Background on me...in high school as a 16 year old Junior I remember studying for math and running my fingers through my hair and having a ton of it fall out. At the time I thought, "Hmm, that's weird, I don't remember that but its probably because I used to not really study much and I now do in this hard math class." At age 19 I had noticeable hair loss, back a couple inches on my temples. Changed major in college to a science major, learned about the body, biochemistry, etc. Around age 23 I started taking propecia, a little more bald than I was at age 19. Now over 15 years later I have the same hair line I had at age 23 when I started propeica. It gets worse when I slack for a couple months then gets better when I realize I'm slacking and get back on the band wagon again!

I now have a son that turns 16 soon. He looks just like I did at his age and is going through the exact same thing. We know what's happening instead of just thinking its always been coming out like that so we want to jump on the bandwagon. We've looked into starting propecia at his age and hear a lot of people say you shouldn't because it will affect your sexual development. I hear anecdotal reports that it was fine, never that they killed their natural T or stopped developing or developed any abnormalities. I'm wondering if that is because the testosterone does most of the sexual development and not the DHT.

*Anyone know about that? Can a medical professional (or someone with a strong pharmacological/biochemical background) respond with anything other than “you're developing so it's probably going to be bad?” I'd like a solid explanation as to why we know that's bad.

*what about putting it on topically, I remember reading about that? I'm wondering if that would allow for small enough trans-dermal passage into the blood stream beyond the hair follicles to cause much of a problem.

My wife: she is starting to have hair loss, its been significantly bad the past couple of months. Like what happened each time after she had a baby (we have 5) and she'd lose all that hair that the pregnancy hormones built up. I've had a vasectomy with two verification tests and she's on the copper IUD for double protection (NOT having #6!) and considering ablation. She'd like to start taking propecia as well. It seems like it only was a problem for developing fetuses and that is why women shouldn't take it.

Anyone have any information on that?