I was in your shoes a few years back. I used oral dutasteride for 4 years that's why I named my account after the drug..but it somewhat stopped working at year 4 and also gave me low libido and brain fog during most of those 4 years. Still used because I did not know better.
I switched to RU which has less sides than dutasteride but still has some, plus its really untested. Then I went on using CB aka Clascoterone. 4 years of usage, no dutasteride or finasteride.
Clascoterone has no side effects and works great on hair just like RU did, but its more expensive.
Some of the guys here wanting to make extra money setting up those "group buys" will jump in to say that its weak but they haven't actually used it for a long time. I started CB because I read several posts of reliable posters, guys using it saying that it works as good as RU.
Back when I started RU most people dismissed it as "snake oil" and that only I got good results etc..
You can use a lot Clasco and not to worry about side effects, in fact the 1% cream has been already cleared by the FDA on 12 years boys and up...and the Kintor stuff isn't even approved for acne which is a good indicator of safety due to the target users, teenagers.
We have a one full year trial done on 400 German balding dudes applying Clascoterone and all of them maintained hair on this drug for a whole year and with no side effects. Also worth noting that the Clasco studies did look at all hair overall while most of the finasteride studies only looked at vertex hair. My issue is the hairline and that's the hardest to maintain.