Is .5 mg of Finasteride as Effective of a Hair Loss Treatment as the 1mg Propecia Pill?

This insightful information was posted on our hair restoration forum by Dr. Paul Shapiro  of Bloomington, MN who is a member of the Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians.

The studies on [tag]Propecia[/tag], ([tag]finasteride[/tag] 1mg pill) for [tag]hair loss treatment[/tag] were done at the 1mg dose so we do not have any good medical studies to suggest the .5mg will or will not work. I always suggest that anyone taking finasteride for the first time do it as suggested: at the 1mg dose and keep constant for 1 year. Then after you and your physician have a good idea of how effective Propecia  has been you can start to adjust the dose if need be.

If you start on the .5mg dose and do not have a good response how will you be able to tell if the poor response was due to the low dose or you are just one of the few (10%) of men it does not work for?

As for the side effects: They are so rare at the 1mg dose I don’t think there would be a statistically significant difference between the 1mg and the .5mg dose.

Prior to doing [tag]hair transplants[/tag] I worked as a Family Doctor until 2000. In my practice we used [tag]Proscar[/tag], (finasteride 5mg) and it was rare to see side effects even at the higher 5 mg dose.

At the 1mg dose in our practice at Shapiro Medical Group we see the sexual side effects rarely. I have had a few patients stop it because of sexual side effects. As for the possible gynecomastia (breast enlargement) I have only had one patient who may have had the beginning of gynecomastia. He had some breast tenderness and we stopped the Propecia immediately and the pain went away. I have never seen any actual breast enlargement while a patient was taking finasteride.  

I  hope this information is helpful.

Paul Shapiro, MD

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Bill
Associate Publisher of the Hair Transplant Network and the Hair Loss Learning Center
View my Hair Loss Weblog