Severity of Propecia shredding

[kanyon]

Hi I've posted here a few times and people probably know my story by now.

I've been using Rogaine on and off for 7 years and it worked wonderfully until about October last year. Then I lost a heap. Just before that (September) I started dating my girlfriend.

I thought Rogaine stopped working for me because I wasn't applying it regularly enough but since October I've used it everyday twice a day and haven't seen improvement. So I think it's useless to me now.

I don't think Rogaine is effective for me anymore and I think i'll start Propecia. My question is, my girlfiend is moving overseas in April for a year and we do have a future despite her going away. We'll probably resume our relationship when she returns.

I'm unsure whether I should start Propecia now with 4 months to go before she leaves and risk possible shredding or wait until she goes and then start with it. That way hopefully I won't lose a dramatic amount of hair before she goes and nothing will change for us.

How noticeable can shredding be and would you hold out for 4 months and maintain status quo?

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

Tough question. Some patients really do not experience any noticeable shedding while other do see a moderate amount. If you did get some shedding it would most likely occcur in the first 2-4 months.

[kanyon]

First of all apologies - I meant shedding not shredding.


Thanks Dr. Charles. I was going to wait the 4 months to start but I just couldn't afford to. I had my 1st mg of Proscar today.

I'm really hoping combined with the Rogaine (which I maintain has stopped working over the past few months) that I will at least see no evident hair loss or suffer from side effects in the next 4 months.

I did try Proscar for a few months back in 2003 and don't remember suffering any sides (although I wasn't sexually active then). My brother has been using it for a while too so that may be a good sign.

You hear so many bad stories of Propecia not working, perhaps causing irreversible shedding or side effects on forums like this that I wonder how common these occurrences actually are.