What Is Finasteride (Propecia)?
Finasteride is a synthetic drug designed for the treatment of both male-pattern baldness and prostate gland enlargement.
It inhibits the active form of testosterone called dihydrotestosterone, which is responsible for hair growth and male sexual development, amongst others.
Interestingly, excessive dihydrotestosterone leads to the reduced growth and size of hair follicles.
Finasteride may, therefore, be used to treat male-pattern baldness in patients experiencing an overproduction of testosterone and its active form.
Similar to Minoxidil, Finasteride is the main active ingredient in many popular treatment brands such as Propecia and Proscar.
How to take Finasteride?
This is where Finasteride differs greatly from Minoxidil. Finasteride Is generally administered in an oral form and is a prescription or not an over-the-counter medication.
What is the Proper Usage
Finasteride is often prescribed in a 1mg tablet form to be consumed once a day at any time. However, it is generally recommended that users make a habit of consuming the tablet at a given time of day to reduce the chance of forgetting to do so.
Similar to Minoxidil, do not compensate for a missed dosage and simply skip it.
What are the Side-Effects of Finasteride?
There are a number of side and unwanted effects associated with Finasteride use. However, in very rare and severe occurrences, one may experience:
- Decreased sex drive
- Reduced sexual performance
- Breast tenderness
- Impotence
What’s the results of Finasteride?
It is important to know that the results of both drugs are not instantaneous. Do not be discouraged should you not see hair growth after a few treatment cycles.
The treatment may take up to three months or more before new hair growth is observed.
It is not common for users to take up to a year of continued treatment before satisfactory results are observed.
What Is Minoxidil?
Originally intended as treatment for hypertension, Minoxidil was observed to cause increased hair growth in users and discovered as a potent hair growth agent.
Today, Minoxidil is solely used to treat hair loss.
Minoxidil is a non-prescription treatment for androgenic alopecia, or male-pattern baldness.
Popular treatment brands or products use Minoxidil as the main active ingredient, including Rogaine, Loniten, Regain, and Tugain.
Spironolactone (for Women only)
Spironolactone is a commonly used medication to treat heart failure and high blood pressure.
One of the effects of spironolactone is that it blocks androgen receptors, the same receptors that DHT acts on. Because of the importance of androgen receptors in men, spironolactone is used to treat female pattern hair loss only.
Spironolactone is prescribed as a daily dosage and blood tests have to be done to monitor treatment.
Spironolactone treatment for hair loss should be closely monitored by a physician experienced in treating hair loss conditions.
Cortisteroids (for Alopecia Areata)
Corticosteroid injection blocks the body’s abnormal immune response, which responsible for alopecia areata, a condition that results in patches of complete baldness.
This medication involves a direct injection into the patch of baldness once a month until hair regrows.