0.5mg finasteride.

[justin]

anybody start on this dosage and maintain good results for an extended period of time?

 

[MPBWarrior]

u should be fine on 0.5mg. if u don't get any sides for 6 months, try 1mg.

 

[JohnnySeville]

There is practically no difference in effect and sides with using 0.5mg over 1mg, so if you cut your current dose down, you may notice a few hairs going south, but no big deal. Same with the sides, maybe a slight bit too.

 

[justin]

so would it be a better idea to start on the usual 1mg, and then maybe cut back if there are sides or if i think i can maintain results.. or the other way around, like mpbwarrior suggested?

i'm really not uncomfortable with my hairline, just want to maintain what i've got. i'm still trying to get through a slight minoxidil shed in the front, but i think i'm almost there.

 

[person_123]

justin, I've just read your regimen. You're planning on dropping minoxidil for finasteride. I feel I should warn you, like I was warned, you may lose whatever you've gained from minoxidil. If it hasn't helped you that much, then you may lose very little. If it has helped you a great deal, you stand to lose alot.

This is the advice given to me, I'm not sure how accurate it was, I'm just passing it along.

 

[MPBWarrior]

yeah, if u drop minoxidil u should realise you'll probably get a shed (the problem with minoxidil, along with the fact that u have to use it twice a day). and your regrown hairs will go. also, just start on 1mg finasteride. it's not a very big dosage. if u get prolonged sides, then drop it to 0.5mg.

 

[justin]

well, initially when i started using minoxidil i was just trying to maintain as a precaution because i started to get worried. about a year ago, my hair stopped growing at its normal rate only in the corners of my temples. seemed fine everywhere else. a couple of months ago, i noticed a little thinning in the front, and that my hairs seemed shorter on the edges of my temples. also, particularly around the perimeter of the forelock, which seemed to foreshadow the "island" looking patch in the front. at the time, it wasn't anything that anyone else noticed and i was told i was being paranoid. despite this, i began using rogaine foam twice a day... i believe i did go through a sort of shed and after a couple of months now, i'm basically worse off. i've stuck with it, because i know this is not uncommon. but basically the worst of it now is that i have what appears to be a patchy bald spot right above the edge of my right temple with the small hairs still on the edges. it's pretty noticeable now, and though it's difficult to tell if this would've been the normal progression it doesn't seem to be a typical one for male pattern baldness. i do notice what appear to be new hairs growing in and it looks as if my hairline will come down. the problem is, i'm more concerned about the centralized thinning in particular areas. i guess my point is, i haven't really gotten to a point yet where i've "progressed" noticeably with minoxidil. it only appears worse at this point. had i maintained what i had, i would have been perfectly content. my tentative goal is to continue using minoxidil until i'm satisfied with where i'm at and then maybe ween myself off it while using finasteride. bad idea?

 

[MPBWarrior]

it's amazing how many people have bad stories about minoxidil. just remember, if minoxidil regrew anything for u, you'll lose it when you're off of it, and that goes for hair that you've shedded and came back.

 

[justin]

i won't lose the hair that i already had, though, correct? i'll should go back to where i was before starting minoxidil, is what my impression was. because now i'm a little thinner, but this isn't my baseline. i was thinking i'd add finasteride and then try to ween off minoxidil. if i lose a little extra hair, that'd be ok. i just don't want to lose more than i started with. right?

 

[justin]

i'm still trying to stay posi and working under the assumtion that the extra thinning means the minoxidil is working.. and my hair will eventually go back to baseline, if not better.

 

[lain]

If you stop using minoxidil your hair will go back to the way it would have been had you not been using minoxidil.

minoxidil does not stop your follicles being killed by DHT, it just continues to grow hair from those follicles.

So if your male pattern baldness has progressed since u started taking minoxidil and u quit using minoxidil its possible your hair will look worse than just before u started minoxidil.

Thats how I understand it.