How to Reduce Finasteride Side Effects. Safest method
If you’ve started to notice hair thinning, here are the 3 scientifically proven methods to combat it.
- Finasteride 1mg daily
- Minoxidil 5% twice daily
- Nizoral shampoo
What are finasteride side effects?
- loss of interest in sex
- watery semen
- swelling or tenderness in your breasts,
- brain fog
- etc
The one people fear most is loss of interest in sex and that possibly being permanent. Even if the chances are very very small, that’s removing one of the biggest joys in life and who wants to roll the dice on that.
How common are finasteride side effects?
Finasteride side effects are known to effect a small percentage. An AGA doctor told me 2% of the people, but looking at the online discussion groups, this seems to be a lot more. AGA doctors specialize in this field and see clients every 20 minutes about this topic, so I’d tend to go with their observation.
How do I reduce the chance of getting finasteride side effects?
Finasteride works by lowering the amount of your DHT (Dihydrotestosterone) levels. DHT being what science today believes is what attacks your hair follicles.
Take a smaller dose (micro-dosing)
If you look at the following chart
You can see that
- Taking 1mg will lower your DHT levels by 69.2%
- Taking 0.5mg will lower your DHT levels by 67%
- Taking 0.25mg will lower your DHT levels by 64%
- Taking 0.2mg will lower your DHT levels by 61.7%
There isn’t much of a difference between taking 0.2mg and 1mg (5x as much finasteride or a new drug being introduced to your system!)
Inhibiting DHT below a certain threshold will slow MPB down and is thus better than doing nothing.
Make sure you are cutting your pills correctly
Buy a proper pill cutter for $5 on Amazon or at your local CVS.
Amazon Price is $5 including shipping
The same AGA doctor advised not to split my pills. The reason behind this is because people usually cannot split their pills properly. They use a scissor or hammer to break the pill. Some pills may be mostly the outer coating or some pieces are bigger than others. Use a proper pill or some doctors even prescribe finasteride dose in 0.2mg.
Take longer breaks in between dose
The same AGA doctor has said you can choose to take a pill every other day, or maybe 2 every 3 days, or 1 every 3 days.
Keep your body strong
Eat well, exercise well, sleep well and keep yourself mentally stable.
Conclusion
This is a personal choice and can effect your health / hair / mental state.
Have a plan so you can stop worrying about it constantly.
- How long will you keep this plan? Until you are 40? Until it stops working?
- Will you up your dose if it’s not working? When?
- What would you do if you experience a side effect? Plow through it? Lower dose?
If I were going through an aggressive hair loss, I may go nuclear and go with all 3 recommended methods, but if I were starting to see some thinning where others still haven’t noticed, I would go with micro-dosing to see how my body handles it.
