A minoxidil warning - Evidence minoxidil causes eye circles, wrinkles and bad skin

[TinSoldier]

My story...started losing since about 20, tried minoxidil for about a year.. seemed to work well but was causing what I beleived to be lines/darkness under my eyes. My hair wasnt THAT bad back then so I gave up minoxidil. I dont beleive the dark circles ever 100% went away but they definitely did mostly. Flash forward to 26 and my hair was much much worse..desperation lead me to minoxidil again. Fairly quickly it started to give me rings but I stuck with it because it was working so well on my hair.. everything was filling out dramatically, so I put up with the sides..they seemed bareable. 1 year on and my face now looks like ****. I wasnt paying much attention.. i wear glasses and was preoccupied with how well it was recovering my hair.. but here's the evidence (albeit taken in different environment but still both front lit). The results are undeniable. Everytime I look in the mirror in the morning these days Im like... wow I look like %^&*.

http://oi58.tinypic.com/2hqgz7b.jpg (a before/after exactly 1 year after resuming minoxidil)


So obviously, Im going to go back off minoxidil and just hope I can replenish my skin. Im using retinol and trying to stay healthy. I'd prefer to be blading and looking vital than semi-balding and looking like death. Been on finasteride & topical spironolactone for about 6 months - does anyone know if this also causes this problem??

f--kin drugs.. should've shaved my head 5 years ago. So the moral of the story is be warned.. if you start to notice minoxidil wrecking your face, it IS a real side effect for some and it will only get worse. Just take that into consideration.

 

[duke]

How long have u been off minoxidil currently?

 

[TinSoldier]

How long have u been off minoxidil currently?

no, still on it, having just decided to give it up. probably scale it down to half use, then quarter, then off completely, just so as not to shock my hair too badly.

I've just been reading about this side effect with finasteride too. Though I am quite convinced my symptoms have come specifically from the minoxidil as i experienced them before.

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It seems to be a real side effect for people who respond well to the drug. Did you get any facial bloating? Experiment with different doses?

How long did it take for your to start getting dark circles?

I get dark circles, but they appear/disappear very suddenly and appear to be due to vasodilation. But benjt in his thread stated that he thinks collagen depletion (and thinning of the skin) could contribute to it.

Ive always been prone to circles, even as a kid, just due to the my face and alergy profile. But I'd say the minoxidil dark circles got worse only a few weeks in, and then seem to stay.. scaling doesnt seem effective to me logistically, because stuff like collagen breakdown takes so long cus its really gradual.. I didnt even notice just how much Id changed until I did those before after photos and that was over a whole year. So i dont know how youd scale and be able to gauge results. Yes, id say the area on my cheeks around the end of my nose is mildly saggier/bloated too.

All i can prove is that minoxidil at 5% twice daily slowly degrades some peoples faces. I've heard people blatantly refute these claims on here which makes me angry, so I wanted to post evidence. Whether or not thats enough of a trade of for hair is anyones decision, - in my moment of desperation i thought it was a small trade off.. but in retrospect I was wrong and I think its a no brainer. Just hoping I can make my skin better.

 

[duke]

I stopped taking propecia 2 months ago, it gave me gyno. Ive never experienced such skin related sides on propecia. My skin was fine no complaints all three years on propecia. I exposed my self to minoxidil and all these sides happened all of a sudden. If you are on propecia, stop using it, its not worth dealing with gyno or ed. After you quit minoxdil the first round, how much time did it take for the sides to go away? Did your sides get worst before getting better? Im experiencing dry, still, numb forehead constantly. Ive stoped taking rogain a month ago.

 

[TinSoldier]

I stopped taking propecia 2 months ago, it gave me gyno. Ive never experienced such skin related sides on propecia. My skin was fine no complaints all three years on propecia. I exposed my self to minoxidil and all these sides happened all of a sudden. If you are on propecia, stop using it, its not worth dealing with gyno or ed. After you quit minoxdil the first round, how much time did it take for the sides to go away? Did your sides get worst before getting better? Im experiencing dry, still, numb forehead constantly. Ive stoped taking rogain a month ago.

that was many years ago, so i dont remember exactly. I think once a wrinkle is created it probably never really dissapears esp if its been there for a while. But I think from memory the dark circles took a few months. Drink lots of water, moisturise.. maybe ask a dermatologist if retinol cream might help?

 

[resu]

The lower photo the quality is much worse, there's a lot more contrast so it's hard to tell just how bad it's gotten. People also age really fast, you're fine and them bam, wrinkles start getting more prominent.

 

[benjt]

TinSoldier, had the same, only worse with big wrinkles. Then again, I was/am a very good responder to minoxidil. The bigger the effects, the bigger the side-effects. I'm now on a lower dose (a bit less than 1.5 ml in total per day), and so far I am side effect free.

@resu: I had the same occuring to me at 23 to 24 and in the meantime (more than one year of going off minoxidil completely and experimenting with very low to low doses) I recovered. a) people don't just get wrinkles around 23 within one year that hadn't been there before at all, b) people don't just recover from natural aging. Only possible conclusion is that it wasn't natural aging. I guess you know the in-vivo studies about minoxidil inhibiting collagen.

 

[Secretlybatman]

This looks like it has more to do with the contrast in the second picture. Take a photo under the same light as the first one please.

 

[resu]

Yeah that's what I'm thinking as well, I've been having insomnia, waking up numerous times during the night after I started minoxidil seriously and I got pretty good results with just 0.5ml two times a day, now I have so much hair that I have to use 1ML once only. The problem is that I would have to quit minoxidil to really know if the insomnia is caused by it or other factor. minoxidil also killed the itch for me, it was one of the reasons I kept using and I want to keep using.

 

[eenrak]

Dark circles come and go dependant especially on how tired you are.. I call bs.

 

[TinSoldier]

Dark circles come and go dependant especially on how tired you are.. I call bs.

You're totally correct. But these don't go. Thus the problem.

Think before you speak and slander.

 

[eenrak]

I did. I think you are bs'ing. How can we know?
Remember that anyone who naturally has dark lines under their eyes at some point did not. You can't just blame it on minoxidil and call it 'evidence'. This is just anecdotal bs imo.

 

[St4n80]

Get on the sunbeds, tan that **** up

 

[TinSoldier]

I did. I think you are bs'ing. How can we know?
Remember that anyone who naturally has dark lines under their eyes at some point did not. You can't just blame it on minoxidil and call it 'evidence'. This is just anecdotal bs imo.

I can and will blame it on minoxidil because it has happened to me twice now, both in line with my use of minoxidil, the first time at a very young age. Many others report this side, and I have also provided photographic evidence.

But yes I like to waste my time coming on hairloss message boards warning people about made up side effects. Calling it BS helps nobody... in fact I can't help but wonder what your motive is in doing so other than trolling or working for a company. Get off these msg boards unless you have something useful to input.

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minoxidil dark circles don't look like ordinary bags when they are bad. Ordinary bags from tiredness form just under the lower eyelids. minoxidil dark circles are huge and severe to the point that they form a crease in the skin, at least with me.

Yeh Zoupa, I'd say thats what mine are like too. the darkness is not to bad but the puffiness is enough to have cause a crease from one corner of my eye to the other, its not nice at all.

 

[eenrak]

I can and will blame it on minoxidil because it has happened to me twice now, both in line with my use of minoxidil, the first time at a very young age. Many others report this side, and I have also provided photographic evidence.

But yes I like to waste my time coming on hairloss message boards warning people about made up side effects. Calling it BS helps nobody... in fact I can't help but wonder what your motive is in doing so other than trolling or working for a company. Get off these msg boards unless you have something useful to input.

You say that I am wasting people's time? You are scare mongering, that's what you are doing. For the sake of argument, let's say that you got dark eyes because of minoxidil. Are you then aware that there is no science that supports your claim, despite your pictures taken in different environments? That makes your "evidence" anecdotal. If calling it bs helps at least 1 from being scared off by this bs, I will be happy.
At the very least, you should change the title from "causes" to "it might cause".

 

[Hari]

Ya its true. Monoxide usage created eye circles to me too. But u can reduce the dosage and use only once a day. So we can reduce

 

[Agustin Araujo]

Both pictures aren't evidence that Minoxidil causes eye circles, wrinkles, and bad skin, especially that the lighting contrast is different from the two photos. Yes, Minoxidil can cause side effects, but not wrinkling of the skin, there's no scientific evidence that it does that. I've been using Minoxidil twice daily for a while now, I rarely miss an application, and I haven't had any problems whatsoever.

Don't scare people away from treatments that they could actually benefit from.

 

[resu]

The second pic it looks like it was taken with a webcam, there's so much grain in it, take a photo with the same light as the first.

 

[Notcoolanymore]

Don't scare people away from treatments that they could actually benefit from.

Exactly! We can use finasteride because of all the talk of sexual side effects, now we can't even use minoxidil. Our only choices are experimentals or natural supplements. We might as well just all shave our heads.

 

[Agustin Araujo]

Exactly! We can use finasteride because of all the talk of sexual side effects, now we can't even use minoxidil. Our only choices are experimentals or natural supplements. We might as well just all shave our heads.

There's a lot of medications out there that can cause much worse side effects and they don't get anywhere as much attention as the hair loss treatments. There's simply too many people claiming that Minoxidil wrinkles the skin. And when the clinical trials were done for Minoxidil to treat Androgenetic Alopecia, why weren't there any reports of skin wrinkling as a side effect? There's no scientific evidence that Minoxidil can cause wrinkling of the skin as a side effect. At this point, it's just a false rumor going around to scare people away from Minoxidil who could potentially benefit from it so those that weren't successful with it could feel better about themselves.

And what about the 5-AR inhibitors? If so many people complain about Finasteride's 60-70 percent in DHT reduction, then wait till they learn about Dutasteride's 90+ percent in DHT reduction. It'll be considered some kind of a male hormone destruction medicine, it probably already is. And once again, men that could really benefit from a 5-AR inhibitor get scared away from it by people who claim that it can cause persistent side effects, which there is no scientific evidence that it can cause side effects to be persistent.