Switching from 1mg Propecia to 5mg Proscar......

[neis]

Has anyone tried this?
Will this give better results? Will this increase the shedding?
I wonder if people who had switched to 5mg Proscar daily achieved better results .

 

[casperz]

I've read that amounts as small as .25mg finasteride work almost as well as 1mg dosage. All a larger dose will do is increase the chance of side effects from
what I can tell.

 

[icdalite]

I have gone from 1 mg finpecia to 1.25 mg fincar per day. Just started last week so nothing much to report.

 

[Bryan]

I've read that amounts as small as .25mg finasteride work almost as well as 1mg dosage. All a larger dose will do is increase the chance of side effects from what I can tell.

Sure, but the nearly "flat" dose-response works the same for SIDE effects as it does for DESIRED effects.

 

[neis]

Won't 5mg Proscar have a slightly larger impact on 5ar inhibition? so better results?
Many members here recommend to switch to 5mg Proscar daily as a next step after 1mg Propecia and as a previous step before Avodart(dutasteride).

 

[Bryan]

Won't 5mg Proscar have a slightly larger impact on 5ar inhibition? so better results?

Sure, slightly.

 

[neis]

Thanks guys,

I will switch to 5mg Proscar daily because I just feel
the extra amount I will take will give me every benefit I can get.

 

[Quantum Cat]

Thanks guys,

I will switch to 5mg Proscar daily because I just feel
the extra amount I will take will give me every benefit I can get.

no. taking 5mg a day is pointless. Cut the proscar into quarters or fifths and take a segment each day. But it's your money....

 

[neis]

Thanks guys,

I will switch to 5mg Proscar daily because I just feel
the extra amount I will take will give me every benefit I can get.

no. taking 5mg a day is pointless. Cut the proscar into quarters or fifths and take a segment each day. But it's your money....

yeah Quantum,

Well said, but I guess hair comes at a price!

The way I understand it, the 5ar enzyme takes atleast 3 days to start climbing again significantly. 5mg Proscar is going to keep your 5ar levels suppressed to a higher extent than 1mg Propecia. However, the higher the single dose of finasteride is, the higher the level of 5ar inhibition for that given time. Granted there seems to be a fairly flat range from 1mg to 5mg their still is a difference in 5ar inhibition

 

[casperz]

It seems logical to me that if you took 5mg every forth day and .25mg
on the off days you would not increase your costs that much and
get some increase in DHT supression. The extra cost would
amount to 7 5mg pills per month. I know that you do not have
to take the .25mg on the off days but it would be like wearing a belt
and suspenders. I wonder what effect the extra 4.75mg every four
days would have on side effects?

 

[Jack]

So how high of a finasteride dosage does one need to achieve a noticable increase in DHT reduction , like 95-98% ?

 

[casperz]

So how high of a finasteride dosage does one need to achieve a noticable increase in DHT reduction , like 95-98% ?

I don't think you can get to 95% with finasteride... seems like the
max was in the 80% to 90% range if I recall... there was a graph
posted not too long ago and I think it shows something in that range
on 5mg/day. At some dosage point I assume you are guaranteed to
get bad side effects and I guess that's somewhere around 5mg/day.

 

[neis]

It seems logical to me that if you took 5mg every forth day and .25mg
on the off days you would not increase your costs that much and
get some increase in DHT supression. The extra cost would
amount to 7 5mg pills per month. I know that you do not have
to take the .25mg on the off days but it would be like wearing a belt
and suspenders. I wonder what effect the extra 4.75mg every four
days would have on side effects?

casperz,

I mean switching from 1mg Propecia to 5mg Proscar daily not 5mg Proscar every forth day. Taking 5mg Proscar every forth day makes no sense.

My opinion again,
The more you reduce your androgenic load on your hair follicles the greater potential you may have for recovery...

 

[JWM]

Some well respected people and members feel you can build a certain tolerance to Finasteride. NOT that it doesn't stop working; it's just that your body isn't responding as well as it once did. In other words, male pattern baldness found away to continue its assault.

By upping the dose, you could conceivably buy yourself more time. Even Dr. Proctor has recommended skipping does here and there to avoid tolerance.

 

[Bryan]

So how high of a finasteride dosage does one need to achieve a noticable increase in DHT reduction , like 95-98% ?

I don't think you can get to 95% with finasteride... seems like the max was in the 80% to 90% range if I recall... there was a graph posted not too long ago and I think it shows something in that range on 5mg/day.

Those graphs are only talking about the very modest doses of the drug that the vast majority of people take, like up to about 5 mg/day or so. You could suppress more DHT, if you go larger than that. The Gisleskog et al studies estimated that the amount of finasteride required to suppress the 5a-reductase type 1 enzyme by 50% (which is similar to what you get with the approved dose of dutasteride) is around 270 mg/day.

At some dosage point I assume you are guaranteed to get bad side effects and I guess that's somewhere around 5mg/day.

Why do some people simply INSIST on believing that side effects become a sure thing at only a certain modest amount of finasteride like 5 mg/day?? That makes absolutely no sense at all, and it certainly doesn't agree with experimental results!! Early volunteers have taken as much as 80 mg/day for months with no problems!!

 

[Bryan]

By upping the dose, you could conceivably buy yourself more time. Even Dr. Proctor has recommended skipping does here and there to avoid tolerance.

That's one thing that I disagree with Dr. Proctor about. I don't think there's any such thing as "tolerance" to finasteride. Not in the way most people mean, when they use that word.

 

[follicle84]

I read a while a go that proscar (5mg of finasteride) only blocks 5% more dht than propecia (1mg of finasteride). However i also read that side effects where more commonly reported with proscar than propecia.

 

[casperz]

Why do some people simply INSIST on believing that side effects become a sure thing at only a certain modest amount of finasteride like 5 mg/day??

Did you skip the word "guess" in my statement?

I don't insist on believing it, I just logically assume that is why they set Propecia at 1mg down from 5mg... that is to avoid side effects.

So the big question is would 10mg/day or 15mg or 20mg make any difference in your hair? Anyone tried it?

 

[Bryan]

I read a while a go that proscar (5mg of finasteride) only blocks 5% more dht than propecia (1mg of finasteride). However i also read that side effects where more commonly reported with proscar than propecia.

Taking into consideration that an older group of patients generally uses Proscar compared to Propecia, I doubt that there's any significant real difference in side effects between the two.

 

[Bryan]

Did you skip the word "guess" in my statement?

Oh, I saw the word "guess" in your statement; it's just that I think your "guess" was an unreasonable and implausible one.

I don't insist on believing it, I just logically assume that is why they set Propecia at 1mg down from 5mg... that is to avoid side effects.

Nah, I seriously doubt that had anything to do with it. I think it was just a bone they threw to the FDA, to help push it along through the approval process. They could say they were using only a relatively minimally effective dose of the drug, so it's okay to use it for just a cosmetic problem like male pattern balding. I think it was more politics than anything else.