Propecia Is Not Safe

Your stylish use of the caps lock key amazes and dazzles me. It almost sways me over to your perspective. ;)

"You should know putting hormones into a child at that age determines his gender. What if you play god and fuck with his/her hormones ? It could disfigure the genitals of your child or worse."

Putting hormones in a child that age? Now we’re taking about something else than taking Propecia right? Injecting hormones into a child, that’s awful!

No, but seriously, finasteride is not a hormone. Eating Propecia is not fucking with your child’s hormones - you won’t transfer it to your future baby through your sperm. Propecia inhibits the enzyme Type II 5a-reductase which converts testosterone into DHT resulting in higher levels of testosterone compared to DHT-levels. This is not gene-altering and does not affect the quality of your sperm. You may make less of it which may result in trouble conceiving a child. But it does not damage your child or fuck with his or her hormones.

I know where you’ve gotten the idea that taking Propecia will disfigure your child. Pregnant women shouldn’t ingest Propecia since the active substance can interfere with the development of a male fetus’ genitalia. That is pregnant women. Again, this is no secret and this information is given by Merck as is required by most countries regulations. Here’s a source, it’s in Swedish unfortunately but perhaps some other swede could verify it’s authenticity.
Propecia® - FASS Allmänhet

"The half-life of Propecia is more than a year, That means even if you quit today ; you are still not immune to it’s effects for many more months or permitted to have babies."

Again, you make claims but won’t back it up. Here’s a little something something for you:

"Excretion

Following intravenous infusion in healthy young subjects (n=15), mean plasma clearance of finasteride was 165 mL/min (range, 70-279 mL/min). Mean terminal half-life in plasma was 4.5 hours (range, 3.3-13.4 hours; n=12). Following an oral dose of 14C-finasteride in man (n=6), a mean of 39% (range, 32-46%) of the dose was excreted in the urine in the form of metabolites; 57% (range, 51-64%) was excreted in the feces.

Mean terminal half-life is approximately 5-6 hours in men 18-60 years of age and 8 hours in men more than 70 years of age."
http://www.rxli st.com/cgi/gene … propecia_cp.htm

Finally, I don’t innocently believe that Propecia or other drugs are totally safe and there might well be long term side effects we don’t know of today. And while it’s true that there is no research on long term effects on fertility, in the light of what we now about the drug and its effects today, it seems like a rather safe bet using Propecia at the moment.

Vanburen, you seem to have some kind of beef with Merck and/or the whole pharmaceutical industry as a whole and it’s good to be skeptical and to question large organisations’ intentions and agendas. Still, you have to be able to keep a cool head, be rational and stick to ideas and arguments derived from observations that can be measured and tested. You can’t just run out to the town square with a mob-rule attitude shouting slogans (loosely based on reality):

"Propecia bad! Make jaw not fully develop! Make man puzzy! Stop fucking with your children’s hormones! Caps Caps Caps!" (Yes, all those things have been uttered in this thread.)

This is false. Propecia has a short-term phase during the inital few days of taking this drug, where T-levels increase. After that it drops.

Unless you could point me to some long-term data indicating otherwise. Mind you, I said LONG-TERM.

I hear you about making allegations responsibly.

Thank you for the data. But I thought it might serve us better if we actually here the pain and suffering of not only the men, but their wives as a result of Propecia.

Unlike DATA , these are the effects in the real world.

1) “Make man puzzy!”

“Is there a side effect noted in Propecia of mood swings, irritability, loss of anger control? My husband is taking Propecia and shortly after he started he started exhibiting these “symptoms”. He is now going to a psychiatrist for this. However, I work for a dermatologist and have noted two patients who have complained of the same “side effects”, I.e. Irritability, short tempers, moos swings. None of these have been clinically attributed to Propecia, but I feel there might be a link. —Valerie”
—> Why would you suspect they act like this IF their HORMONES weren’t fucked up?

2) “Make jaw not fully develop” & “Stop fucking with your children’s hormones”

Example case 2#:

“My name is Lynda and I have a lot to say about Propecia. My husband was taking Propecia for 3 years. It did fill in the crown area of his head and didn’t seem to make him sick in any way. All seemed good. The problem started about 4 months ago when we wanted to conceive our second child. We have a 2 year old and conceived on the first try. This time I knew something was wrong when we wern’t getting pregnant. We both got checked out and it was my husbands sperm count. It was lowered to 1 million no motility at all. The doc says he is perfectly healthy, all test came back normal. Whats differant Propecia for over 3 years.

When we had our daughter he had only been on the drug for a couple of months. He is going for a 3 month sa in another month. We are really worried, is this going to go back to normal? We have been in touch with other people across the US that are going through the same thing. I think more testing needs to be done on men taking this drug for a long time and on men who are trying to become fathers. Do you know anything that could help us? Have you heard about this before? This is a very serious subject, people are spending so much money on this drug and now are spending tons of money trying to become parents!
—Lynda “
—> So; Heck Propecia Could fuck with your hormones and thereby your reproductive system. Hmmm. Merck, could put this a bit bigger than 2-size font on your bottles ? I THINK IT’s A BIT IMPORTANT.

3) “CAPS, CAPS, CAPS”

Example case 3#:

“Propecia was presribed to me prior to hair transplantation. I was quoted the same comforting statistics shared by the manufacturer.

From the first week on the medication the sexual side effects were, in a word, drastic. I literally felt as if I had lost all sensation below my waist. This condition only improved after I refused to take any more of the medication.

At first I believed my doctor when he suggested that I fell in to that rare 1.8% that had a reaction - but I then found numerous web-sites where other men had complained of the same side-effects I had but never seemed to show up in any studies.

Speaking for myself, I would rather be as bald as Yul Brenner for life before I ever take this medication again. ” — STEVE

—->I apologize for the CAPS here but I thought I should highlight something you would read in the above examples.
“I BELIEVE MY DOCTOR”, “I FOUND NUMEROUS WEBSITES WHERE OTHER MEN HAD COMPLAINED OF THE SAME SIDE-EFFECTS.BUT NEVER SEEMED TO SHOW UP IN ANY STUDIES”

( Which studies, the ones done by Merck ? The same company which failed to tell us Vioxx can kill you ? )

Wow Vanburen! Those are some cold hard facts! Geez, I would attempt to argue but your evidence is irrefutable! I know Valerie personally and she is definitely worth trusting. Lynda I met through a friend but she seems pretty honest and I know she knows every little thing her husband ingests or does. Steve is a crazy man but certainly wouldn’t lie over the internet. I’m sure we all know that when someone posts something on the internet, it is a stone cold fact.

Whelp fellas, there you have it. Argument over. YAY! :dance:

If you are looking for stone cold fact, I am one person I can not offer than and neither will Merck. They have no long term studies and have proven to be untruthworthy and more concerned about the bottom line than the patients of it’s drugs.

The way I see it. These people have nothing to gain by telling their problems and they posted anoymously on a help forum much like this. What do they have to gain , help from other people with similar problems ? It can’t be a competitor , as THere are no competitors, Propecia is
The only internal medication taken for MPB.

Exactly. You are totally right. People have no reason to lie. People certainly don’t make stuff up on this site because it’s totally anonymous if you want it to be. I’m sure those people monitored everything they did to make sure it wasn’t just a coincidence. Like I said, they seem like very bright people and that was very irrefutable evidence.

Here is some more evidence to help your claim:

“I started losing my hair when I was about 25. Finally at age 27 I decided to take Propecia. After a few months I noticed that my breasts turned into a 38DD. I started to ignore my favorite football teams and hope for the team with the prettiest uniform to win. I even got jealous of the cheerleaders and would yell “slut” at the TV. I noticed my driving skills diminished and I started neglecting my vehicle’s routine service. I noticed I looked fat in my jeans and would ask my friends if they made my butt look big. My hair started growing again and when it finally all filled in, I had an urge to buy a crimping iron. My girlfriend said she felt like a lesbian dating such a sissy boy and decided to leave me. I couldn’t believe all this was happening! The only thing it could be is the Propecia.” Earl

Anyway, I’m with you Vanburen. I say screw the tons of people that have good results with drug and lets just focus on the people who have side effects. It’s like they say, 20 people with a good experience will tell 1 person and 1 person with a bad experience will tell 20 people.

So is it worth destroying the life of one man for the sake of 20 others?

Depends who the other 20 is.

Thanks for showing me how easy it is to fake an example.

What makes my examples more plausible than yours however, is that they are just three compiled from hundred of thousands of responses of people from tens of different websites who do not know each other, but almost all of them SHARE three main themes ;

1) increased emotionality

2) problems conceiving a child and/or ED

3) expressing lack of information by Merck on potential side effects

I don’t have to tell you, that 1 time out of 20 it does go wrong. It WILL Be devastating for that person. No sex, no kids or deformed kids.etc

You want to gamble. You decide for yourself.

I’m willing to bet that some people may experience increased emotions due to Propecia but it can’t be “proven” even if there are thousands of people unless the study was done in a controlled environment.

I’m pretty damn sure that men have experienced ED from taking Propecia (isn’t that listed as a side effect anyway?). Also, having a limp dick does make it difficult to conceive a child.

I’m sure Merck only lists what they have to list as far as side effects. They are a multi-billion dollar company and want to stay that way. That said, there are many other companies that I’m sure would benefit from bringing this this drug down. I’m sure many controlled studies were performed already. The thing I laugh about most when reading about controlled studies are the many subjects who complain about serious side effects when they were the ones who received the placebo!

Vanburen, anecdotal information is very interesting as it provides insight to the experiences and feelings of people using the drug. This insight can also spawn new research ideas, for example, perhaps there ought to be a study on Propecia and its effect on mood. However, when it comes to establishing causality between different variables anecdotal information is not enough. Let’s use Valeries’s testimonial as an example:

“1) “Make man puzzy!”

“Is there a side effect noted in Propecia of mood swings, irritability, loss of anger control? My husband is taking Propecia and shortly after he started he started exhibiting these “symptoms”. He is now going to a psychiatrist for this. However, I work for a dermatologist and have noted two patients who have complained of the same “side effects”, I.e. Irritability, short tempers, moos swings. None of these have been clinically attributed to Propecia, but I feel there might be a link. —Valerie”
—> Why would you suspect they act like this IF their HORMONES weren’t fucked up?”

First off, these are not the words of the person actually using Propecia. So basically, this statement doesn’t tell us anything about what he feels or what he thinks is causing his mood swings. This is Valerie’s explanation for what’s going on and this explanation does not have to be true as long as it’s fills its function, which is to make sense out of a unpleasant situation. She knows there is no clinical evidence to corroborate her notions but she feels there might be a link between Propecia and mood swings. And that is OK, but that does not mean there actually is a causal link between Propecia and mood swings. There might be but there also might not be.

Futhermore, there could be several plausible explanations for this man’s mood swings. For instance:

*This man could be going through a personal crisis. Obviously he does not want to lose his hair and knowing that this might happen can be very stressful to some people. If that is the case it’s only natural to express mood swings or be more irritable than usual.

*This man could be mistreated at work or by other people around him causing him to feel and behave the way he does.

*Perhaps he’s on a diet. He’s pissed of because he’s hungry. :)

*Perhaps he only eats sugar and saturated fat and does not get enough exercise.

*This man could also be suffering from a physical or psychological disorder completely unrelated to his use of Propecia.

*Maybe this man is dissatisfied with his marriage. Valerie might be annoying as hell, we don’t know. :D (She seems to be concerned about his husband though).

*and so on…

Based on the information in Valerie’s testimony, it is impossible to tell which of these are true.

Finally:

You said: “Unless you could point me to some long-term data indicating otherwise. Mind you, I said LONG-TERM.”

May I remind you that you have no long-term research that supports your view either. So let me ask you, how can you be so sure that you are right about all this, when there is no long term research that supports either view (Propecia good - Propecia baaaad)?

You have your conviction, I guess.

I say, there might be long term side effects or there might not be long term side effects. Based on present clinical studies it seems safe.

Propecia is also used in people with enlarged prostates. When it is used for this reason I find NOTHING wrong with it. It has saved people from developing prostate cancer. Propecia will be here until something better comes along for this. I hope we all agree to this. Come to think of it, there are worse drugs out there in the medical field like the statins, but thats another thread.

Lets clarify this thread here. We are talking about the “COSMETIC” uses of Propecia.

When you take a drug/precedure for COSMETIC reasons IT IS YOUR CHOICE to take the risks associated with it.

Millions of people have gotten liposuction, which is one of the riskiests precedures in medicine.

Millions of women (and some men) have breast augmentation surgery.

Millions of women use “the pill” which messes with their hormones and makes it harder to concieve a child later in life.

And heres a little from personal experience..

6 months after getting off Propecia. TO me the difference is almost like night and day .. I feel like a different man. I feel more like a man , I don’t sense the same anxiety and panic attacks I used to have when my T-levels were being manipulated.
My decisions are now clearer and more importantly my drive to get women is now a hundred times better than when I was on medicine.
This is what GOD meant US MEN to be like. So what if a testosterone as a side effect loses one hair.? I think it’s manly, when one accepts it and overcomes it. That builds character and in the long run, .being is man is what is more important in the eyes of those very women you are trying to please by taking propecia.

Sure Looks matter, but com’on your risking alot by putting chemical that you have no idea what they are doing in your body.

I can’t lie, though, Propecia DOES work. But I would rather lose the head of hair then to become a puzzy for the rest of my life.

After all, They say that confidence and being a man attracts women — That is what we need to work on and take pills for.

I thought this thread was dead and buried, but here we go again. :)

It’s great that you feel better now than when you were on Propecia Vanburen. Perhaps you are one of the unfortunate people who don’t respond well to the treatment. It’s also good for you that you have come to terms with loosing your hair. Other men should be so lucky.

However, there are a couple of things from your post I’d like to point out:

“So what if a testosterone as a side effect loses one hair.?”
Testosterone does not cause hair loss. The theory is that DHT is the culprit. Balding men seem to have more of it and they also seem to be more sensitive to it. That does not mean that a balding man necessarily has more testosterone in his body than a man who is not balding.

“But I would rather lose the head of hair then to become a puzzy for the rest of my life. “

You seem to be under the impression that the amount of testosterone in your body determines whether or not you are a manly man or a “puzzy” as you call it. Unfortunately, t-levels will decline naturally with age inevitably turning a man into a “puzzy” over time (if your reasoning was true). Of course, you could alter your t-levels by introducing foreign substances to your body, but that wouldn’t be “what GOD meant US MEN to be like”, would it? ;)

Finally
“being is man is what is more important in the eyes of those very women you are trying to please by taking Propecia.”

If that was the reason you were taking Propecia in the first place, I’m glad you’re off it now.

Propecia does not cut down on testosterone in cuts down on the conversion to DHT.

“Propecia does not cut down on testosterone in cuts down on the conversion to DHT.”

Exactly.