DHT Tagging?

Dr. Rassman,

I was given a single dose of oral testosterone by my endocrinologist and I had not taken my daily Propecia. I’m afraid that the DHT surge did some damage by “tagging” follicles. Is there truth to the DHT “tagging” myth? In otherwords: does DHT “tag” hair follicles and activate within them some sequence of irreversible self-destruction? Or, does fresh DHT need to continually bind to receptors on a follicle to cause it to lose function? Or, is the DHT binding cumulative? Does a hair follice only begin to lose function once a certain number of DHT receptors have been bound with DHT?

Castration is rumored to halt balding. Therefore, wouldn’t this indicate that the effect of DHT stops once the DHT is gone? However, their hair does not regrow. So, is DHT “stuck” to the follicles, or are the follicles just not able to revive?

DHT does not stay in the hair follicle for a long time, as the body will metabolize it. If you were to stop taking your daily Propecia (finasteride 1mg) and took testosterone at about the same time, I expect that more hair loss will occur. Each genetically impacted hair follicle has a number of hair cycles which is usually less than genetically non-impacted hair follicles. That is why we lose hair in different parts of the scalp and different points in our lives. The DHT will not stick to the hair follicle beyond a week or two, so those hair follicles that are not due to undergo apoptosis (cell death) will most likely live until their time to die comes.