Hello! I’m Doctor Neal Schultz and welcome to DermTV. Today, I’m going to talk about regular hair loss in men.

Since the middle of 1800, medicine men have been hacking all sorts of concoctions and lotions and potions that supposedly grew hair. Of course none of which worked and as a matter of fact no internal medicine has ever safely work to grow hair except for an Finasteride which was discovered about 15 years ago and there’s really an interesting story about how they discovered it.

Finasteride was being used in experiments to help shrink enlarged prostates in men and some of those study subjects who were bald started growing hair on their head and that’s really the way it was discovered. Finasteride is now marketed as Propecia in a much lower dose which has no side effects on the prostate to grow hair in men. In as little as two to three months, you can see your actual reduction and hair loss. And by four to six months, you can usually see hair growth and that hair growth will continue as long as you continue taking the medication. The only side effect of any importance is that in less than 1% of men, they can have some difficulty with erection. And if that happens and again it’s very unusual, stopping the pills results in the difficulty in erection going away in two to three weeks. But the great importance for pregnant women and they can’t even touch this pill because when they touch it they can absorb some of the powder that could adversely affect their pregnancy. So guys, if you’re having a problem with regular hair loss, see your doctor to discuss a prescription for Propecia because for most men it is helpful.

Please join me again at DermTV.com. If you have a question, please send to me by visiting DermTV.com/question. I’m Doctor Neal Schultz and thank you for watching today.