#81

I’m on finasteride 1m 6 days a week and DUTASTERIDE 1mg once a week no sides no sexual problem my testosterone and estrogen are even higher also with a better cholesterol panel ( I’m 28 ) I’m interested in offsetting alopecia and prostate cancer but also for the compliment data about heart health and the brain

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#82

No offense, but neither guy has hair, so there’s a lot less benefit for them in the cost-benefit analysis.

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#83

Haha very true, seriously though I watched that episode and just saw a lot of speculation with no substantive look at the literature. The data show that finasteride is a generally safe and well tolerated drug and in RCTs the side effect rate is very close to placebo. No-one should feel compelled to take it but it is widely used and does have benefits to BPH and of course balding.

Pretty low doses have also been shown to suppress DHT almost as well as higher doses. I only take 1mg per week split into 4 smaller doses but then I’m not balding and don’t have prostate problems, if I were I would probably take the 1mg/5mg per day dose.

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#84

Decided to try Finasteride again. 1 mg a day at night. 3 days in and it starts causing mood swings. I suddenly feel that my life sucks even though logically I think that it’s awesome. I guess Finasteride and I don’t mix. It’s either happiness or hair I guess…

(P.S. Topical minoxidil is still OK though)

Help me O-Minoxidil. You’re my only hope!

(P.S. Dutasteride does not cause noticeable depression so I have started it and so far so good.)

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#85

Citrate continues to help my hair without mood swings, but the hair regrowth is really slow.

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#86

If a medicine and you don’t mix then that is a good reason not to take it. What I would say is it isn’t all or nothing. I have had success in dosing at a far lower level and not every day. I take 0.25mg 4x per week so about 7 times less than the standard dose. Anecdotally other people have struggled at 1mg per day but have had no side effects at 1mg 3x per week or 0.5mg 3x per week etc. You get almost as much serum DHT suppression (maybe 60% rather than 70%) and very high levels of skin and prostate DHT suppression.

Edit. Just saw past me commented something similar about a month ago which makes this slightly redundant!

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#87

You’re right. I think once every 3 days might work. Thanks for suggesting this.

#88

I just started topical minoxydil and finasteride. Has anybody tried that?

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#89

I’m using the The Hair Topical Solution from Musely
Mine (it’s personalized) contains

  • minoxidil
  • dutasteride
  • ketoconazole
  • tretinoin

To which I add

  • 1mg rapamycin (obviously :slightly_smiling_face:)
  • 500mg L-tyrosine (as in GR7)
  • 500mg inositol (as in GR7)
  • EGCG (60mg)
  • Melatonin (6mg)

Works well for me and recolors grey hair too with the L-tyrosine and inositol.

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#90

Even doses as low as 0.25mg every other day still work to slow down or even stop hairloss.

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#91

I’m successfully using finasteride 1mg daily to regrow and maintain hair with good success and no adverse effects. Minoxidil I’ve used in the past but it became a hassle eventually so I stopped.

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#92

Why don’t you do oral?

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#93

Wouldn’t that basically be same as 1 mg every four days? Doesn’t finasteride have a really long half life and even weekly dosing would be ok?

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#94

Oral minoxidil can lead to congestive heart failure due to water retention, at least at the dosages used to lower blood pressure (10mg or higher). Lower dose oral minoxidil (1.25mg-5mg) has a lower risk but it’s been far less studied than topical minoxidil. Since finasteride is already working for me to regrow hair, I don’t see any need to use minoxidil right now.

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#95

Finasteride’s half life is only 6 hours in your bloodstream and a few weeks in tissue. Using 1mg once weekly is probably better than doing nothing but 5ar activity may resume in between doses.

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#96

From what I understand yes the effects of finasteride on the 5ar enzyme are longer than the drug’s biological half life (7 hours or so). Practically I don’t see why once a week dosing wouldn’t work pretty much as well as more regular dosing (assuming the same overall dose).

The theoretical benefit to more regular dosing is that your body is constantly creating more 5ar enzymes so a more regular dose would inhibit those enzymes more quickly but that is probably a minor effect.

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#97

The pharmacokinetics doesnt works like that. There is a buildup over time of the effect. The inhibition x% is based on a daily basis. However, you still have some effect, but its like cutting the dosage to 0.5 or 0.25mg. Personally I think 1mg every other day is fine enough for most people. But others are too sensitive to DHT and need the 1mg. The studies show a 80%+ effect on hair loss with 0,2mg a day

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#98

I’m not sure I fully understand. Assuming you are taking the same dose eg. 7mg once per week vs 1mg every day why would that be equivalent to cutting the dosage?

I was under the impression the build up over time was due to more of the 5ar enzyme being deactivated by the finasteride as it is absorbed into the peripheral tissues. The blood level of finasteride shouldn’t increase over time since its half life is short. The DHT suppressing effects of finasteride last far longer than its half life with serum DHT levels not getting back to baseline until more than 7 days and it lasts in the skin and prostate longer than that.

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#99

My personal take is that you should be careful with attempting to circumvent hair loss. Men as they grow older have much less Dementia than women, and body hair loss is hypothesized to be related to hominid’s spike in intelligence. Do you really want to be like the primate from 2 million years ago that fought all it could to keep it’s body hair because it was afraid hairlessness wasn’t attractive to other apes?

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#100

There is nothing to suggest that the use of finasteride/dutateride for BPH causes an increase in acm or alzheimer rates. We don’t even know why women suffer from alzheimer at twice the rate as men. Is it the lower testosterone levels or the lack of estrogen after menopause? Even assuming DHT was somehow neuroprotective for whatever reason, finasteride is a selective 5ar type 2 inhibitor so it won’t have an effect on the 5ar type 1 enzyme predominantly found in the human brain. Dutasteride may inhibit the 5ar type 1 enzyme but its molecule size may prevent it from crossing the BBB into the brain.

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