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Hi everyone and welcome back to the hair loss show in today’s episode we’re going to tackle a question that i get asked all the time uh during uh consultation is how long do i need to be on finasteride so stick around and we’ll answer that question shortly welcome to the hair loss show where two of australia’s leading hair restoration surgeons dr russell nutson
And dr vikram jayaprakash discuss issues relating to hair loss and the medical and surgical treatment of hair loss in both men and women hi everyone welcome back to the hair loss show thanks again for watching if you like this channel please remember to to like and and subscribe and that helps us get the content out to more people so this is a question uh how long
Should i be on finasteride i get asked this question all the time or both russell and i i get asked this question and you know the answer is always the same and it’s you know i don’t mean be over simplistic about it but the answer is you should take it as long as you want to keep your hair and that’s effectively the you know the the sum and substance of that that
Answer what you’re trying to do with finasteride so remember finasteride what it does male pattern hair loss is caused there’s a genetic component of it but it’s caused by the conversion of testosterone into another form of that testosterone called dihydrotestosterone and there’s an enzyme called the 5 alpha reductase enzyme that does that and what finasteride does
Is it blocks that enzyme and therefore lowers that level of dht with finasteride or any blocker therapy or you know do test right as well what we’re trying to do is to stop the progression of hair loss what we’re trying to do is to stabilize the hair loss it is not going to grow you new hair you can’t go from bald to having a full head of hair so we’re trying to
Stabilize this so we’re trying to minimize the amount of dht that’s causing that miniaturization and keeping that at bay for as long as possible or certainly until you your gene for hair loss turns off so um the reality is you can be on that for as long as you need to now there’s no prescriptive amount of time because each individual is genetically predetermined
To turn on their gene for hair loss at a particular age and turn off their gene for hair loss at a particular age and there’s no way of telling you know what your age of turning it on or off actually is going to be so you can be on the dose long term provided you’re not uh suffering from any side effects of that um with the view that it’s going to stabilize uh
The condition and then at some point in conjunction with your prescribing physician you may talk about well look maybe i can come off the finasteride and see how things are progressing and certainly we’ve had patients that have been on it for many many years and have stabilized their hair loss so there’s no issue about taking it long term that’s perfectly fine
But you want to take it as long as you want to keep your hair i i don’t mean to be over simplistic about it but that’s in essence where where the answer lies is that you need to be on finasteride for as long as you want to to keep your hair all right so hopefully that answers that question uh with a degree of clarity thanks again for watching and we’ll see you
Again on the next episode take care
Transcribed from video
How Long Should I Take Finasteride For? By The Hair Loss Show
