When it comes to Men's health, doctor's really don't give much of a fuck. Their primary concern is are you actually sick, they don't care about how you feel, or your self-image, or your sense of masculinity.

Hair loss is sucky, sure, but in the grand scheme of medicine it's nothing. Erectile dysfunction sucks, but are you old? That's just the name of the game.

I lost my testicles to cancer (yippee) and you would be shocked how difficult it is to just... get testosterone. My fundamental bodily functions no longer exist, but I'm technically fine so... I guess that's okay? Like I'm not dying, and quality of life is in the eye of the beholder or something. Never mind I'm literally castrated, like physically. And they'll talk your ear off about side effects.

Side effects? What about primary effects? Man, I have no balls! Everything sucks and I wake up feeling like I've been run over by a truck!

> Hair loss is sucky, sure, but in the grand scheme of medicine it's nothing.

It's also pretty trivial to prevent or recover at onset. Finasteride and minoxadil are FDA approved on-label prescriptions for it (well, the later is OTC).

Dermatologists will happily write the prescription and check in with you as often as you want to schedule.

Just to add, for anyone considering using minoxidil and/or finasteride - I can highly recommend both for the recovery of my hairloss.

But - read up in the side effects and potential risks, they can both cause other issues in some people, and for me it took a while to find the right finasteride dose.

Another downside is oral finasteride use means I can no longer give blood.

Did it fill in your crown area??

Finasteride alone won't reverse that much, it stops the path for testosterone becoming DHT (the cause of androgenic alopecia). Taken orally, it stops or slows all hair loss.

Minoxadil increases blood flow and restores the natural growth cycle lengths of weakened follicles. This is applied topically, and promotes hair growth pretty much anywhere - beard, crown, temples. You can take it orally, and it will promote hair growth everywhere (more body hair). However, it can't fix follicles already dormant or scarred over. So if things are already bald, it may not give the results you want.

A word of warning that about 5% of those who take Minoxadil experience a shedding period where it gets worse. Because it restores normal hair follicles growth cycles, this includes the process of pushing out old hairs. This is not permanent and will last, at most, a month. This is why most providers like "Keeps" will try to sell in batches of 3 months.

In 2026, a new drug will finish phase 3 human trials. That one targets (IIRC) stem cells and can restore even advanced hair loss where the follicles are dormant or dead. Very exciting!

Wow that would be a blockbuster drug if it passes. Know the name of it?

It is far better than it was, my thinning was definitely crown but also hairline - I went for a walk one day and got really wet and when I looked in the mirror I could see just how thin my hair was. I've applied liquid minoxidil for 5 years now, and it reversed the balding to a good degree, but my hair is still thinner than it was at 30, but it is far far better than it was at 40. I've been using finasteride (tablets 1mg ever 3 days) for a year and it has certainly helped, but at my low dose I expect it to be another year before I know if it is really making a good difference.

My hair is very grey now which I think makes it also look thinner, but I don't want to dye it - though I tried Alpecin 'grey targeting shampoo' and it turned my hair blue... Not a good look for the office and extra visible in video calls

I’m afraid of the reproductive and erectile dysfunction side effects

Sounds like they've consigned you to the knacker yard. It would be easier to get if you were intending to abuse it.

I wonder if physicians standards for normal are warped by spending most of their time in contact either with the ill or the overworked?

Is this in the US? If so I think you just need to switch doctors or go through a telemedicine consult. Your current doctor sounds like a jerk.

> When it comes to Men's health, doctor's really don't give much of a fuck. Their primary concern is are you actually sick, they don't care about how you feel, or your self-image, or your sense of masculinity.

Yes, I learned this the hard way, when I was trying to figure out why I have zero libido, brain fog and brain fog having a healthy BMI and lifting weights.

As a 35 year old, I had the T levels of a 65 year old men, yet doctors refused to consider this an issue because it was in the "normal" range.

It took me over a year to get a diagnosis of Secondary Hypogonadism in Canada and that was after I went to see a male private urologist after giving up on a public health care in Canada.

This was finally revealed once I finally did more specialized tests for LH, FSH, Estradiol, Testostrone and Free Testosterone at the requested of my urologist.

After 3 months of HCG treatment and all the symptoms were gone. It has now been 2 years and I have never felt better in my life.

I think it's both. Hims doesn't really even do the telemedicine bit all that well, and Hims customers know what they're there for. This is isn't a "by the way" conversation at the end of an annual physical, nor is it a dedicated full-cost office visit to discuss ED, Weight Loss, or Hair Loss. It's a quick website visit, and then maybe 5 minutes zooming with a doctor in another state you will never see again and who will never remember you among the thousands of patients they "see".

There's a lot of shame in society around all of these issues, and it's really appealing to a lot of Men to be able to spend an extra $100-200 to not have to have a conversation that embarrasses them with a Doctor who may know their wife, friends, or otherwise may be part of the community. That's the value proposition of Hims; a $200 fee to maintain the illusion of their inherent virility and masculinity. A lot of Men will happily pay that, and have the disposable income to do so.

Diet and exercise!

Don't forget that 3 month out appointment is probably 15 minutes long with a 30 min office wait which you'll then inevitably fight insurance over (Hims doesn't bill insurance either)

It's a little of column A, little of column B, but in a mixed way. A lot of doctor visits for basic health issues are ones that can be dealt with over a phone or video call. Routine stuff like updating your medicines, changing dosages, showing a bruise or dealing with a mild fever don't require you to be physically present at the doctor's office. Having to deal with insurance, scheduling, waiting times, driving to the doctor's office in the middle of the workday are unnecessary for a large proportion of the sorts of day-to-day issues people deal with.

Telemedicine isn't a panacea, but in a system with major constraints on doctor bandwidth and where in-person visits are very expensive, it's extremely helpful. And yeah, a lot of that is because so often the solution is as you said -- get more sleep, eat better, maybe work out a little, reduce your stress. I'd much rather have a quick 15 minute call to be told that, instead of having to take several hours off work to go visit the doctor in person.

I always lol at “reduce stress” as medical advice. May as well tell depressed people to “work on your attitude, turn that frown upside down!”

If people could just “reduce stress” on a whim, they would. Having a doctor tell you reduce stress will actually increase stress.

And yet, it works a lot more often than you'd think. Just having someone who you perceive to be in some kind of position of authority tell you that it's okay to relax and calm down can have a significant effect on one's stress levels. And it works even better when you're not having to worry about how much listening to the doctor tell you to reduce your stress levels is going to cost you financially.

While doing my PhD at a top-tier college, I went to their health center for psychological counseling and said "I can't study and concentrate well, I don't sleep enough, I don't do enough exercise, I eat crap, and I drink too much." The expert told me that I needed to study and concentrate better, sleep well, exercise more, eat healthily, and drink less.

It was enormously helpful /s

After having a stress-induced LAD heart attack at the age of 46, my cardiologist gave me the "you need to reduce stress" line and I responded with "Oh, so you're not going to send me a bill for that stent in order to help me reduce my stress?" Apparently he believed that my heart could handle the stress of that bill after all.

My Kaiser doctor recommended Hims for finasteride.

Kaiser isn't necessarily the best example here. Your doctor likely did that because Kaiser will generally not cover things like that, just as they'll almost never prescribe sildenafil or tadalafil or semaglutide (but they will happily refer you for gastric bypass...).

There are good things about Kaiser, but definitely not-so-good things. I'm still pissed at them for my fiancée, fresh from the dentist after a few root canals with a script for pain medication was told (at their hospital pharmacy, no less, so it wasn't that they didn't have it available) that they would only fill pain medication via mail order. "Oh good, so I just need to wait 5-7 business days for relief from my root canals."

Yeah they can definitely be archaic. I’ve stuck with them because they are the only provider offered to me that covers double jaw surgery. The cost of paying out of pocket for that would be prohibitively expensive.

What did you need double jaw surgery for?

Sleep apnea

Every human is just one "are you drinking enough water? how much water are you drinking" interaction with their doctor away from instant radicalization against the traditional healthcare system. You can really tell the author of this article hasn't yet actually had to use the non-emergent American healthcare system for anything significant.

The awfulness of the American health care system may explain, but does not justify a turn to things like quackery and faith healing.

A justification is just a moralization of the explanation. It happened because of the explanation, regardless of the morality of it.

You really should be drinking water, though. I get all sorts of odd effects that aren't obviously linked to not drinking enough water. I increased my intake for a few days and they all disappeared.