Increased heart rate on Propecia

[TA45]

Hello all! I have been on Propecia approximately .5 mg every other day for 5 months. I think it is helping my hair however it increases my heart rate. I wake up in the middle of the night even though I take it at 3pm, feeling like I just ran a marathon. I generally do get back to sleep but the next day my heart is still pumping fast and I have ciircles under my eyes and basically look like I was up partying the whole night! Why is this happening? Anyone sle have this happen? As I sit hear my heart is still pumping unusually fast and it and I feel REALLY TIRED! I really want to keep my hair. Any feedback would be appreciative. Thanks!-Tim
Timallen45@hotmail.com

 

[mu0325]

Hello all! I have been on Propecia approximately .5 mg every other day for 5 months. I think it is helping my hair however it increases my heart rate. I wake up in the middle of the night even though I take it at 3pm, feeling like I just ran a marathon. I generally do get back to sleep but the next day my heart is still pumping fast and I have ciircles under my eyes and basically look like I was up partying the whole night! Why is this happening? Anyone sle have this happen? As I sit hear my heart is still pumping unusually fast and it and I feel REALLY TIRED! I really want to keep my hair. Any feedback would be appreciative. Thanks!-Tim
Timallen45@hotmail.com

You are not the first one to mention this kind of side effects. it has not been reported in the FDA studies but I have read people posts about this several times before. Never used Propecia but i had exactly the same side effects when i tried Rogaine for 2 weeks and I had to drop it.

 

[Aplunk1]

Tim,

FIRST... STOP taking all pills... Finasteride, B-6, L-Lysine, and everything else that's in your regimen.

SECOND... TALK to your doctor.

Unusually rapid heartbeat is a serious problem, and you need to take care of it now.

 

[LookingGood!]

It could also be anxiety too. Get a full Cardiac checkup that includes an EKG, echocardiagram and blood work.

How old are you? When was the last time you had a full checkup?
Alot of guys dont go to the doctor and they should.

Just my 2 cents

 

[mrfuture]

You might be right...I just heard on CBS news that a new study showed that "a famous hormonal drug for prostate cancer was linked to heart problems..."

I was not able to find out what was the drug being discussed....but "hormonal" is probably referred to dutasteride....I'll google it and see if the news is out somewhere......

 

[mrfuture]

Well, it looks like it has nothing to do with FINASTERIDE.....hopefully !

I just do not like it when they always seem to find out about these dangers AFTER the drug has been approved......it is happening way too many times. Also, if you check the side effects for the drug discussed, ZOLADEX, it was never mentioned about heart problems. This makes me wonder what we do not know yet about FINASTERIDE....oh boy....


Prostate cancer treatment has health risks
Updated 9/20/2006 10:57 AM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions | Subscribe to stories like this



By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
For the first time, research shows that hormone therapy, a common treatment for prostate cancer, can raise the risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Experts say the study suggests that doctors should be cautious when prescribing the drugs, especially to men with limited disease and a long life expectancy, who may have the least to gain and the most to lose from the treatment.

Hormone therapy, which lowers levels of the testosterone that feeds prostate cancers, is a mainstay of treatment for prostate cancers that have spread to the bone. The drugs, typically given as injections every one to four months, can't cure prostate cancer. They may slow its growth, however, and relieve pain. Many men in advanced stages of the disease choose to have the shots, in spite of their side effects: osteoporosis, muscle loss, fat gain, hot flashes and impotence, says the study's main author, Nancy Keating, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

Research has never proved that hormone therapy can help men with less extensive disease, Keating says. Yet more and more men treated with surgery or radiation for "local" or "regional" tumors — those confined to the prostate or nearby lymph nodes — are taking hormone therapy if blood tests suggest their cancer may have returned, she says. Many of these men have no signs of the disease other than a cancer-related protein in their blood, called PSA.

Some of these men may need no further treatment, says Otis Brawley, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta who was not involved in the study. Men with this type of cancer live a median of about a decade before their tumors cause any symptoms. That makes it important to preserve their long-term health.

Keating and her colleagues were concerned to find the risk of diabetes and heart disease rise in as little as a few months. Researchers examined the records of 73,000 Medicare participants diagnosed between 1992 and 1999. Doctors were able to follow the men's progress for an average of 4.5 years, according to a study released Monday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. According to the study, if doctors treat 1,000 men with hormone therapy for a year, doctors would find 29 cases of diabetes, eight more than among men not treated; 14 heart attacks, three more than among men not treated; and 13 sudden cardiac deaths, four more than among men not treated.

"It raises the question that maybe this is not the right drug for these early-stage cancers," Keating says. "If the prostate cancer isn't going to progress on its own, why are we giving them other diseases? For pure prevention, we probably shouldn't be giving potentially toxic medication until we know there is a clear benefit."

Brawley says the study's design and size make it very powerful, even though doctors did not conduct a true experiment, one in which patients who are assigned the drugs are compared with patients who don't take the therapy. Such a study would be too difficult and expensive, he says.

Because Keating's study is the first to find these increased risks, she says researchers should try to confirm her results. Still, Howard Scher of New York's Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center says the study probably will change the way doctors talk to their patients about risk.

Scher suggests that doctors should consider patients' heart health before prescribing hormone therapy. Physicians also should help patients reduce their risks through diet and exercise and carefully monitor patients' blood sugar, cholesterol and other measures.

Brawley says he will show the study to patients who are considering hormone therapy. Many such patients might be better served through watchful waiting.

Brawley says doctors are learning more about which patients may get the most from hormone therapy. Research shows that men whose PSA level doubles in a short amount of time, for example, are at very high risk of a life-threatening relapse and may benefit most from the therapy.

Brawley notes that hormone therapy is also very expensive. The wholesale price for 3.6 milligrams of a drug called Zoladex, or about a month's supply, is $376, according to its manufacturer, AstraZeneca. Paying doctors to administer the shots typically adds another $100 to the bill, Brawley says.

The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

Posted 9/18/2006 9:27 PM ET

 

[Felk]

Weird. I get occasional heart pain on finasteride

Im looking for an alternative

 

[bubka]

sounds like anxiety something else, we will put it in the finasteride paranoia file

 

[Felk]

Ahem.

If you were mentioning my heart pain, it most certainly isn't. A number of other symptoms arise, such as increased burping.

I'm quite determined to take finasteride, but I'm currently trying for the fourth time, and it's still here. It goes away everytime I stop, and returns every time i start. It's not psychological because I certainly wasn't expecting it, and was determined not to be paranoid, and if I got side effects to ignore them for at least a few months.

The heart pain got so bad about a month into finasteride last time, when I was giving a music performance there was strong pain on every heart beat for about ten seconds.

 

[RecedingBoy]

minoxidil DEFINITELY increases the heart rate. Thats one reason you shouldn't sleep right after you apply it.


I suspect finast has been the cause of the occasional random heart rate increase in myself as well. if it is common, i would get off finasteride ASAP.

 

[pratc]

RecedingBoy said, "minoxidil DEFINITELY increases the heart rate. Thats one reason you shouldn't sleep right after you apply it".

One of Proxiphen's components is minoxidil and most apply at bed-time and shower off the next day. Can anyone comment on this, please?

 

[TA45]

Hi all! Yes it is definitely the Proscar making my heart speed up! Man do I want to save my hair! I only take .25 mg of a pill every other day and it still happens! No, it is definitely not anxiety. I am really, really struggling with this as I feel that I need to keep my hair. It is very important to me! The other day at work two people came up to me and asked me if I was going to fall over cause I looked so tired! The previous evening I went to be 10 hours before I had to get up. Hair still rapid throughout the night which makes me exhausted the next day! I really don't know whaty to do. My derm looked at me like I was crazy and says he's been on Propecia for 5 years with no sides what so ever. And he is like 55 years old. I am very upset about this.-Tim

 

[docj077]

It does it to me, too, but it's stopped since I lowered my dose.

I have a theory and two parts of it are based on actual empirical evidence. Number one, progesterone binds to thyroid gland causing to overproduce thyroid hormones. There are progesterone receptors on the thyroid gland itself. Want to test it out? Get a girlfriend, make her take the progesterone only mini-pill, lay next to her at night to keep warm as she will be a furnace. What further proof? One of the ways to tell if a woman is ovulating is the progesterone-related increase in temperature just prior to ovulation.

So, progesterone increases thyroid hormone production.

The next thing to realize is that as a 5 alpha reductase type II inhibitor, Finasteride not only inhibits the 5 alpha reduction of testosterone to DHT, but it also inhibits progesterones metabolism into dihydroprogesterone. So, you will get increased progesterone levels within the area surrounding the 5AR enzyme.

Does this mean that you get increase progesterone levels in the serum? I don't know. If you do, will you get increased thyroid hormone production? Sure. I went in for a doctors visit because I was having heart palpatations, sweating, fatigue, and extreme hunger. It turns out my free T4 levels were high which means I was hyperthyroid. I did not get my progesterone levels checked. However, due to the sweating and constantly having an internal temp of about 99.5 degrees, I'd say it was the progesterone.

All other thyroid tests performed came back negative.

These are my thoughts and opinions on the subject and what happened to me personally. I have since cut my propecia dose in half and all of my symptoms have disappeared.

As someone else said, go to the doctor, get your heart checked out, and stop messing around with health problems. The last thing you need is to flip into atrial fibrillation and pass out or throw a clot causing a heart attack or stroke.