I take finasteride 1mg every other day for a year and just recently noticed that the hairline is thining. What you would think it the best thing I can do now?
I would increase your dose to daily rather than every other day. See if that makes a difference with the finasteride. You could add microneedling weekly.
Dr. Rassman in your practice have you ever had a patient with an adverse reaction to oral min? Thanks so much!
Yes, some people can’t tolerate this medication for one of many reasons, and the blood pressure effects can be disabling for a few people, with lightheaded and rapid heart beat. Here is a list of some of the side effects of minoxidil. Some of these side effects only relate to the topical application of minoxidil.
- Fluid retention
- Facial hair growth
- Fast heartbeat
- Hair shedding
- Irritation
- Nausea
- Acne
- Burning of scalp
- Chest pain
- Fainting
- Headaches
- Application site redness
- Difficulty breathing
- Hypertrichosis
- Redness
- Swelling of face
- Breast tenderness
- Burning
- Low blood pressureReddened skin
- Weight gain
- Hair texture changes
- Heart palpitations
- Cardiac Tamponade (very rare with a lot of early signs of it but potentially deadly)
So if tissue levels remain for 6 days, would topical application every 4/5 days be theoretically still somewhat effective?
Some amount of finasteride stays in the tissues for more than two weeks after stopping the pill. Daily dosing is the ideal way to build appropriate tissue levels.
My hair is medium-coarse. I had two sessions totaling 5500 grafts. Do you think that it too many grafts from my donor area?
The men who most tolerate 5500 grafts excised from the back of the head are men with a coarser hair. That puts you in this category, so I would worry less, assuming that the FUE was done correctly with good spacing and no donor area shock loss.
I’ve been on fin for 5 years and had great results. Whatever reason my crown is really thinning again, fast. Should I just up and take oral min too
Adding oral minoxidil might help as it has a different mechanism of action.
Reducing the dose to 0.5% of finasteride may help some men with symptoms. The half dose is 82% as effective as the full dose.
I have been on finasteride for more than 10 years, then I decided just recently to stop it. I lost basically everything in 3 months when I stopped min/fin. I started back 30 days ago is it possible to regain everything?
It is possible that some or all of the hair is still there. Good luck with a potential reversal. Let me know in 3 months so I know. I always want to be educated by the men who are balding and dealing with such problems.
For someone paranoid about balding, but currently too poor to do anything about it aside from fin/min (oral+top) and derma-stamping, is there any way to somehow save donor area hair for the future? I worry that if financial security ever comes, it’ll be too late as far as my donor area is concerned. Any cheap solution to this? Do I just scalp myself and toss it in the freezer? (Kidding).
The donor area remains intact in most men throughout their early years until 60. After 60, some men start losing their donor area hair. This is a normal process and nothing to worry about. Freezing hair for future use sounds extreme to me and not practical today.
You reported one year of treatment. The photo shows a perfectly normal hairline. The presence of the widow’s peak and the flat hairline to the sides suggests that you have a left-over component of your juvenile hairline still showing. I have seen or treated many men like you. If you want a consultation with me, my email address is williamrassman33@gmail.com. Please send me your post before you started treatment so I can understand what was reversed after a year of treatment.
A poster on Reddit suggested that a new drug verteporfin , would regrow hairs that were removed by FUE. The proof was shown here without before pictures of the same area after the FUE was performed. This is an incredible claim not backed up my this photo. Proper scientific investigation would have to be done. What this photo suggests is that the area on the left, didn’t have FUE. My comment is: prove me wrong.
If half-life of fin is 6-8 hours in the blood but 5-6 days in tissue (scalp) why don’t people apply topical every 3-4 days to minimize systemic?
Topical finasteride goes systemic. Perfect Hair Health has shown the relationship between systemic DHT level drops with higher and higher topical finasteride dosages as the effective topical dose increases. For men highly sensitive to finasteride, the standard topical finasteride will not change their problems by switching unless it is the liposomal preparation. Tissue levels remaining after stopping finasteride. Officially symptoms’ like sexual side effects should disappear within 6 days, but from my experience, it can last a month or more.
Doc, i have a question, Does it happen usually that someone stops reacting to the current dosage and has to move to higher concentrated dosages. Ex, someone stops reacting to 1mg finestride and has to move to 2mg to keep seeing results. I am kinda scared of it, I started with 1mg per day, but later came across someone mentioning it, so I reduced the dosage to 1mg every alternate day, bcoz 0.5mg per day wasn’t available. Was it a smart move or me just believing in a myth?
The original Merck studies showed that the 1mg dose was the ideal dose for hair loss. Half that dose is 82% as effective, so taking a pill every other day is essentially half the dose and it should still be 82% effective in your situation.
Do you think that it is safe taking finasteride and minoxidil at my age? My result are excellent.
Speak with your doctor, as I don’t give direct advice over blogs. I suspect that it will be okay. These topicals go systemic, so maybe you would be better off sticking with the oral forms of these medications so that you know exactly what your system is getting.