Finasteride For Baldness: Instructions For Use

2024 Author: Josephine Shorter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:43

Finasteride for baldness

What is Finasteride? How does this medication work?

As you know, scientists associate such a common phenomenon as male pattern baldness with the effect on the body of androgens - male sex hormones, one of the main among which is testosterone.

Testosterone plays a physiological role in the body as a shaper of traits inherent in men:

• Accelerated muscle growth
• Bone hardening
• Stimulation of the growth of the body and facial hair.

As it turns out, the hair on the head of most men reacts in the opposite way to androgens. On the parietal and frontal areas, the scalp produces a special type 2 5-alpha reductase enzyme, which is able to transform testosterone into dihydrotestosterone. This stronger hormone inhibits and gradually negates the formation of new hair roots.

Finasteride, on the other hand, directly affects the enzyme, therefore it is not a hormonal drug. 1 mg of Finasteride is able to block 5-alpha reductase in the amounts necessary to reduce the concentration of dihydrotestosterone by 70%.

Content:

• What is Finasteride? How does this medication work?
• How long should I take Finasteride to treat hair loss?
• How quickly will the treatment work?
• Contraindications: in what cases should Finasteride not be taken?
• Does finasteride affect a man's ability to conceive a child?
• Can a man taking Finasteride have sex with a pregnant woman?
• How to take Finasteride correctly?
• What side effects can Finasteride cause?
• Will Finasteride cause stronger hair growth in other areas of the body?
• How effective is Finasteride for male pattern baldness?

How long should I take Finasteride to treat hair loss?

Unfortunately, with the help of Finasteride, it is impossible to completely eliminate the causes of androgenic alopecia. The drug only temporarily protects hair follicles from the action of dihydrotestosterone. If treatment with Finasteride is stopped, the body gradually restores type 2 5-alpha reductase, and after a year, new regrown hair will fall out, and the balding process will start again and will progress.

Men who want to slow down baldness, or have already tried the remedy and are satisfied with the effect of restoring the hairline, should use Finasteride regularly.

How quickly will the treatment work?

The effect of Finasteride can be detected after at least three to four months of continuous use of the drug. This is due to the gradual suppression of the enzyme, which is produced by very small doses of the active substance of the drug.

It follows from this that complete hair restoration does not occur immediately, without surprises and magic. It is found first by a few new hairs in areas that have recently become bald, then by the overgrowth of these areas with thin young hair. At first, they are still experiencing the effect of the work of dihydrotestosterone residues, so they grow faded and thin. taking Finasteride from 6 months to a year in most cases gives the desired result in the form of new, healthy and thick hair, actively growing and occupying bald areas. According to statistics, two years of regular use of the drug is enough to track the maximum effect of treatment.

The feasibility of using Finasteride is followed a year after the start of therapy. For various reasons associated with the individual biochemical system of the body, some patients receive an unsatisfactory result. Another option used for hair restoration, if Finasteride did not help, is treatment with Minoxidil or hair transplant.

If the patient is quite satisfied with the speed of hair regrowth, therapy should be continued.

Contraindications: in what cases should Finasteride not be taken?

Like any other medicine, it is forbidden to take Finasteride if an individual allergic reaction to the active substance or components of the drug is detected.

In addition, a relationship was found between taking Finasteride and the concentration of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA. PSA is a compound of a complex protein nature, the degree of release of which is an indicator of the functioning of the prostate gland. In some cases, a urologist prescribes an analysis for PSA, since with an increase in its production, the likelihood of prostate cancer is high. In order to avoid misunderstandings, in this case, it is necessary to inform the doctor about the use of Finasteride in advance, since this drug usually significantly reduces the PSA concentration in the blood.

You can learn about PSA itself and the analysis for its concentration in various articles about the detection and treatment of cancer or prostate adenoma.

Taking Finasteride does not interfere with becoming a blood donor, but for this, the patient must indicate in the registration card the fact of regular use of this drug. This is necessary to avoid blood transfusions with Finasteride in pregnant women. The fact is that Finasteride provokes violations in the development of the fetus, and this should in no case be allowed.

Does finasteride affect a man's ability to conceive a child?

Finasteride is a substance that can penetrate the semen, but there is not enough data to study its effect on the quality of semen and the ability to conceive children by men. Therefore, the manufacturer is obliged to warn men that conceiving a child is not recommended during the period of drug use. Although there is no information on the negative effect of Finasteride on the course of pregnancy or the health of a child conceived by a sperm with a small amount of this substance.

With the planned conception, avoiding even the smallest risk will help the refusal to take Finasteride for three months before fertilization. If this happened without prior preparation, you don't have to worry again - not a single child has yet suffered from the father's medication for baldness.

Can a man taking Finasteride have sex with a pregnant woman?

Finasteride negatively affects the intrauterine development of the child. Given that the full cycle of withdrawal of the drug lasts about three months (depending on the metabolic rate and other individual factors), even those women who are just planning a pregnancy are strictly prohibited from taking the drug.

Men in this regard have nothing to worry about, since Finasteride penetrates the sperm in such small doses that they have no effect on the unborn child. In this regard, men have no barriers to having sex with a pregnant woman without a condom.

How to take Finasteride correctly?

Treatment of baldness with Finasteride is carried out by taking one pill per day. The regimen is tied to food intake. The medicine can be used both before and after meals - the main thing is that during the stay of the tablet in the gastrointestinal tract, digestion processes are started. Each tablet contains 1 mg of the active substance, the amount of which in the body increases every day due to the cumulative effect.

What side effects can Finasteride cause?

Clinical studies involving a large number of volunteers have shown that the overwhelming majority of male patients tolerate the effect of the drug well with a long course of use.

Finasteride usually does not cause side effects, but in some patients, while taking the drug, a decrease in libido, disturbances in the genital area, pain in the scrotum and a decrease in the amount of sperm secreted during ejaculation were noted.

The number of such cases is only 1.2% to 6% in different groups. The presence of such side effects is the reason for refusing treatment, after which all the above-mentioned effects cease to bother patients.

Will Finasteride cause stronger hair growth in other areas of the body?

In other areas of the skin, type 2 5-alpha reductase is absent, therefore, Finasteride is unable to affect hair growth anywhere, except for the frontal and parietal part of the head.

How effective is Finasteride for male pattern baldness?

A double-blind, placebo-controlled study shows that finasteride has a pronounced effect that is different from the placebo effect. The first year of clinical trials showed that 99% of the tested volunteers showed a cessation of baldness, that is, getting rid of the main symptom of androgenic alopecia. Unfortunately, in 1% of patients taking Finasteride, hair continued to fall out a year after treatment.

The restoration of the hair on the bald spot was found in one third of the patients, and in 18% of the subjects the changes were pronounced, and the hair became much larger. Finasteride therapy is most effective in treating alopecia in the early stages, when the disease lasts less than 10 years.

In order to enhance the effectiveness of the drug, trichologists recommend combining Finasteride and treatment with topical Minoxidil drugs.

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The author of the article: German Olga Leonidovna, trichologist, specially for the website ayzdorov.ru