Hair Restoration Blog

Q:

Hi Doctor how are you?

I have been working out and i wanna take some diet pill to help my body loose fat. Is it ok to mix with Proscar? Aalso ive been putting rogaine on the recepient area to speed up the growth. As you can see i have 75% growth i think? In 3 months. It seems like the right side is growing faster and the left side worries me.see alot of fine hair coming out left side though. Dont know if its from proscar and roggaine effect or transplant hair.

Well see in the months to come. Just wanna leave an update doctor.

Thanks and have a good weekend

A:

Here is your answer for your questions in the order you asked them:

1. We do not have any documented evidence on using specific diet pills and/or its preventative effects on the growth of transplanted hair grafts.
2. I do not believe that Rogaine can accelerate the rate of your hair growth on the transplanted area.  They will, however, grow to become similar to what they were in their native location with or without Rogaine.
3. The growth of transplanted hair is not often even.  My recommendation is not to worry about it at this time and give them at least 4 more months until you see the final growth rate.  If you did not have hair in a particular area, medications such as finasteride or minoxidil cannot grow any hair back there.  You may notice improvements in the areas where you experienced significant miniaturization (thinning of hair shafts) with use of these medications.  In those areas, you may see some increase in the bulk of hair over a period of 6 - 8 months.

My recommendation is to continue to be patient and in a few months you may surprise yourself with the density and quality of the transplanted hair.

Have a nice day,

Q:

I am a 30 now and I have been losing my hair since I was 18. I started taking finasteride last year and seen great result only after taking it for only a few months. I think I may have been experiencing some side effects.  The thing is I noticed that it might have affected my erection and it takes me longer to get an erection. I know when you know you are taking a medication that has to do with your male hormone it may automatically affect your sex function negatively. So I do not know whether it is mental or real. I don’t want to stop Propecia if it is safe to continue it.

A:
You have been experiencing erectile dysfunction recently while taking Propecia (finasteride) for a year. Erectile dysfunction has been evaluated in patients who have been taking Propecia.  The incidence of erectile dysfunction is reported to be 1.3% of men who were on Propecia for one year.

The rate of erectile dysfunction was reported 0.7% among the patients who only took placebo. You can test this side effect of Propecia by stopping it for at least two weeks and see if you still have erectile dysfunction. If the erectile dysfunction goes away by discontinuing Propecia after two weeks, your problem might be a real side effect of finasteride. If you still want to continue taking Propecia despite experiencing erectile dysfunction, you may try a lower dose that can still help your hair growth without giving you any negative effects to your sexual function.