17 Month Update On Finasteride And Ready To Throw In The Towel

[DoctorHouse]

I respect your opinion but Im just sharing what happened to me. I understand what the science says and I believe these medications work for the vast majority. I also believe that everyone reacts slightly differently but in some cases there is an adverse reaction. You’re right that I’m guessing at the reason for this. RH or upregulation. An immune response to the hormonal change. Whatever it is. I really don’t know or care. All I know is that I had some temple recession and 4 months into finasteride my mid scalp, forelock and crown all lost an incredible amount of density which never recovered but also never got much worse in 17 months.

If you want to say that was inevitable, a case of sudden highly aggressive hair loss which started and stopped abruptly that’s fine and I’m not going to argue your opinion. But a week after starting dutasteride after being on finasteride for 17 months my donor zone was shredded. And the mid scalp and crown which had maintained after the initial hit has also thinned out. You can go look at my pictures. There’s zero chance this is coincidental in my opinion. And I’m far from the only person reporting this type of reaction. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what actually happened. It’s not going to get my hair back.

Unfortunately, there will be a certain percentage of people that won't respond well to finasteride. At one time we had genetic testing to determine this but the company went under. I took the test and found out I would be a poor responder and it was correct. I had to find other ways to make up for the poor response to finasteride but it does do something as it completely decreased my body hair. I still take it because it seems to slow things down.

 

[Moosey]

It wasn’t just 2 months. That was just the dutasteride. I was 17 months on finasteride. So 19 months total with exceedingly awful results.

If it helps, shortly after i stopped dutasteride, my hair looked much much better. I dont know if it was purely cosmetical or if it actually thickened, but my hair looked so much better a few months after i stopped. Im still confused by this whole subject. Androgens is what caused hairloss for me but at the same time reducing these decimated my hair as if i time warped 20 years into the future.

 

[MKP05]

If it helps, shortly after i stopped dutasteride, my hair looked much much better. I dont know if it was purely cosmetical or if it actually thickened, but my hair looked so much better a few months after i stopped. Im still confused by this whole subject. Androgens is what caused hairloss for me but at the same time reducing these decimated my hair as if i time warped 20 years into the future.

I know how you feel. It’s like I’ve aged a decade in just under 20 months. It’s comical how much hair I’ve lost and the majority of it was lost in the first 4 months of finasteride and now the first 2 months of dutasteride. That’d be fine if it all recovered. But it didn’t on finasteride and I have low expectations of it doing so now. The theory that I just got hit with super aggressive hair loss in my mid 40s doesn’t sit right with me because if I was simply a non responder I would’ve expected to lose at the same rate across the last 20 months. But instead there seems to be a direct correlation between starting each of these medications and the initial hit each time.

But I’m terrified to quit taking the medication despite every bit of my gut telling me to do so. On finasteride the initial hit wrecked my hair everywhere but then only continued to worsen at the hairline and temples while not recovering anywhere else. It feels like the exact same thing is happening now but my donor area is included. I’ll be the first one to report back if everything suddenly reverses course in a few months assuming i find the will to keep going.

Did you quit cold turkey or did you taper off and did the hair loss stop when you did? Are you taking anything now?

 

[MKP05]

If it helps, shortly after i stopped dutasteride, my hair looked much much better. I dont know if it was purely cosmetical or if it actually thickened, but my hair looked so much better a few months after i stopped. Im still confused by this whole subject. Androgens is what caused hairloss for me but at the same time reducing these decimated my hair as if i time warped 20 years into the future.

On the other thread I posted with pictures of the hair loss on the back and sides you commented that the same thing happened to you but that it grew back in 6-7 months. I assumed at the time you meant that you continued taking dutasteride and it grew back. Are you saying it grew back only once you stopped using medication?

 

[Moosey]

On the other thread I posted with pictures of the hair loss on the back and sides you commented that the same thing happened to you but that it grew back in 6-7 months. I assumed at the time you meant that you continued taking dutasteride and it grew back. Are you saying it grew back only once you stopped using medication?

I took dutasteride for 10 months. From month 1 to 6-7 i shedded an enourmes amount of hair everyday which ended up making my hair look so horrible. But at around month 7, the shedding reduced alot and my hair looked denser, because my entire scalp got a shade darker. I saw less scalp. Lets say i lost 60% density in those months, i regained maybe 15% back. But from there on, stagnation. I thought i was about to regrow all my sht, but nothing happened afterwards. I quit at 10 months and i think 2 months later my hair looked and felt much better and more dense. Shedding was still at a minimum. Definetely nothing to worry about.
I didnt "taper" it off because dutasteride has a halph life of 5 weeks, meaning it will slowly taper off by its own when you stop taking it.

Im on a cocktail of a topical solution im applying every night. Its been 1.5 months now and i started shedding again. Not nearly as much as i did in those first few months on dutasteride, but definetely more compared to when i started using this cocktail.
Basically dutasteride -> 2 months no hairloss treatment at all -> 1.5 months now on this cocktail

I honestly kinda regret using this cocktail so early after quitting dutasteride. My hair looked so much better after i quit duta, im really curious what would have happened if i waited more. Would my hair keep getting better and better on its own? That would have been the final proof for me that anti-androgens are making my hairloss worse.