Strongly disagree.
When I was a teenager I had very thick, curly hair. Now I'm bald. Unless the cure involves reactivating my dormant hair follicles into growing back exactly what I had when I was 15, it's imo not a cure.
Right now the alternatives are: shave my head, or risk potential scarring and weird hair pattern from a transplant, or take a pill forever and sacrifice boners for some wispy strands that I'll be self-conscious about all day long.
So for now, I'm shaving my head. Call me when there's like, a single-application stem-cell therapy.
Most recent studies show around 90% effectiveness at preventing further loss.
Just because something can't turn back the clock doesn't mean it isn't a cure. Surely penicillin has almost 0% cure rate if you delay taking it for an infection for a few years.
I'm pretty sure it does...if penicillin only stopped you getting sicker rather than killing bacterial infections it would be barely useful.
It's only been available for twenty years. Who knows what the negative long-term effects are of significant DHT reduction, or of the drug itself.
I hate that I lost my hair, but it's not worth the risk, imo. ymmv.
It's about 90% effective at preventing further loss. If you don't consider that a cure I don't know what you're looking for.
Just because you didn't take it before everything fell out doesn't mean it's any less effective or not a cure. If you take it indefinitely you will not lose hair almost 90% of the time.
That's a better cure rate than antibiotics for some conditions like tuberculosis or antivirals for something like hep C.
The side effect profile is extremely safe too. Less than 5% of men had any side effects at all in the largest trail with 1000+ men. That makes finasteride safer than most antibiotics even.
If I didn't take antibiotics until my leg fell off from infection I wouldn't expect them to grow it back. People confound a hair loss cure with something that regenerates lost hair. Regeneration of any kind has been frustratingly outside the bounds of human ability forever
There's many medications that never lose effectiveness so they don't limit future options. For instance synthetic insulin clearly never stops working, otherwise all type 1 diabetics would quickly die off.
I also have no problem taking medication every day for the rest of my life. A sizable part of the population is only alive because they take medication regularly. I've been taking allergy medicine and anti imflammitories along with finasteride for many years with no I'll effect
Actually it does. But the tolerance developed is not as serious as other medications.
I do hope for an actual hair loss cure, and I'd pay thousands for it. People treat bald people really different and don't even realize it. Not in necessarily a "bad" way, not like a second-class citizen, but I think bald guys are slightly scarier to the average person, especially if the guy shaves it or keeps it short. Obviously they are also less attractive on average unless they've got the muscle proportion and the jawline to go with it.
It's not all bad since it also means that I'm no longer treated like a "young man" by anyone. But when I wear a hat or a beanie and people don't know that I'm bald, they're a much nicer and women come up to me a lot more. It's like night and day. At least that means there's nothing wrong with my face! :)
There are beautiful (in the eyes of society) people in the world and they have certain advantages. There are smart (to the eyes of society) people in the world and they have certain advantages. There are physically gifted (compared to the average in the society) people in the world and they have certain advantages. Christiano Ronaldo makes over $100 million dollars a year, of which nearly $50 million comes from endorsements (nice to have a pretty face as well as being a talented footballer!)
Life isn't fair in these ways. Is there anything wrong with wanting to have hair on your head, or getting plastic surgery, or body building to look the way you want? Absolutely nothing (especially the last one can be pretty darn positive for anyone). However, I think it's important not to chase these things excessively. There is a huge danger of thinking, "My life would turn around if only I wasn't saddled with this handicap". You can seriously sabotage yourself by not realising that most people have lots of hurdles and still find ways of surmounting them.
As a visible minority in the place where I choose to live, I see this kind of self-sabotage often, where people choose to believe that racism makes it impossible for them to succeed, rather than to acknowledge that it is a factor that they need to deal with. Some people (especially the elderly) are genuinely afraid when they see me coming. However, this fear usually turns to relief and joy when I smile and greet them kindly. Instead of being shunned because people fear me, I have an advantage over other people because that mini-drama that people must overcome when they first meet me, brings them closer. It's a bit like seeing a lion walking down the street and then when you find out it is an extremely friendly, goofy, tame lion, of course you want to pet it!
The oft-repeated advice of "just be yourself" is good, I think. It doesn't mean it won't be a challenge, but overcoming that challenge brings you benefits beyond "fixing" whatever problem that you feel you have.
It's not surprising to me that finasteride doesn't bring back hair you've been losing for years.
It prevents hairloss extremely effectively. To the point that 90% of men losing their hair wouldn't if they got on it early enough.
Many men say it's not a cure because it doesn't bring back dead hair but I don't think that's true. It's like saying antibiotics aren't a cure because they can't bring back the dead. If I lost a limb to gangrene I wouldn't expect antibiotics to grow it back, so I don't get why some guys expect a hairloss drug to grow back hair that's been gone for years.
It’s a tricky subject because I can’t know for certain if the drug caused the side effects, but I was an otherwise healthy young man. Many men apparently take finasteride for years without significant side effects, but on the other hand, I don’t know how many men who have been affected are willing to discuss it openly.