Stop DHT after treatment

Need some advice,

I just finished treatment, DART, Seeds and 7 months on ADT. My blood test one week after stopping ADT, PSA undetectable, too soon to be meaningful though, but the total testosterone was 7, which has me looking for other employment as a court eunuch
as we all know, The tradition of using eunuchs in the imperial court goes back at least 2,000 years. Beginning in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- A.D. 220), palace eunuchs often ran the day to day affairs of the court. They vied for power with military leaders and scholar-bureaucrats.
Back to reality.....
My RO wants me to start taking Finesteride 5mg daily to prevent testosterone from converting to DHT.

So will that affect the overall testosterone levels? Or just the level of DHT.
And what side affects does Finesteride cause?

Post Edited (Fauntleroy) : 8/26/2013 6:56:52 PM (GMT-6)

Thanks for responding TA, I was hoping to be done with the meds. I was disappointed being told to start finesteride. Still need Boniva for 6 months too, but compared to the cocktail I was on, this is nothing.

Anyone else keep taking meds right after treatment before testing warrants it?

Fauntleroy, Drs. Liebowitz, Scholz, and others advocate taking finasteride or dutasteride on the "off cycle" for their patients on intermittent ADT. They have a potential role in prevention, but at this point, I don't see a role in prevention for you because you've fixed that. Some doctors also use it to prolong the time on Active Surveillance - but that doesn't apply to you either. I'm not sure what your doctor's reasoning is for continuing you on it after definitive RT+adjuvant ADT -- what does he say?

Michael_T, DHT=dihydrotestosterone -- it's a potent activator of the androgen receptor. Medicines like finasteride and dutasteride, known as 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors (5ARis), block an enzyme that converts T to DHT.