Everything in life has a risk/reward factor

Rawtashk · Apr 19, 2012

Off topic perhaps (if so, then feel free to delete it mods), but I was on Reddit today and came across a topic that made me think of this section of the forum.

People say that "it's not worth it" to risk the potential for side effects, but I find that the people who say that are nearly always the people that happened to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the side effects. Take this guy for example
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/s ... ile_on_my/

He loved motorcycles....up until he got hit by a car going 100mph. Now he is in constant daily pain from the accident. You could point to this guy as "proof" that "no one should ride motorcycles! Look at how much pain he is in! It's just not worth it!!". Yes, perhaps that is true, but he is in the minority of cases. Do horrible things happen? Yes, they do. This is life, life has pain and suffering and hardships in it. I might get let go from my job due to budget cuts, and that will make it very hard to make my house payments....but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have gotten an education and this job in the first place.

TravisB · Apr 19, 2012

The thing is, if you are careful when driving a car/motorcycle , and not drive like and idiot, then you can minimize the probability of accident.

When you are taking Finasteride, you can't minimize the probability of sides. Either you get them, or you don't. It's your conscious decision to get this chemical into your body.

And before you reply me, even sitting in your house is a risk, because the ceiling can one day fall right on your f*****g head and kill you. Yet you can't compare it to risk of Finasteride sides.

And driving a car is an every day activity. It's no different than riding a bicycle, or just walking through the pavement. There is a risk of something happening to you. You can't avoid the risk of every day activities, but you can avoid risk of finasteride sides if you wish. Just not take it.

Rawtashk · Apr 19, 2012

You can avoid the risk of driving cars. People existed and prospered without cars for thousands of years before the automobile was invented. Personally, I live less than 2 miles from where I work. I could ride a bike to work, or even walk there. You could move to within walking distance of wherever you work, but driving a car there is easier.

My point still stands. Everything in life is a risk. Hell, I live in Kansas...which means I risk getting tornado-d to death every spring/summer!!!

It's about risk/reward. Would I risk $30 to win $100? Hell no. However, I did spend $30 on MegaMillions tickets when the jackpot was $690,000,000. Would I risk the 1% chance of sexual sides if it meant that I grew 1/4 of an inch taller? No. But...I really want my hair, which makes the risk worth it to me.

Think of it like poker and playing the odds.

Chris87 · Apr 19, 2012

Nice! Fellow Redditor here.

I have to disagree with Travis when he says there are no ways to minimize the risks of side effects from finasteride. I believe there is. You can take a lower dosage..you can take it every other day instead of every day...you can take larger doses of Zinc daily to minimize the chances of raised estrogen levels (due to the slight bump in testosterone level).

I myself have had 2 go arounds with finasteride. The first time I took .5mg every day. I had pretty potent sexual side effects and i stopped after about a month because it just wasnt getting any better (maybe even a bit less than a month)

The second time I decided to take .25mg EOD as well as taking about 100mg of zinc every night before bed to minimize the effect that estrogen might be playing in my sides. This time around i had sides the first couple weeks but they were no where near as bad and they improved every couple of days. I've been doing this for almost a month now and the sides are almost completely gone and I am soon hoping to be able to up my dose to .25mg every day...then maybe .5mg every day or EOD. I believe taking it slow and using Zinc to keep my hormone balance in favor or testosterone has helped me minimize the sides this time and helped my body to adjust