[quote]vroom wrote:
No, I haven’t tried the drug, I’m still hacking away at the blind trust thing.
However, sure you can skew your selection criteria, officially or otherwise, to include people who either have low libido or who already have shitty sex lives.
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I wonder if they put that in the criteria for the study: “must currently have shitty sex life”.
Side Note: Isn’t TC taking finasteride? And he’s the horniest 40 something year old there is!
[quote]TheZ-Man wrote:
I wonder if they put that in the criteria for the study: “must currently have shitty sex life”.
Side Note: Isn’t TC taking finasteride? And he’s the horniest 40 something year old there is![/quote]
Are you arguing for the sake of arguing or what? If you choose to believe everything you hear from the big business and government, good for you. Or, do you just have a lack of imagination?
Simply choosing fat ugly married people might do the trick. Sure, it’s silly, but such a group has good odds at not doing the nasty all that often anyway.
Shit, I’m not even trying to say it is or was skewed, but just that you still have to be careful when you believe things from business or government, because you just never know.
[quote]TheZ-Man wrote:
I’m sorry…
I like to get sidetracked with BS for no apparent reason sometimes.
To continue the hijack: Have you tried using .5 finasteride daily?[/quote]
Of course I have. I had a whole discussion on dosing with my doctor. When I complained of the effect he said.
“you should stop if you want to have sex. I had the effect. I didn’t mention that because I didn’t want to cause a placebo effect or suggestion effect, but if you notice it, stop and then we’ll take a break and go back on at 0.5mg daily.”
I can see where vroom is coming from but most studies are not designed around showing a side effect is low. Study design and statistics can be manipulated though. I do not believe big pharma is as evil as many here thinks. I know first hand the one I’m in, the people above and below me, we all care about patient health #1. All drug companies want to make money, but they are genuinely concerned, for the most part with peoples health. The majority are not evil.
Some people in some drug companies of course aren’t good. Just like supplement companies. I mean, lets face it, they tell blatant lies all the time. Many businesses go too much after money and compromise ethics. Many do not. You can see this with all types of businesses, industries and markets.
What I agree with 100% is you must understand that your health is your responsibility. You cannot blanketly state that all supplements and natural med and chiros are bullshit or that all doctors and drugs and hosptials are profit hounds.
You must research your specific conditions, define your expectations and whats important to you and don’t accept anything because someone is an MD PhD or because they shoot down MDs and PhDs. Think critically about ALL the options. Docs, Drugs and surgery have been both good and bad to me. Supplements have been both good and bad to me. Chiros have been both good and bad to me.
I don’t like when MD’s bash all chiros or the opposite. They should both realize they have limits. Drug companies list their side effects, there are tons of resources to look deeper though and peoples experience does count for something. If one idiot I know tells me spike made him fall asleep, I don’t listen, cause it worked for me and a ton of people. But if a lot of people, even docs and others tell me finasteride killed their drive, and I actually experienced it, then there is something too it. Avodart is similar and has similar effects. It’s not imaginary.
In this case I say there is no great treatment for my prostatis. And my urologist agrees. Flomax made me tired, though it was amazingly effective, proscar and avodart irradicated sex drive, but they were amazingly effective so I’ll give them that. For all the people who thing drugs are bad, hey, they did give relief. Friggin all the saw palmettos I tried did NOTHING. They SUCKED, no relief no sides. I think I notice the now saw palmetto, but believe me, if you have prostatis you piss a lot, finasteride and flomax fix this issue flat out. They work. Saw palmetto, I think I notice some relief.
So I’m not against drugs. I don’t think studies can’t be flawed in design or blindly trust drug companies but I do respect what they go through cause I’ve seen it. It ain’t easy. Compare that to a supplement company. I don’t put blind faith in medicine or drugs, but they have earned some level of respect. They are good at treating some conditions. They are not performance enhancement specialists looking to help you with things you can fix yourself with eating right and exercise. It’s a problem when docs give nutrition advice or drug companies make appetite suppression or tons of ADD products are overprescribed. The whole premise is off, mostly, there are underlying causes that should be treated in those cases and they are missing that. BUT, there are some truly sick people out there with horrible things you’ve never seen or heard of. New medicines and procedures help them. And drug companies as a whole are aware of how they are perceieved and are trying to make real changes.
You can’t blanketly state that just cause it’s in a drug company pamphlet it’s gospel. But you can’t blanketly imply that all drug companies are profit hungry monsters devoid of interest in patient and public health. Everyone is way to polemic.
Vioxx baby… 
[quote]vroom wrote:
Vioxx baby… ;)[/quote]
Do you really believe that Merck blatently lied or tried to keep the heart risks secret?
Didn’t Merck voluntarily pull Vioxx off the market once the threat was revealed?
What I don’t understand is how Pfizer still has a similiar product on the market (Celebrex, I believe).
Sidenote:
STAY AWAY FROM AVODART!!!
My doc warned me against about the effects…apparently there was a study done recently which showed that 8% of men in the study (skewed or not), had a 90% reduction in sperm! FUCK THAT!!! He also said that Avodart (dutasteride) stays in your system for over a month, compared with a day for finasteride.
I actually agree with most of what Scrappy says…Finasteride works, but if you experience a negative side effect, by all means STOP TAKING IT!
so…does anyone know if saw palmetto lowers testosterone levels?
[quote]TheZ-Man wrote:
vroom wrote:
Vioxx baby…
Do you really believe that Merck blatently lied or tried to keep the heart risks secret?
Didn’t Merck voluntarily pull Vioxx off the market once the threat was revealed?
What I don’t understand is how Pfizer still has a similiar product on the market (Celebrex, I believe).
Sidenote:
STAY AWAY FROM AVODART!!!
My doc warned me against about the effects…apparently there was a study done recently which showed that 8% of men in the study (skewed or not), had a 90% reduction in sperm! FUCK THAT!!! He also said that Avodart (dutasteride) stays in your system for over a month, compared with a day for finasteride.
I actually agree with most of what Scrappy says…Finasteride works, but if you experience a negative side effect, by all means STOP TAKING IT!
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Just observations. Zman…If Avodart is so bad (dutasteride) what do you think about it’s close funtional relationship to finasteride. If you’re afraid celebrex may be like vioxx, wouldn’t this concern you too. Duta and fina are very similar.
Vroom and zman? Did merck knowingly do wrong? Some people at merck knowingly did wrong, yes, they hid things. I know this. It’s come out in court. This case isn’t just ‘hey we found a side effect let’s pull it’, it’s ‘hey we didn’t report the last 9 months (or something like that) of a study. Just the first 12 months which favored our case for approval.’ Now, who didn’t report it? Evil merck, NO…some not so good people in Merck concerned with mabye their job, maybe profit who knows. But others in Merck fessed up and knew huge penalties awaited. So there are some good people there and bad people there.
Now, on top of that, Vioxx and vioxx type drugs which were pulled, and many others were…maybe even celebrex or bextra, i forget. Anyway, I know people who would sign a petition to get it back. vioxx helped their quality of life. They don’t care about the few pre risk people who got heart attacks faster than they would’ve anyway. So what merck hid was wrong, but applied to a small number of folks.
As long as they disclose that info it should be patients choice to take the drug. I like ibuprofen over vioxx and I liked bextra and aleve more too. Some folks get on here against all anti inflamatories telling me to take fish oil. I take a lot of a quality brand of fish oil. I do brazillian jiu jitsu, ibuprofen has helped me. So what? Back to vioxx. did vioxx help some patients. You bet your ass it did. Would those patients sign a waiver to get it again? Many would. Do some lawyers, some people in general use the great wealth of merck to get rich quick, hell yes.
So really what has this all done for the patients who suffered ill effects of vioxx?
What has this all done for the patients who suffered good effects of vioxx?
What has this done to Merck? What good has merck done otherwise?
What has this done for frivilous suits?
Some people believe all that their doc/drug company says. Some people don’t believe anything a doc/drug company says. Who do they belive…All of what mercola says?? All of what a supplement company or supplement forum says or some anti-establishment website with it’s own hidden financial agenda? Pharm companies don’t deny their out to profit from their business. Are the many alt docs and sup companies who just attack docs and drugs honest about their motives, profits? The drug companies are regulated and still make mistakes and in some cases hide things. What of the unregulated industries?
[quote]Scrappy wrote:
Vroom and zman? Did merck knowingly do wrong? Some people at merck knowingly did wrong, yes, they hid things. I know this. It’s come out in court. This case isn’t just ‘hey we found a side effect let’s pull it’, it’s ‘hey we didn’t report the last 9 months (or something like that) of a study. Just the first 12 months which favored our case for approval.’ Now, who didn’t report it? Evil merck, NO…some not so good people in Merck concerned with mabye their job, maybe profit who knows. But others in Merck fessed up and knew huge penalties awaited. So there are some good people there and bad people there.
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Yeah, I want to be clear, I am not saying that everything is bad. There are an incredible number of advances being brought to us by research and a ton of people with real concern for helping improve peoples lives.
However, at the same time, it isn’t too hard for a bad egg, especially as they rise up the ranks, to make a decision or cast influence on policy in such a way that it will pad their pockets. We can’t ignore this fact either.
Generally, in my opinion, the “working” man wants to do a good ethical job if management will quit getting in the way and making it difficult to do so. It’s the people with shitloads of stock incentives and enough power to influence others who are incentivized enough to test their ethical mettle. Some people fall down, it’s as simple as that.
Psst… while we aren’t answering the saw palmetto question we are at least keeping the thread bumped…
[quote]welterweight wrote:
so…does anyone know if saw palmetto lowers testosterone levels?[/quote]
No good answer. One study said it did I think. Several said it didn’t. Without knowing more about the study I don’t think it does to a huge/noticable degree. But it’s supposed to lower dht. That’s it’s supposed selling point I believe.
Thanx guys for the posts…I appreciate everyones input.
Anyways i was thinking of taking finasteride because im pretty young (21) and starting to lose my hair. I was looking for an all natural way to block dht (aka saw palmetto) but i doubt it can work wonders. So then i was thinking of going on finasteride, but ive read some horror stories on the net thats scared the shit out of me…I guess health comes before hair eh? lol
I was mostly scared that the fact finasteride causes gyno, and fuck i dont wan man tits…
While we are somewhat off topic here but talking about pharma companies I can’t help but throw in my 5 cents. For anyone who thinks that pharma, FDA, CDC and other organizations have only our best in mind this movie may be interested to watch: Prescription for Disaster. It was for sale previously and can be watched for free since a few days ago:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2502546838698762400&q=Gary+Null&hl=en
Watch it with an open mind and your eyes may be opened more than you like. Truth can hurt but judge for yourself.
My apologies for straying from the original topic.
Jo
[quote]vroom wrote:
Scrappy wrote:
Vroom and zman? Did merck knowingly do wrong? Some people at merck knowingly did wrong, yes, they hid things. I know this. It’s come out in court. This case isn’t just ‘hey we found a side effect let’s pull it’, it’s ‘hey we didn’t report the last 9 months (or something like that) of a study. Just the first 12 months which favored our case for approval.’ Now, who didn’t report it? Evil merck, NO…some not so good people in Merck concerned with mabye their job, maybe profit who knows. But others in Merck fessed up and knew huge penalties awaited. So there are some good people there and bad people there.
Yeah, I want to be clear, I am not saying that everything is bad. There are an incredible number of advances being brought to us by research and a ton of people with real concern for helping improve peoples lives.
However, at the same time, it isn’t too hard for a bad egg, especially as they rise up the ranks, to make a decision or cast influence on policy in such a way that it will pad their pockets. We can’t ignore this fact either.
Generally, in my opinion, the “working” man wants to do a good ethical job if management will quit getting in the way and making it difficult to do so. It’s the people with shitloads of stock incentives and enough power to influence others who are incentivized enough to test their ethical mettle. Some people fall down, it’s as simple as that.
Psst… while we aren’t answering the saw palmetto question we are at least keeping the thread bumped…
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