I’m not sure how useful progesterone intake would be for males. Might be feminizing?
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Progesterone is converted to allopregnanolone by… that’s right, you guessed it: 5-alpha reductase. So, it won’t help if you’re taking finasteride or dutasteride.
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LOL. Damn. Precisely why I am so wary of going after 5AR.
I’d love a drug based on the following to break down DHT instead of prevent its formation via 5ARi:
“DHT is inactivated in the liver and extrahepatic tissues like the skin into 3α-androstanediol and 3β-androstanediol by the enzymes 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase and 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, respectively.”
jakexb
#326
FWIW, most procedures don’t remove 100% of the gland because it would cause inverted nipples. They aim to leave a “normal” amount of gland
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No… I haven’t had my DHT measured.
Could in a blood draw in a few weeks.
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Please do. I had a very high DHT reading.
DHT 11.53 nmol/L
Reference range on the lab test is 0.4-2.5
Thinking of trying pumpkin seed oil capsules daily and topical finasteride low dose 3x a week, or topical dutasteride low dose once a week.
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I am still not convinced about topical dutasteride itself but oral dutasteride once a week would work.
If you take 10kg of pumpkin seed oil daily I’m sure it will have significant 5ar inhibition effects. Any less than that and you will nothing beyond placebo (“I shed nothing for a week, this must mean it’s working!”).
Finasteride itself has no real inhibitory effects on brain allopregnanolone production due to its strong selective affinity for 5ar2. Dutasteride does but doesn’t always cross the BBB.
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I’ve seen people complain about side effects from it, which to me tells me it works lol.
Might just try low dose topical finasteride a few times a week and see how I go with that. No sense rushing into it.
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Or that people get sexual side effects from topical alcohol 
Might just try low dose topical finasteride a few times a week and see how I go with that. No sense rushing into it.
Agreed, topical finasteride works well enough and you can easily follow progression of MPB every few months. I’d advise against stacking it with minoxidil for now as that can mask continued hairloss for up to a year.
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I take 1 mg of dutasteride every day now. No side effects. Please do not stress about finasteride side effects. Some people get them, but there are always a few people who get side effects with any drug.
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Can you elaborate on this? Why not use both if you want max hair loss benefits, since they have different and complementary mechanisms of action?
If your concentration of topical finasteride is too low for example, you will get regrowth for 6 months with minoxidil while DHT is ravaging hair follicles in the background. So it will appear like your hairloss has stopped/reversed but after minoxidil hits its peak regrowth, you will return to your starting point and then below after several more months.
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Have any of you noticed an impact of finasteride on your weight training?
I think it has sharply reduced some kind of drive that I would describe as aggression. Both sexually and in the weight room, I had felt like a tightly coiled spring. I would walk into the gym needing a hard workout to let off steam. I had a feeling sort of like anger, but without a cause or a target.
When I first started taking finasteride a couple months ago, I had some inertia. I would still go to the gym expecting to crush it. I would note it had been three or four days since I had last has sex, so it must be time. Lately its like I just don’t care as much. There is no chip on my shoulder in either domain. Both activities feel a bit perfunctory, more like brushing my teeth than like visceral expressions of some kind of inner animal.
I am not interested in changing anybody’s opinion about the drug. I am just curious if I am the only one on here who had this subjective experience of finasteride.
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Davin8r
#337
Is this on 1mg daily of finasteride? I don’t have either issue, but I’m also on TRT.
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Barnabas
#338
Yes, that’s on 1mg daily of finasteride. My testosterone runs at the high end of the range without any intervention. I’ve never had my DHT measured, so I don’t know where it was prior to starting finasteride or afterward. It’s very interesting to me to observe this impact, which is really a double edged sword: I feel more peaceful & less driven.
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Agetron
#339
I am a huge supporter of finasteride for… a smaller prostate, keeping hair and clearing cholesterol from the blood. I have been using it for 33+ years… no issues or side effects.
That said, one man’s drink - is another man’s poison.
Hair-loss drug tied to suicides, depression and anxiety in global study
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A lot of men really need DHT to maintain their sense of masculinity. Finding non-5ARi solutions to hair loss and prostate issues would be a huge gamechanger. Exogenous DHT itself has a number of benefits for men in terms of libido and confidence but then it can cause hair loss. If we can find a way of allowing that to be a viable option as part of an overall TRT+/mens HRT it would be huge.
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The studies don’t indicate an effect on muscle mass or growth with 5ar inhibitors. Differences in libido are also only marginal.
And I feel like if you really care so much about “masculinity”, why not just shave your head like a “real man” would?
