everyone reacts slightly differently and you don't need to worry if your hair loss medication doesn't follow the same timeline as someone elses.

    Sheds - they are demoralising and you will get them. There's not much more to say about them other than they blow dick real hard and they also mean the medication is working, so take heart and just power through.

    I have not had any severe sides fortunately, very occasionally I have slightly watery ejaculate, but its rare and I'm not even sure its the fin. Its sad that people get sides, but its even sadder that many people are so terrified of sides by these stories that they won't even try it. It means that across the world, so many men who could keep their hair, don't. When I first started losing my hair, I was the same - they offered me fin but from the small amount of reading I'd done I said 'no way, I've heard what that can do' and left with some minoxidil. 3 weeks and a lot of research later, I realised that the chance of sides was actually tiny, and switched to fin.

    What I want anyone reading this to take away from my experience is this: I am a 24 year old who has been losing hair for 2 years, but finasteride has now stabilised my hair loss, and I have a (visually at least) full head of hair. I did lose a lot of hair over those 2 years, but the amount of hair you can lose without it actually being very noticeable is amazing. I would say that when its wet, you can tell that its quite thin at the front, but in all honesty, it would be very ungrateful to be too unhappy about that.

    Don't be scared of fin, I believe its our greatest ally in this fight. Don't lose hope when you're on it, there is an 8.6/10 chance you will benefit from it. Don't spend too much time trawling the forums, it really depressed me and made it much harder to deal with because there's so much negativity and anger floating around. Stay strong brothers, as hard and unfair as our situation may seem, there is hope.


    NB: I understand that I've had a pretty good experience compared to some people on here, I don't want this to offend anyone. This post is the post I wish had existed when I started losing my hair - a post to give me hope. Its unbelievable how hard it is to find posts on this forum saying positive things about fin. I am not interested in other peoples opinions RE my experience, so I will only answer questions from people starting out on the hair loss journey who might want info or reassurance.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Hairbrain's Avatar
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    Good post. Everyone reacts differently to Finasteride, but I think for the most part your story is a common example of the benefits. The sides are as real as they are rare. For the vast majority Finasteride remains a real viable option to hair loss sufferers.

  3. #3
    Junior Member
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    Do you have any before and after pics?

    I've been on fin for 6 months now, can't see much difference yet. If you click my profile and go to my post history I have started a propecia diary with pics of my crown each month.

  4. #4
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    That's encouraging - many thanks!

  5. #5
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    I'm bumping this because it is seriously encouraging. Can I ask OP what kind of hair loss did you have? Crown/temples/diffuse etc?

  6. #6
    Junior Member Dunase's Avatar
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    Been on it for 2 years, no side effects and grew most of my thinning hairline back. You wouldn't know I even had hair loss now just by looking at me, it was receding aggressively about 3 years ago but now I'm back to normal again after jumping on fin.

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