How long should I stop taking finasteride before trying to conceive, without it starting to mess up my hair again?
In my opinion, the second part of your question is a bit tricky to answer. If your hair loss is fairly stable with meds, you might be able to stop for 3 to 4 months, maybe even longer, without seeing a big difference.
As for the first part, you should ideally stop taking finasteride at least 3 months before trying to conceive. Giving it 4 to 6 months would be even better. Probably not worth taking any chances if you’re planning to start a family
I’d personally stop at least 6 months before trying to conceive and stay off it until you know the baby’s sex. If it turns out to be a girl, you can start taking finasteride again after that.
Waiting that long doesn’t really make much sense. You’d probably end up losing a lot of the hair that’s been maintained thanks to finasteride.
Finasteride has a serum half-life of about 5 to 6 hours. According to StatPearls from the NCBI Bookshelf, DHT levels usually go back to normal within around 14 days after stopping the drug. If you want to be sure, you can wait a month and then get a blood test along with a semen analysis to check everything’s back to normal.
From what I’ve heard from a few doctors, it can take up to 6 months for your sperm levels to return to normal after stopping finasteride.
I reckon it’s safe to stop finasteride for a good stretch of time. If you have a look at the graphs from people who took a break for a year and then got back on it, their hair levels were nearly the same as those who stayed on it the whole time. Meanwhile, the ones who never took finasteride at all ended up losing way more hair.
The amount of finasteride that ends up in semen is incredibly low, so it’s basically impossible for it to have any effect on a developing fetus. Most research supports the idea that the risk is negligible.
I’ve had three kids and didn’t stop taking finasteride with any of them. All three turned out healthy, no issues at all.
The risk is very low. It probably won’t make a difference, but there is still a small chance, so it’s something to keep in mind.
The two main things to watch out for are:
-
Pregnant women shouldn’t take or even handle finasteride or dutasteride, since it could lead to higher blood levels and potentially affect the fetus.
-
These medications can lower sperm count, though in most cases it’s not a drastic drop. Still, something to keep an eye on if you’re trying to conceive.
It’s often said that it takes around 6 months for everything to fully clear out and for things like sperm count to return to baseline after stopping finasteride.
Doesn’t finasteride just affect sperm count?
that’s what i remember actually
That’s right. The main things that matter with sperm are count, motility, and morphology. 5AR inhibitors only really affect the count, and yeah, they do lower it.
Having a lower sperm count just means you might need to try a few more times to conceive. It doesn’t affect the health of the baby or anything like that, as long as it’s the man taking the meds and the woman has no contact with them.
So if you come off finasteride or dutasteride, chances are pregnancy might happen a bit quicker, but you’ll lose some progress with your hair. That’s pretty much it.
Still, forum chats like this aren’t a substitute for a proper consultation with a good doctor. Always best to check with a pro.
Finasteride in semen doesn’t pose any risk to a male fetus. Based on the numbers, a woman would need to come into contact with something like three litres of semen a day for it to cause any measurable change in her DHT levels.
Source: H. Wolff, C. Kunte – Therapie der androgenetischen Alopezie des Mannes mit Finasterid, 1999, MMW Fortschr Med.
That’s quite interesting!
Interesting one, this. It’s something I’ve been thinking about myself lately. To be honest, it seems pretty likely that stopping Fin for 6 months or more would lead to some noticeable shedding or lost progress.
With the studies showing that the risk to the fetus is incredibly low, you’ve got to wonder if it’s even worth coming off it at all.
Taking a break for a month won’t do much to your hair, and even up to three months is probably worth a shot. After about 90 days off finasteride, it should be completely cleared from your system.