Keeping Your Hair and Libido While Taking Finasteride

Dr. Anil Shah and Dr. Benjamin Paul discuss common questions that are asked regarding hair restoration treatments and procedures. They dive deep into the topic of keeping your hair and libido while taking Finasteride. Click on the video below to hear the discussion.

Dr. Shah

What do you have your patients do for libido to counteract that?

Dr. Ben Paul

Try to lower the dose, take some holidays, take breaks and then don't be a hero. You know, at some point you, you don't want to lose your libido for your hair.

Dr. Shah

Any supplements you haven't taken or no?

Dr. Ben Paul

Usually I'll work with a urologist if it gets really bad, but I haven't been doing like Cialis or something like that.

Dr. Shah

Yeah. I mean either once it gets and again, I'm usually recommending micro dosing, so it's usually not going to that spot. I think the media overstates a little bit. It's a real problem for some men. However I think with dosing, I find that almost all men can tolerate a microdose. A full dose there definitely many can tolerate that.

Dr. Ben Paul

I think it's, it's also one of these things where I've actually used Nutrafol as a bridge to starting Finasteride because it kind of lowers the DHT through the saw palmetto. And then you transition, you start to introduce little bits. And the brain, because a lot of the issues are, are I think psychological more than they are physiological, which means you're kind of psyching yourself out as opposed to actually not able to perform. And so if you, if you slowly sort of titrate up the Finasteride, the brain can figure out the new level, but the hair never does. The hair always appreciates the lower DHT.

Dr. Shah

I think the other benefit of Finasteride, which is understated, is if you're going to be in your mid 40s, is reduction of your prostate size because almost all men, that's going to be an issue for all of us. If you're a man in your house, it's not some random guy in my house. It’s not like a father-in-law or something like that. Three in the morning, you hear that sound, that's quite a question, you know, what's happening. You’ve got a giant prostate and we're all heading there. So you're getting that double edged benefit with it. So I think it's something you're prophylactically treating.

Dr. Ben Paul:

Right. And for the listeners who haven't spent their days thinking about Finasteride every day, this pill came out in 1992 at five milligrams. Every week, people took 35 milligrams every week, and then they showed them the double-blind study that one milligram and five milligram have this same outcome for hair after one year. And so instead of having 30 to 50% side effect, there was like 1 to 3% side effect. And it's just, people had been overdosing. And so I think what we're talking about is you can take either less than one milligram a day because if seven milligrams a week and 35 milligrams a week have the same result in hair, you can take a lot less than seven probably and still see the improvement.

To hear this whole interview, check out our podcast, “MASTERS OF BEAUTY” available on Apple Podcast, I Heart Radio, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts!