Does Propecia work for life if it works

[ProscarRules]

That is the answer I received from my dermatologist, and other dermatologists and hair trans surgeon simply said I have take them for life, but purusing on this GourmetStyleWellness forum and other forums, it seems like that is simply NOT the case as over time all medicines including propecia and/or minoxidil will lose effectiveness. So it appears like even if Propecia or minoxidil works for you, what you are doing in buying time waiting in hope of something better coming out. I wonder why the professional do not tend to get into this issue of medinces losing effectiveness over time. We as patient MUST know all variabbles in the equation to be able to make educated choice in treatment.

 

[rtc84]

I've read that with propecia, it does not lose effectiveness.

 

[Wuffer]

It will likely not last for life. Depending on how aggressive your male pattern baldness is, your hair folicles will continue to become more sensitive to DHT. Since finasteride only inhibits 65% of DHT, the remaining 35% may be enough to cause further hair loss. This may be remedied by switching to Dutasteride, which inhibits 95%. As long as you catch your hair loss long enough, going on finasteride then dutasteride when needed would likely save your hair for life, if not for a few decades.

 

[abcdefg]

I think yes as well you can keep your hair but the key is prevention. I think propecia though is not ideal anti androgen and does not inhibit DHT enough to keep hair for life but it still helps a very long time such as 10 year study.

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I think its important to note that in my opinion without propecia there literally would be no option to try keeping your hair long term. Propecia was a super huge important advancement in hair loss and I think many men just take it for granted but without it you would have no chance.

 

[WarLord]

I read a blog by Dr Rassman saying that eventually your genes will catch up, we are simply delaying the inevitable, but the exact timing is unknown since everyone will react differently. Could delay it 10 years or longer.

Dr Rassman spreads unsubstantied speculations. He lives in the time 25 years ago, when we had no treatments and the perspective was negative. He can't know, if the treatment will work indefinitely, because the longest study that we have lasted 10 years.

Considering that finasteride will lower your DHT on the level of pre-pubertal children, it is likely that it will work almost indefinitely. Note please that an early 5-years' study found only 10% men below baseline after 5 years. The 10-years' study of Rossi et al. demonstrated that only 14% men had worsened. This doesn't look like a progressively decreasing effeciacy. So what does mr. Rassman base his blog on? The answer: He simply makes it up, because he thinks that the treatments will be ineffective similarly like those that we had 25 years ago.

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I think yes as well you can keep your hair but the key is prevention. I think propecia though is not ideal anti androgen and does not inhibit DHT enough to keep hair for life but it still helps a very long time such as 10 year study.

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I think its important to note that in my opinion without propecia there literally would be no option to try keeping your hair long term. Propecia was a super huge important advancement in hair loss and I think many men just take it for granted but without it you would have no chance.

There doesn't exist any sufficiently long-term study on minoxidil. Considering that at least some people have been keeping hair on minoxidil alone for 15-20 years (me included), it shows that keeping hair on minoxidil alone is not an impossible task. It most likely requires only individually appropriate dosage.

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It will likely not last for life. Depending on how aggressive your male pattern baldness is, your hair folicles will continue to become more sensitive to DHT. Since finasteride only inhibits 65% of DHT, the remaining 35% may be enough to cause further hair loss. This may be remedied by switching to Dutasteride, which inhibits 95%. As long as you catch your hair loss long enough, going on finasteride then dutasteride when needed would likely save your hair for life, if not for a few decades.

The evidence that we have rather testifies that it could last for life. Therefore, your statement is not based on evidence, but only on a personal opinion that has its roots in the deep prehistory, when no treatments were available. Since your DHT levels on finasteride are at or below 15 ng/dl (i.e. like in prepubertal children), why don't prepubertal children go bald?

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look at the ten year study. it says it gets better in efficacy as time goes on. for some it works for some it doesn't

Correct. The response is always individual. Apparently, in 21% people in the Rossi et al.'s study, 1 mg finasteride daily was able to comfortably overpower the balding process and produced results even after 10 years. The drug was simply enough strong and gave no chance to DHT. In me, mere 2% minoxidil was keeping hair for 11,5 years without problems, although I have never regrown any hair on it. It is likely that it worked so strongly that there was a big reserve between its effect and the progression of the balding process. After I switched to 5% minoxidil, I regrew few thin hairs. (Which means that 5% minoxidil was noticeably stronger than 2% minoxidil 11,5 years ago.) On 15% minoxidil, 3 years later, these thin hairs turned into strong ones, and I regrew few dozens of further thin hairs.

Here you can see the grades of efficiacy. So I don't buy the claim that the drugs "will stop working". Gosh! Someone simply needs 10% minoxidil to achieve the long-term success like me. Others will need 15%. But it should never stop working, if the dose can keep up with the balding process. People, who use the same stuff without changes, despite the progression of the balding process, are fools.

 

[Sparky4444]

No way will it last for life....It didn't for me --- 6 years about....And if you search on this forum, you'll find that the 6 year mark is a common benchmark for when it goes south for a lot of men...

....finasteride doesn't reduce DHT directly and that is the problem...So staying on that for life is insanity...You'd be messing yourself up real bad....This drug is more dangerous than what has been published...my doctor told me so!!!

 

[abcdefg]

Well its not always 6 years it depends on the person. Your doctor is guessing by saying its more dangerous unless he was more specific. Staying on it for life is not as insane as it sounds many men have been on for 15+ years with no problems and there are biological models of people that live whole life with same hormonal profile.
Fear mongering does no good if your doctor has real science maybe he should publish it might be more useful to people. Evidence so far suggests finasteride is still very safe.

 

[abcdefg]

I personally still think testosterone plays a role in hair loss and dealing with it is needed to stop male pattern baldness completely. That is why I think CB 03 01 will be so effective if it ends up working because you need to stop both DHT and T to truly stop male pattern baldness. The upregulation though and increase in receptors I think also play big roles in why propecia is not perfect.

 

[Beingbaldsucksass]

I dont mind being bald at my 40'

 

[Quadzilla99]

I dont mind being bald at my 40'

Thats because you're not 40 now

 

[Beingbaldsucksass]

Thats because you're not 40 now

In my country it's rare to not go bald after 45, and none of them care, they lived a full life in thier 20 and 30 with zero baldness, all they care now is politics and old people stuff, they all have families, kids are grown, wives are fatasses anyway so they can't complain, it's not like in your 20 when everyone is young and attractive and you look like ****, when your old it's okay too look like ****

 

[Steven85]

Haha, I was about to ask the same question!

 

[Beingbaldsucksass]

where you from beingbaldsucksass?

Israel, baldness is very common here on males beyond 45, and there also many around 30

 

[Thom]

Have to find a wife....then surprise her by quitting all treatments in the first year of marriage. Watch the hair disappear!

 

[Night]

So new studies show it works for longer than 10 years?

So lets say the 6 year mark is correct. Do you want 6 more years of better than baseline hair or do you want to look worse in 6 years?

 

[WarLord]

No way will it last for life....It didn't for me --- 6 years about....And if you search on this forum, you'll find that the 6 year mark is a common benchmark for when it goes south for a lot of men...

....finasteride doesn't reduce DHT directly and that is the problem...So staying on that for life is insanity...You'd be messing yourself up real bad....This drug is more dangerous than what has been published...my doctor told me so!!!

Since it didn't work for you, it can't work for anybody, right? This is just the thing that I despise on internet hairloss forums. The cumulation of frustrated guys, often hysterical hypochondriacs, who extrapolate their bad experience and infect people's minds. If we were to conclude something from these "common experiences" on internet forums, then almost everybody on finasteride would suffer from impotence and gynecomastia, and almost everybody on minoxidil would have a puffy face and couldn't stand wild heart palpitation. The truth is that these side effects occur only in few percent of users. Sometimes even in less than 1 percent of users.

Statistically, Mr. Sparx4444 represents an experience that happens only in ca. 4% men during the first 10 years of finasteride use. That's it. Face it, mister. He would fit much better among his neurotic comrades on PropeciaHelp.com.

Furthermore, results in older men are better than in young men, which apparently has a lot to do with the decrease of hormonal levels. So if you get close to the age of 40 years, you should be O.K. virtually forever.

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to abcdefg: the pseudoherms had normal levels of testosterone and still no hairloss. they even had normal levels of reductase 1.


if propecia does cause upregulation and an increase in adrogen receptors, is it better to not take propecia in the first place? wont that accelrate the hairsloss? I thought propecia is used to prevent hairloss. if a person is suffering from hairloss, decides to take propecia and then accelarates his hairloss thorught the upregulation. might as well not take it and let nature take its course slower than accelarating with propecia.

Upregulation? So if my testosterone levels start to decrease after the age of 40, can I hope that androgen receptors in my muscles will be "upregulated" and I will keep my body-builder's look until the age of 100?

The discussion needs more common sense, guys. Actually, lots of people quote the study of Sawaya that deals with the upregulation of androgen receptors during the use of finasteride, but nobody actually knows the whole text. As far as I know, Sawaya demonstrated a POSITIVE changes in the expression of androgen receptors.
http://www.regrowth.com/hairloss-remedy/propecia/propecia_ar.cfm

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So new studies show it works for longer than 10 years?

So lets say the 6 year mark is correct. Do you want 6 more years of better than baseline hair or do you want to look worse in 6 years?

The most extensive studies showed that only 10% men on finasteride were losing hair after 5 years. The most recent study of Rossi et al. 2011 showed that only 14% men were losing hair after 10 years. 21% men further improved even after 10 years.

Does it look like a progressive acceleration of hair loss to you? Don't listen to what internet nutcases say!

 

[Night]

Since it didn't work for you, it can't work for anybody, right? This is just the thing that I despise on internet hairloss forums. The cumulation of frustrated guys, often hysterical hypochondriacs, who extrapolate their bad experience and infect people's minds. If we were to conclude something from these "common experiences" on internet forums, then almost everybody on finasteride would suffer from impotence and gynecomastia, and almost everybody on minoxidil would have a puffy face and couldn't stand wild heart palpitation. The truth is that these side effects occur only in few percent of users. Sometimes even in less than 1 percent of users.

Statistically, Mr. Sparx4444 represents an experience that happens only in ca. 4% men during the first 10 years of finasteride use. That's it. Face it, mister. He would fit much better among his neurotic comrades on PropeciaHelp.com.

Furthermore, results in older men are better than in young men, which apparently has a lot to do with the decrease of hormonal levels. So if you get close to the age of 40 years, you should be O.K. virtually forever.

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Upregulation? So if my testosterone levels start to decrease after the age of 40, can I hope that androgen receptors in my muscles will be "upregulated" and I will keep my body-builder's look until the age of 100?

The discussion needs more common sense, guys. Actually, lots of people quote the study of Sawaya that deals with the upregulation of androgen receptors during the use of finasteride, but nobody actually knows the whole text. As far as I know, Sawaya demonstrated a POSITIVE changes in the expression of androgen receptors.
http://www.regrowth.com/hairloss-remedy/propecia/propecia_ar.cfm

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The most extensive studies showed that only 10% men on finasteride were losing hair after 5 years. The most recent study of Rossi et al. 2011 showed that only 14% men were losing hair after 10 years. 21% men further improved even after 10 years.

Does it look like a progressive acceleration of hair loss to you? Don't listen to what internet nutcases say!

I'm not. Propecia works different for different types of people. Its all genetics etc. I was saying... even if it only works 6 years, that is 6 years of better hair.

 

[LawOfThelema]

Let's hope superior treatments come along and you won't have to worry about it working for life.

 

[Wuffer]

The evidence that we have rather testifies that it could last for life. Therefore, your statement is not based on evidence, but only on a personal opinion that has its roots in the deep prehistory, when no treatments were available. Since your DHT levels on finasteride are at or below 15 ng/dl (i.e. like in prepubertal children), why don't prepubertal children go bald?

Evidence suggests that it can last for over a decade for some men, but I haven't seen anything that it can last for a lifetime. This is not my personal opinion, because placebo controlled studies show the same thing. See the following chart:




Results seem to peak around 1-2 years, then gradually decline after that. Certainly many people will still be above baseline after 10+ years, but evidence suggests that people who stay on finasteride for longer will, on average, have less hair than they did at the 1-2 year mark. This doesn't mean that SOME men may have results that last a lifetime, but generally hair count decreases over time. This isn't because the medication stops working so to speak, but because hair follicles may become more sensitive to DHT.

Your question alluding to why children don't go bald is the same as asking why some men don't ever go bald. Children, much like some men, simply don't suffer from balding. No matter what their DHT levels are, their hair follicles simply won't react to it the same way ours does. Obviously when children turn into adults and age, this mechanism may get 'switched on', but for others it won't and they will be able to enjoy a full head of hair their entire life.

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No way will it last for life....It didn't for me --- 6 years about....And if you search on this forum, you'll find that the 6 year mark is a common benchmark for when it goes south for a lot of men...

....finasteride doesn't reduce DHT directly and that is the problem...So staying on that for life is insanity...You'd be messing yourself up real bad....This drug is more dangerous than what has been published...my doctor told me so!!!

Sparx, your posts are quite remarkable! So your personal experience was that it stopped working at 6 years, so then you conclude that 6 years is a benchmark for every other guy on earth that takes the medication? You are suggesting that everybody is identical and reacts to medications in the exact same way.

What do you mean finasteride doesn't reduce DHT directly? If it doesn't reduce DHT then what do you figure it does? Care to elaborate on how a person would mess themselves up "real bad" by staying on it?

If your doctor told you it's more dangerous than published, why did he keep writing you prescriptions for the drug? How does your doctor know for certain that it's more dangerous when these findings haven't been published? How does your doctor know these facts when no one else does?

 

[Night]

The reason we don't know if it will last a life time is because the drug hasn't been around that long. It was only FDA approved back in 1997.