I have been on propecia for 3.5 months and never missed a dose. Definitely had a little shedding in the first month but I have regrown and come in much thicker already. It works, but I am a healthy 33 year old male with no ailments. The only other drugs I take are xanax for panic attacks and pain relievers and an occasional hydrocodone for my herniated disk. That out of the way, after month one I went to the doctor because my testicles felt like they were on fire and I felt pain there from time to time, he checked my urine and saw elevated white blood cells so gave me antibiotics and it went away after a week, maybe it was just a bladder infection. Now a few weeks later my breast hurt and was red, so I felt my left nipple and there is a pea sized lump under it. It popped up within a week. My doc checked my hormones and have not got the results back and I have an appt. with a surgeon next week. He said he is 99.9% sure its not cancerous because of how rapidly it developed but it could be hormonal and related to the propecia. So I stopped immediately. I will update you guys when I get the final verdict from the surgeon. This is powerfull stuff. Dont think you are taking aspirin here. Think about your health before your hair!
Just an update. After stopping the drug the lump went to about 1/3 the size in a few weeks. I then decided to take 1/4 a pill to see if that would reduce the side effects and keep my hair, but my testicles started burning again so that was most likely the drug to begin with. So I stopped completely and the bump is almost all the way gone. The surgeon said he would remove it if I want but it will most likely go away.
BUT most importantly my blood work came back with an overactive thyroid. I then had a Gama scan done on the tyroid gland and found out I was born with 1/2 a thyroid. No big deal 1 in 3500 are born without one, you just take some supplements to balance the endocrine system, but I wonder if there is a link with Propecia and thyroid disorders since they are both in the endocrine system??
Definitely something to think about.