All About Propecia

Finasteride — known by its brand name Propecia — a medication approved to treat hair loss in men, may also improve the condition in women when combined with oral contraceptives, according to an article in the March issue of Archives of Dermatology. Find out more about this breaking news now.

As many as half of all women experience female pattern hair loss during their lifetimes, according to background information in the article. Women who are affected often report feelings of embarrassment and social anxiety and the condition often worsens if left untreated. Current treatment generally involves minoxidil (Rogaine), a medication typically applied to the scalp to encourage hair regrowth, which is effective but not always well accepted by patients, the authors report.

Matilde Iorizzo, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Bologna, Italy, evaluated the effectiveness of 2.5 milligrams of finasteride taken by mouth daily and combined with an oral contraceptive in 37 women aged 19 to 50 years who consulted a physician about their hair loss. The contraceptive was necessary to prevent pregnancy in women in the study, because finasteride is known to cause birth defects. The researchers selected a type of contraceptive that reduces levels of male hormones, because that effect may also contribute to the treatment of hair loss. They took photographs of the patients’ heads and assessed their hair density with a technique known as computerized light videodermoscopy at the beginning of the study and after they had taken the two medications for 12 months.

At the one-year mark, 23 (62 percent) patients were rated as improved using comparisons of the photographs. Thirteen patients did not improve, and one patient’s condition worsened. Hair density scores increased in 12 patients. On a questionnaire, 29 patients reported that their condition improved after 12 months, eight said that it had stabilized and none reported that it had worsened. None of the participants had adverse reactions to the treatment.

“This treatment was well accepted by the patients, who judged the results to be even better than did the investigators,” the authors write. “The clinical results using global photography, hair density scores and patient self-assessment provide a basis for future work. Further studies are needed to establish the optimal dosage and mode of administration of finasteride in premenopausal women and to definitively assess the efficacy of this drug compared with oral antiandrogens.”

Probably the single largest reason why men do not take the hair loss drug Propecia is it that they are concerned about the sexual side effects of using the drug.  For the vast majority of men having a good sexual function is far more important than having a full head of hair and thus when they read the small print that accompanies Propecia many of them get a little bit scared.

At Ukmedix News we want to remind you that this sexual side effect occurs in less than one percent of men and in every single case ever reported the reduction of erectile function went away immediately when the man stopped taking the drug. So look at it like this; if by an extremely remote chance you felt that your erectile function was not up to its usual standard when using the Propecia medication all you have to do is stop taking it and you are back to where you were before.

We have also noticed that manufacturers of products selling other hair loss treatments are keen to highlight this sexual side effect of Propecia in order so that they can increase the liklihood of themselves making a sale. It is worth remembering that the Propecia drug is the most effective drug treatment in the world by far to stop the process of genetic male pattern baldness and that with the exception of minoxidil there is no other properly tested and clinically proven way of reducing and preventing this type of baldness.

The other reason why men choose not to use Propecia is that they have read the accompanying literature with the drug which tells them they must not take it if they are trying to have children. It is felt by many doctors and scientists that Merck have merely decided to be overly cautious and that it is impossible for a foetus to be harmed by a man taking Propecia. It is worth knowing that 4 million men are using Propecia and the drug has been on sale for eight years now and that not one case of abnormality of a foetus has been reported to date. You should speak to your doctor about this. It is extremely dangerous for women of a child bearing age to take the Propecia drug.

So let’s examine the pros and cons of using the hair loss drug Propecia. Most of the men who use it at Ukmedix say that they love the fact that it can be administered so easily and discreetly. The pills are tiny and can easily be hidden in a wash bag and so no one is the wiser that you are using it. Other hair loss medications usually involve you applying something directly to your scalp. This is time consuming requires dedication and patience and can sometimes leave your hair looking wet.

Some hair loss lotions that are applied to the scalp can be an irritant and may cause you to scratch your hair at night. This is very bad for your scalp and you will pull out more hair when you do this. Men are notoriously impatient when it comes to applying medication and so the Propecia pill really is a bonus for men. Propecia is also statistically far more effective than any lotion or liquid applied to the scalp that has been invented to date. If it is medication that you require for Male Pattern Balding you have a greater chance of stopping the hair loss and re growing your hair by using Propecia than you have with any other medication the market.

So we have seen the advantages of Propecia and now what are the disadvantages of using this hair loss drug? Well the first and most obvious one is that it can lower a man’s desire to have sex and in a very small number of men (less than 1%) there were reports of erectile dysfunction.

Before you panic and swear that you’ll never use Propecia remember that in each and every one of the millions of cases of Propecia users no man has ever claimed that Propecia caused anything but temporary sexual function problems and they all said that the moment they stopped using the drug the problem disappeared. It is likely that the less than 1% of men who suffered from ED as a result of Propecia use were those who had very weak sexual function anyway.

All in all we sincerely believe at Ukmedix News from the hundreds of Propecia reports that we have seen and from the fact that Propecia is the most tested and used hair loss medication in the world that it is the best place to start if you are a man with male pattern balding.