Do Tamsulosin and Finasteride have serious side effects?
Have you been prescribed tamsulosin or also known as flomax or finasteride also known as propecia or proscar for your prostate or even for hair loss well i’m dr rina malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and today i’m going to share with you some really shocking side effects that you need to know about when you’re taking these medications also will these side effects go
Away when you stop the medications and make sure you stick around till the end to find out if you’re new here i make urologic content every monday and friday so make sure if you like what you see subscribe and share this channel with your friends the next one is finasteride or also known as proscar and while this is given by urologists for an enlarged prostate and
If you want to learn more about enlarged prostate make sure you check out my video on that but it’s also used for people for hair loss in a lower dosage and interestingly there are some significant sexual side effects that people can experience with this medication how does it work it works by blocking the enzyme called 5-alpha reductase this is found in many parts
Of the body particularly the prostate but it’s also found in the brain and this medication can cross what we call the blood brain barrier and when it crosses the blood-brain barrier it can inhibit three what we call neuro-active steroids these are called dht 5 alpha dihydroprogesterone 5 alpha dihydrodeoxycorticosterone while this is not completely understood it’s
Thought that reducing the amount of these particular molecules in our brain can affect the parts of our brain that aren’t needed for sexual desire and therefore cause low libido most of the studies done on these medications and their effect on the brain has been only done in animals so that’s why we don’t really have a clear cut answer as to how this works and why
It affects our brains in this way when you look at the labeling of this medication people will say there’s lower than 10 risk of impotence decreased libido ejaculatory disorder and just general sexual dysfunction the good news is that if you take it for over a year so if you’re already on it and you’ve been on it for over a year and you’re not having sexual side
Effects you’re probably not going to get them moving forward however people who have taken finasteride and suffered sexual side effects have been studied in fact they did a survey of 71 men who suffered from this post-finasteride sexual dysfunction after taking it for hair loss and they found that over 90 percent of people complained of decreased libido decreased
Arousal and erectile dysfunction almost 70 also had difficulty with orgasm the scariest part was that when we looked at how long these sexual side effects persisted after stopping finasteride the average time was about 40 months that’s almost four years and 20 of these men had symptoms for over six years the other side of the coin is something called the nocebo
Effect so many of you have heard of the placebo effect but the nocebo effect is kind of the negative side of that so when you’re counseling someone on negative potential side effects people are psychologically inclined more likely to think they’ve developed those symptoms that’s one concern in patients who do develop sexual side effects after being counseled
On the possibility of getting them the last class of medications is something that we urologists prescribe all the time and this is called alpha blockers and the one with the most side effects is called tamsilocin and the side effect that people will see is having decreased ejaculation volume and this side effect particularly with tamsulosin can occur in 8 to 18
Percent of men who take the medication depending on the dose they’re using actually the way it affects ejaculation having a decreased volume of ejaculate or an ejaculation and there’s two reasons for this one is that these medications work by blocking alpha receptors these alpha receptors are located in the bladder neck and the seminal vesicle about 80 percent
Of ejaculate comes from the seminal vesicle and this is because the seminal vesicles contain about 80 percent of semen volume and they also have a lot of alpha receptors as does the bladder neck both of these together squeeze to help get the semen out of the body out through the urethra that perhaps the tabsilosin binds to receptors either serotonin or dopamine
Receptors in the brain preventing the brain and the spinal ejaculatory center from allowing ejaculation to happen and interestingly when men are counseled that they may have ejaculatory issues about 70 of men said they probably would never take a medication where that may be an option so it’s important to know that if you’re suffering these issues and you’re on
These medications please talk to your urologist or your primary care doctor there are other alternatives to tamsilos including terazosin alfozosin and doxazosin all of which have much lower rates of ejaculatory dysfunction and looking at the data alpha zosin seems to have the lowest rate at point six percent tamsulosin as well as cilidosen seem to have the highest
Rate of ejaculatory dysfunction i really hope you guys enjoyed today’s video as always i’m gonna take care of yourself because you’re worth it you
Transcribed from video
Tamsulosin and Finasteride SIDE EFFECTS that will SHOCK YOU! | Are they reversible?! By Rena Malik M.D.