Hi everyone and welcome back to the hair loss show my name is dr vikram jayaprakash thanks again for watching please remember to like and subscribe to the channel in today’s episode we’re going to talk about immunity to finasteride so stick around and we’ll cover that topic welcome to the hair loss show where two of australia’s leading hair restoration surgeons
Dr russell knudsen and dr vikram jayaprakash discuss issues relating to hair loss and the medical and surgical treatment of hair loss in both men and women all right so one of the questions that has been asked on the channel on quite a few occasions is do you develop an immunity to finasteride and i think the short answer is probably no there’s no such thing as
Immunity to finasteride per se but if we look at finasteride and understand how it works first of all and what the implications of the use of finasteride actually are so finasteride as we know and we’ve covered that on a number of different episodes but we’ve specifically talked about finasteride in its own episode blocks an enzyme called the 5-alpha reductase
Enzyme so if we look at male pattern hair loss or androgenic alopecia we know that it’s there’s a genetic condition but it results from the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone and if you have an elevated level of dht it causes the hairs to thin out and fall out in a predictable pattern what finasteride does is it blocks the five alpha reductase
Enzyme and if you block that enzyme you block the conversion of that to that and therefore lower that in the system so essentially what that you’re trying to do is to try and stabilize this condition but it’s not the cure for hair loss and we know that because studies have demonstrated this and we know that if you look at guys taking finasteride as a medication
And they take it for one year one year 89 of men will show stability on on the medication on finasteride at two years the effective rate drops down to 82 at five years which is all that we’ve got figures for the figures less impressive and that’s down to 64 so at five years you’ve basically got around about two-thirds of patients that are taking that medication
That will be stable now you may argue that doesn’t sound very impressive but what it tell it tells me is that we haven’t got the cure for hair loss and i don’t believe that that’s a reflection that you develop immunity that the finasteride was working and now it’s stopped working or you need a higher dose of it i think what it reflects is that there is a another
Or multiple mechanisms involved in androgenic alopecia and this is just but one and it stabilizes people to a certain extent but over time that stabil you know that stability wears down because there are other factors at play so i don’t believe that you uh develop an immunity to it that said i have had many patients who have been on finasteride for many years for
Up to 20 years and are still rock solid stable on the medication so it’s certainly something worthwhile taking if you’ve been diagnosed appropriately and the medication is appropriate for you but understand that it is the goal is to stabilize the condition and you have to monitor it and see how it progresses because over time you may lose effectiveness i hope
That answers those questions please keep those questions coming and thanks again for watching and see you on the next episode take care
Transcribed from video
Immunity To Finasteride? Is There Such A Thing? By The Hair Loss Show
