ER Doctor said to STOP propecia/rogaine, hair regimen!!!

[Nickie]

I couldn't believe my EARS! I went to the ER with a viral infection told her all the things I"m taking, meds, supplements, etc, and when I mentioned the supplements, like cranberry,green tea, detox, rogaine propecia, etc, she looked at me and said, "these things are going to make you worse, NOT better, and they increase chances of liver poisoning, more taxing on your organs, and can increase chances of it interfering with other drugs + long term risks." She literally said, stop the rogaine/propecia, they hardly work, and just shave it off if it becomes a problem.

AN ER doctor! I've had other doctors who kind of said the same thing.

Anyways what do I do? I'm now worried.

She called this board and other boards, like webMD sites, etc, ridiculous, hypochondria paranoid BS.

She said, live your life, b e happy, stop worrying to such a great extent, because you're wasting your intelligence, sanity, and quite possibly health and money on things which will only make you worse.


WTF!!!!!!!!!

 

[Aplunk1]

Dude, I almost got a seizure reading this post.

Calm down, man.

She doesn't give a sh*t about your hair. Talk to a dermatologist for a better opinion, someone who specializes in skin care.

 

[youngbaldie]

I couldn't believe my EARS! I went to the ER with a viral infection told her all the things I"m taking, meds, supplements, etc, and when I mentioned the supplements, like cranberry,green tea, detox, rogaine propecia, etc, she looked at me and said, "these things are going to make you worse, NOT better, and they increase chances of liver poisoning, more taxing on your organs, and can increase chances of it interfering with other drugs + long term risks." She literally said, stop the rogaine/propecia, they hardly work, and just shave it off if it becomes a problem.

AN ER doctor! I've had other doctors who kind of said the same thing.

Anyways what do I do? I'm now worried.

She called this board and other boards, like webMD sites, etc, ridiculous, hypochondria paranoid BS.

She said, live your life, b e happy, stop worrying to such a great extent, because you're wasting your intelligence, sanity, and quite possibly health and money on things which will only make you worse.


WTF!!!!!!!!!

Don't listen to her. She is just trying to impose her beliefs upon you for whatever reason.

I wouldn't give her a second thought. A lot of docs know very little about genetic sensitivity to androgens or to what extent they wreak havoc on the scalp.

If she had this condition, trust me, she wouldn't be so self righteous if she was furiously scratching her bleeding scalp and hair 24 hours a day. And she certainly wouldn't want to 'shave it off' (not that this would even help the itch and burn at all anyway).

Don't worry about her. She may just be trying to help out in her own way, but she is ignorant about your options.

 

[Apoc]

Ask her out. She likes shaved heads and she's a doctor. What more could you want. Was she hot?

 

[Johnny24601]

re:

She makes a valid point in regards to the fact that many balding men allow their hairloss to take over their lives and websites like this can increase those feelings of inadequacy by providing a constant avenue to remind the individual of his negative feelings towards his hairloss. I read so many men on this website who are obsessive over their hair and spend more time trying to "fix" their hairloss as opposed to accepting a genetic condition and making small steps to PERHAPS slowing down or halting an issue that bothers them. Basically I think many people on this Site lack perspective and it is troubling.
However, she should not be making such broad statements without referring you to evidence that the meds and supplements you are taking are destroying your liver and not helping you much. Very irresponsible for an "expert" to throw around her opinions to patients who value her judgment. ER doctors are paid to address their patients emergency conditions and not provide broad opinions on subjects that they may not know much about.

 

[Nickie]

By the way, this doctor also went "It must take a looooong time to shave your whole body," because I do sometimes (not often) go to a spa, and get a full treatment and get waxed, because it feels really good. You just have that, fresh back from vacation look and feel, and it's the next best thing to actually going on a vacation.

Anyways off topic but, I just kind of got the sense of, why should she care? It's my business. And then she goes on about the hairloss.

Does she not realize that I'm just TRYING to take care of myself? I'm going to a spa and getting waxed because I like it, I take supplements and hair meds because I care about my health/wellness and hair, and I exercize because I care about my body and MYSELF!

These should be signs that the patient is going to great lengths to care for themselves and their appearance. I can understand how the body waxing thing could be extreme or gay, being that I'm a guy, but I'm not ashamed of that. I love it! I also highly recommend it.

Instead she gives me all of this, tests me for lyme disease and thyroid, because I did go to the ER for a fever that gave me an asthma attack, had nothing to do with hairloss.

Yet, this Doctor focuses on all of this other peripheral bull, and then states, that she thinks I may benefit from talking to the ER PSYCHOLOGIST! She sent me to a shrink!

She thinks that I freak out alot, overreact, and that is making all of my problems worse.

Instead of her seeing that I'm just a bit complicated in all the right ways, she decides to label me as a compulsive stressed out basket case, and sends me to the psych, AND comments on my body hair out of all things!?!?!


Why must people make judgements like that?

IT's frustrating especially at an ER.


Asking her out!??!? HOT? She wasn't bad at all, but I mean, dude I wasnt there on a date. I was there b/c I was having a health condition problem. That wasn't on my mind, you social climbing wench ( joke, dont get offended) .

The ER psychologist who saw me, knew I was totally fine, and that was that.

Ugh.

I AM NOT STOPPING my hair meds for THAT advice.

I'm just frustrated that I have to PAY for this "service," and I'm not getting anything I couldn't have gotten by myself.

I learn more from these FORUMS than from the doctors.

They seem to have an extremely simplistic approach.

To them it's like "pop a vitamin, drink water daily, eat right," and that's that.

Can u believe that?

I'm sorry but, that's good advice for a 5 year old!

That's common sense!

I knew that back then.

Jeez.

 

[bubka]

i think it would help to elaborate the "health condition problem" you were having, as to why she suggested dropping those meds, i am sure the two are related

 

[Nickie]

Well I wasn't experiencing drug interraction or intoxication, or allergy, or OD, so I don't see how what I was taking contributed or caused any problem.

Actually, I can't blame her. Maybe she was really trying to help.

Although they should refrain from making comments about other things like body hair. lol. totally irrelevant.

 

[stampede]

This is one thing I hate about the medical profession.

What seems to count is what they percieve to be important. And to hell with the patient.

:evil:

 

[Johnny24601]

re:

I do think many doctors and the general public think that an MD means the person is infallible in regards to most health issues. Without understanding your personnel history and understanding why you do or do not do certain things, she should not be commenting on anything other then why you are in that ER room.
As an aside, I think working out is different then taking a medication for hairloss and/or getting your body hair waxed. Working out is something that (at its core) is done for overall health, the other things are strictly for appearance and image. You seem to group these things together as I hope you do not work out just to look good but more to feel good (though looking good is certainly a nice bonus). Now I am not saying that having pride in the way you look is wrong, but I will point out that IMO many men and women (especially in the US) allow their outside appearance to define themselves and it is also something they use to define others.
I for one think it is lame for men to go get a waxing or go tanning and I am sure the men who do spend a significant amount of time and money on their appearance would not enjoy being friends with someone like me. I also don't think women should be spending so much on waxing, tanning, clothes, makeup and procedures to enhance/maintain their physical beauty, but that is a fight that appears impossible to win.

 

[goata007]

"these things are going to make you worse, NOT better, and they increase chances of liver poisoning, more taxing on your organs, and can increase chances of it interfering with other drugs + long term risks."

She is correct about that though! I've seem some posters' regime and it is scary - all the vitamins, herbs & supplements they are taking.

 

[youngbaldie]

"these things are going to make you worse, NOT better, and they increase chances of liver poisoning, more taxing on your organs, and can increase chances of it interfering with other drugs + long term risks."

She is correct about that though! I've seem some posters' regime and it is scary - all the vitamins, herbs & supplements they are taking.

I take green tea extract, soy isoflavones and a multivitamin with iodine. I don't see how these things are dangerous to one's healthy. Supposedly they have great health benefits which is the main reason I still take them.

In my opinion, from Nickie's account anyway, the doctor is way off base and is being alarmist.

Perhaps if he was taking Ephedrine or some other supplement with known dangerous adverse effects I could understand her, but from what I have read, it doesn't seem thats the case.

I mean, green tea extract making you worse? I just don't know where she is getting that from.

If anything, the potent antibiotics or other medicines they prescribe have much more dangerous potential for adverse events. Obviously, these meds are sometimes necessary to treat severe illness, but how is something as benign as Green Tea more dangerous than these?

 

[Nickie]

The ER doctor seems to believe that anything in pill form/herbal etc should be taken ONLY under direct superviision by a medical professional, or shouldn't be taken at all. She says to treat it seriously.

That I can understand.

I don't think she said it's absolutely forbidden, just not the best for us I guess. Doesn't make sense though. I asked her, then why is it being sold worldwide, and produces mass profits, and isn't being pulled off the market, and all the studies, etc?

Whatever, anyways the real issue is the hair drugs.

She was convinced that propecia/rogaine did not work and were a total waste.

I wonder why an MD would say that. My parents say the same thing too.


Weird.

 

[kalbo]

Well I must say, I'm actually glad that there are doctors out there who actually advise people to NOT take drugs. Too many of them seem to be tools of the drug industry and prescribe you pills when they are not only unnecessary, but potentially damaging to your health.

And I do agree with her to an extent about websites like these that feed into our insecurities and force us to buy things that we probably would be better off not buying at all. However, she probably doesn't actually come onto sites like these. She may be surprised to see that a lot of us have put things into perspective and that sites like these are a great support group for people dealing with male pattern baldness.

Having said that, I can't say if her comments were out of line. Maybe there are legitimate reasons for her to believe that propecia is probably doing your body more harm than good. Her comments about the body hair do seem a bit out of line though. Like would she make the same remarks to women who shave/wax their body all the time? Of course not, and there shouldn't be this double standard.

 

[mulder]

This just sound like an arrogant doctor who's decided how her silly little patients should live their lives. I doubt she knows much of anything about hair loss and potential treatments. There definitely are a lot of balding dudes who would be fine and happier just shaving their domes but that's definitely not the case for all- everyone is different, hair loss for some means a real decline in their quality of life (and its not all psychological). Sounds like a typical middle aged broad, busy body that thinks she has all the answers.


This actually makes me angry because think of all the guys she said similar things to dissuading them from taking propecia. They end up going bald when for most it would have been prevented. Perhaps most of them adjust and are just fine, but for some it really does mean an significantly lower quality of life and it could have been prevented. Like it or not but everyone judges everyone else on appearance- for some having hair makes a tremendous difference in that regard.

 

[badasshairday III]

Every drug has its own risks. For example there are drugs out there that control say cholesterol which would reduce your risk for heart attack but the side effects could be terrible too and risky. But the docs make the judgement on a cost/benefit analysis. For her it seems that taking meds for your hair is not important at all because losing your hair isn't going to kill you. Unfortunately, she fails to realize that some guys are very affected psychologically by this and that it is better that they are on meds. Everyone is different.

 

[Old Baldy]

Sorry guys, she made a knee-jerk STUPID statement IMHO.

 

[Johnny24601]

She was convinced that propecia/rogaine did not work and were a total waste.

I wonder why an MD would say that. My parents say the same thing too.

The question is whether any of these people have presented any real information to corroborate their point of view. Do you think it is responsible for anyone to make such comments without also discussing their evidence used to reach such conclusions? What's important is that each individual take in all the research, opinions and evidence and reach their own conclusion.
Now I cannot claim that finasteride is 100% safe, but I researched the drug for some time and have seen overwhelming evidence that it is effective in at least slowing down a man's rate of hairloss and carries with it minimal risk. I believe I have drastically slowed down my hairloss and have seen minimal sides. This is my reality......

 

[youngbaldie]

She was convinced that propecia/rogaine did not work and were a total waste.

I wonder why an MD would say that. My parents say the same thing too.


Weird.

Ok, I may be over analyzing things here, but I doubt it. Here is my take on this.

I think some people, (some) doctors in particular, tend to be threatened by the idea of men treating their baldness, which they consider to be a vanity issue. It has always been the cultural norm for men to 'just deal with it'. Doctors treat life threatening diseases every day and see a lot of sick and dying people.

Now it is a new thing that men are turning to pharmaceuticals to treat their hair loss. I believe this very idea threatens these doctors' value system and their sense of what they consider to be the right perspective.

It doesn't matter what evidence you show them, or how much scientific research or credible results are presented, they will never change their mind.

Its not that they know hair loss drugs don't work, they choose to believe they don't despite all of the evidence to the contrary, because it fits into their world view.

Given the level of stress that doctors face and the amounts of heartache that they see from suffering, dying patients on a regular basis, I think they should be given a little slack. But I do believe at the same time they tend to develop a sense of arrogance and they try to impose their viewpoints on other people a little too much. Again, somewhat understandable, given the stress of their jobs and the things they have seen, but still nonetheless arrogant in my opinion.

Just because male pattern baldness is not life threatening does not mean that you should not attempt to treat it if it bothers you. Especially since there are valid treatment options available which have real scientific evidence to back them up. I mean, the FDA approved Propecia and Rogaine. If doctors still refuse to believe these things ever work, what more can be said?

Acne is not life threatening. Does that mean it should never be treated? Does that make you shallow and insecure if you choose to treat your acne?

And this kind of thinking goes beyond doctors. You said your parents believe the same thing. I don't know your parents, but how could they possibly 'know' that propecia/rogaine don't work? Have they done any research into these drugs?

Again, just the idea of treating baldness is still not accepted by most people in the world. They don't even view it as a disorder/disease/condition (whatever you prefer to call it) that needs to be treated. They view it as a part of life, a passage into manhood. Attempting to change your genetics over something 'cosmetic' is viewed as a weak attitude. I couldn't disagree more. Vitiligo, acne, baldness, large birthmarks on the face, scar tissue, I don't care what kind of 'cosmetic' problem a person is facing. If it is causing them significant mental anguish and they have the means to treat it, they should have the right to.

If these conditions don't bother an affected person, thats great too, more power to them.

And lets not forget that these same doctors tend to view pyschiatry/psychology in a very positive light. Didn't you say that this ER had you see a psych. person because you treat your baldness?

Something about that just doesn't sit right with me. Perhaps if you were going around trying to pressure every balding man you saw in the ER to take Propecia/Rogaine, then her actions might be warranted, but this is not what happened........at all.

Sorry for the long and tedious rant. This account of yours at the ER just rubs me the wrong way. A medical doctor treating you as a psych. case for something as harmless as taking FDA approved drugs for their prescibed purposes really bothers me. I guess I may be reading too much into it and obsessing over it a bit much. Oh well.

 

[Old Baldy]

I agree pretty much Younghair. Doctors don't usually like us medically treating something they view as cosmetic IMHO. They don't seem to, on average, want us messing around with our bodies unless it's "necessary" IMHO.

I can respect that. But....... she still made a stupid, knee jerk statement IMHO. :lol: I mean, she could have just said "male pattern baldness isn't important enough IMHO for you to mess around with your physiology".