Hello in Romania,Thanks for posting a great question. Many surgeons recommend you start using Finasteride when you first notice hair loss, and continue taking it during and after your transplant.Finasteride is the most effective medical treatment for androgenetic (male pattern) hair loss. It works by blocking the conversion of Testosterone to Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in your hair follicles by an enzyme called 5-alpha-Reductase. It is DHT that has an adverse effect on hair, causing progressive thinning, miniaturization and baldness. Blocking the production of DHT within the hair follicles using Finasteride has been shown in several scientific studies to slow down the rate of hair loss, accelerate growth and produce thicker and darker hair.Finasteride is very safe for adult men to take orally. It is available as a 1mg tablet (Propecia), and as a 5mg tablet (Proscar), but the 1mg per day is sufficient to obtain essentially all the benefits. There are potential side effects to ANY medication, including Finasteride. There are risks of allergy, nausea, aches and pains, headaches, swelling, but these are common to ALL medications. The main ones everyone has been talking about on the internet are decrease in sexual desire, difficulty achieving orgasm, difficulty maintaining an erection and reduced sperm count. When these side effects were studied properly, it was found that fewer than 4% of patients that use Finasteride and no other medication, reported these side effects. However, and this is very important, between 2-3% of men taking a placebo (sugar pill) also reported the same symptoms, so the true rate caused by Finasteride is much lower than 4%. That's a very small rate of side effects, and the studies also found that in more than 50% of those patients the side effects went away after a few weeks even if the patients continued to take the pill! In the 50% of patients where the effects didn't go away, stopping the medication also stopped the side effects. So in actual fact, the true rate of side effects on sexual function is very, very low, the effects go away on their own, but occasionally, a very small number of patients choose to the stop the medication and get better.Finasteride can interfere with a common test we do for prostate enlargement/cancer. If you take Finsateride and your are over 45 years old and get regular screening tests for prostate cancer, you simply need to tell your doctor and they can make adjustments to the test results.Finasteride is not approved for women in childbearing age, and they also not handle the pills by hand. Finasteride has been used in post-menopausal women but doesn't seem to work as well as in men.To get the maximum benefit from taking Finasteride you should start as soon as possible after your transplant (right away) and continue for at least one year, but preferably indefinitely (forever). You can stop anytime, but the benefits of Finasteride will be lost, and you will resume losing hair in the rest of your scalp as before. Your transplanted hairs should remain healthy, but you may notice some thinning.In summary, this is a very safe and effective medication.
