Adding dutasteride in combo with proscar?

[Guest]

I sent this same message in a PM to collegechemistrystudent but I wanted to hear what the rest of you thought about it:

I've been on Proscar 1.25 mg daily and Nizoral 1% every 3 days, for a total of 1 month. I'm a Norwood 1.5 by most accounts and my goal right now is to maintain EVERYTHING I have.

In that vein, do you think it would be a bad idea if i bought some dutas and added it to my regimen to complement my current proscar 1.25 mg daily + nizoral 1% every 3 day regimen. Now I don't know that this dutas is authentic, but if we give it an 80% chance of being real, then I'm fine with that.

I was thinking something like this:

Sunday:
proscar 1.25 mg

Monday:
proscar 1.25 mg
dutas 0.5 mg

Tuesday:
proscar 1.25 mg

Wednesday:
proscar 1.25 mg
dutas 0.5 mg

Thursday:
proscar 1.25 mg

Friday:
proscar 1.25 mg
dutas 0.5 mg

Saturday:
proscar 1.25 mg

And continuing to use nizoral 1% every 3 days.

This regimen should inhibit a lot more DHT than my current regimen of only 1.25 mg proscar each day, right? Assuming that the dutas is real. So what do you think? Should I wait to see what the finasteride does for me?

The tiny decrease in libido i had with finasteride went away after a week or two and now I have no side effects from it. That perceived libido decrease might have been psychosomatic anyway.

I just really want to keep all the hair I have right now and don't want to be bothered with topicals. Is it okay to be taking finasteride and dutasteride at the same time in a schedule like I've laid out? By my calculations I'd be inhibiting around 95% of DHT from the two meds combined and this should allow me to keep my hair basically forever right?

I'm wondering if staying on the proscar in addition to the dutasteride would give me any additional benefit in reducing DHT? Like is there an overlap in that the proscar will inhibit some extra type II that the dutas wouldn't? The main reason that I would want to stay on proscar at the same time is to hedge against the drug being fake. It is unlikely but still a risk.

Thanks.

 

[TAINTED-MEAT]

I would recommend staying on 1.25 mg finasteride as you are doing now. I decided to jump to .5 mg Avodart (dutasteride) daily because I have very aggressive male pattern baldness. I am probably a Norwood 3 with diffuse thinning all over at the age of 20. You are in pretty good shape, so finasteride would probably be good enough. However, if you have funds to spend, you could add dutasteride to your regimen since you do not want to add topicals. However, beware of side-effects and make sure you are healthy enough to do both.

 

[Guest]

I would recommend staying on 1.25 mg finasteride as you are doing now. I decided to jump to .5 mg Avodart (dutasteride) daily because I have very aggressive male pattern baldness. I am probably a Norwood 3 with diffuse thinning all over at the age of 20. You are in pretty good shape, so finasteride would probably be good enough. However, if you have funds to spend, you could add dutasteride to your regimen since you do not want to add topicals. However, beware of side-effects and make sure you are healthy enough to do both.

thanks taintedmeat. the reason i would add the dutas is that i am still seeing some thinning. i figure that the every other day dose of dutas won't inhibit as much type I AR as the every day dose so I will have less neurological sh*t to worry about.

I don't have to worry about the body building up a tolerance to starting the dutas now in combination with the finasteride? I know that there';s no such thing as the body building a tolerance to finasteride so i don't think there would be for dutas either.

So basically what im saying is that if i was going to switch to it later on anyway I might as well get on it now in combination with the proscar and hedge my bets.

 

[CCS]

healthy enough to do both? you are either healthy or not. if you are healthy, both is easy. if you are not healthy, don't risk you liver. see a Doctor.

 

[CCS]

That sounds very safe to me, and yes, you will keep your hair if the dutasteride is real, or at least your chances are much greater than if you are just on finasteride.

Some people (bryan, and harm1) told me that while castration stops balding, it does not regrow your hair, except for a little bit like propecia does. You need SODs to regrow it, or Minoxidil to make it look like you regrew it. If you castrate yourself now, you won't loose any more hair. Or you can take Dutas and probably be safe. Dutas is cheap, and since you don't depend on it being real, it is a good bet, especially with the finasteride as a back up.

 

[CCS]

i got my dutas from inhouse, $13.50 per 10, free shipping, in one week.

 

[Felk]

I don't see why no one is reacting to the suggestions of using both finasteride and dutasteride. Surely this is a bad move, as each drug isn't designed to be used alongside another 5AR inhibitor.

Am I missing a study where this was done or something?

 

[CCS]

Felk, GLA is a 5ar inhibitor, and bryan advocates using it with finasteride, though I'm not sure if he uses finasteride.

But that is not why it is OK. It does not matter if you take both at once. That is like taking twice as much of one, only better because you use two different liver enzymes instead of twice as much of one to break it down.

 

[Felk]

But bryan advocates using GLA topically as it is used in revivogen, not orally, no?

 

[CCS]

That is what I meant. It only can meet 5ar in the follicles either way. So you still have two 5ar inhibitors acting at once.

 

[Felk]

But i'm debating the safety of using both drugs, and thus the GLA + finasteride combination's safety profile isn't at all comparable with dutasteride + finasteride, since in the former combination the body is only subjected to finasteride's effects. I was thinking about the effects using two 5AR inhibitors would have on a person's health, more than anything. Is there any data out there where this has been tested?

 

[CCS]

no.

the closest thing is when merk tested a drug that inhibits only type 1 5ar, and used it in combination with finasteride, and found that the combo had effects similar to dutasteride.

 

[Felk]

But then we don't know whether it's safe or not to use both, so we shouldn't be advising people to do so. Or at the very least, we should tell people that using these drugs (which have proven to be safe when used alone) in this way, has not been proven safe.

 

[CCS]

using two topicals has not been proven safe.

if you look at the drug interactions if either drug, it does not say "don't take this while using the other 5ar inhibitor drug."

If you want to tell people it has not been proven safe, that if fine. But I think it is safe and am going to continue telling people they can use finasteride as a back up if they don't trust their dutasteride. I'm not telling any one to take a full dose of finasteride while taking 0.5mg of dutasteride every day. That has not been proven safe just like 2.5mg of dutasteride every day has not been proven safe. I don't recommend either. But if they are just taking the dutasteride 3x per day, and only taking 1.25 mg of finasteride, then they should be fine. The only way they could not be finasteride is if they inhibit more DHT than 0.5mg per day does, either type 1 or 2. Since finasteride 5mg is as strong as 1 dutasteride every 5 days, and they are only take 3 dutasteride per week and 1.25 mg per day (that is JayMan. I've been recommending EOD), I know they will not inhibit excess 5ar.

 

[Felk]

Using topicals has been proven safe, unless it's flutamide or something with the possibility of harmful effects through systematic absorption. Even that, when you consider how much can be absorbed (see http://www.hairlosshelp.com/forums/mess ... SGDBTABLE=) doesn't seem too bad.

I know they will not inhibit excess 5ar.

How do you know this though? Since we're not doctors, and even they would only make educated guesses, we can't possibly be advising people over the internet and giving them assurances about what could happen. This is for the best part, guesswork.

I think it's great how far people go in experimenting with the best ways to fight hair loss, and kudos to you in particular for all the research you've done, but so far it's just that - experimentation. And it's far too early to start experimenting on other people. Most people on this site are far to gullible and desperate as it is. If they want to be "guinea pigs", thats ok, but make sure they're aware of this.

 

[Guest]

hey felk,

id do almost everything i could to keep my hair, and to be honest, if this dutasteride+proscar combo prevents me from losing any more hair, which i think i will, im willing to run the risk of some nasty effects down the road. but i agree with college in that i think it's unlikely.

http://hair-restoration-info.com/eve/fo ... 4841054832

"I finally got to complete my discussion with Dr. Hasson about this isuue. He was neutral in response to my suggestion of taking both Propecia nad Avodart for a while. He basically feels there's no harm in it, but that it's more or less repetitive. Emphatically, he insisted that if I were to choose this route I should, nonetheless, continue to take the daily Avodart along with Procecia, as opposed to alternating between the two. The Propecia, he reasoned, would basically mimic half of Avodart's work, so there was no scientific reason to believe it would yield any benefit.

I'm thinking of just sticking with Avodart and throwing in Prepecia or two every now and then. What do you think?"

I found that on that site. Dr Hasson is a hair transplant surgeon btw.

 

[CCS]

just as long as you are aware that the finasteride is only as a back up incase the dutasteride is fake, and is not more thereapudic than straight dutasteride.

 

[CCS]

jayman PM'd me asking if he can take dutasteride every day and finasteride EOD. here is my response:

predicting regrowth or maintainance from DHT levels is kind of tricky. I do believe 3x a week is closer to 7x than it is to 0.1mg/day, but there probably is a noticeable difference between it and 7x.

As for your second plan, that will inhibit even more DHT than 7x per week does. So you would be taking a small health risk, just like you would with 2.5mg per day. I think 0.5 mg/day is probably safe, but I personally don't want to inhibit that much 5ar1 in my body. I'd rather let topicals take care of the remaining androgens. I've head many people say high doses of dutasteride don't help the temples as much as proscar, and I've seen official trials that show this, but Bryan doubts the trials ever took plance and wonders where I saw them, and now I can't find them. i think 3x per week is a safe and inexpensive middle ground, and will leave 3 times as much DHT in my prostate too.

proscar blocks about 80-85%, 3x is about 95%, 7x is about 98.5%, and 2.5mg/day is about 99.5%.

2.5mg/day is cheap for GSK. They could have sold pills with that much for the same price, just like they did with propecia and proscar. but they abandoned the drug. It regrow at least 60% more hair than propecia, making it like rogaine, but permanant. Maybe it would have regrown more had they continued the study. I think it has side effects they did not want the public to know about, whereas the 0.5mg/day is safe.

 

[Guest]

just as long as you are aware that the finasteride is only as a back up incase the dutasteride is fake, and is not more thereapudic than straight dutasteride.

yes i am. i dont really think that it is fake but its cheaper to buy US finasteride and the generic dutasteride than generic finasteride and US dutasteride, so thats what ill do for now. thanks.

 

[Guest]

predicting regrowth or maintainance from DHT levels is kind of tricky. I do believe 3x a week is closer to 7x than it is to 0.1mg/day, but there probably is a noticeable difference between it and 7x.

Thanks college. At 95% inhibition at dutasteride 3x a week, it seems that my genetics would have to be incredibly awful for me not to maintain my hair with that much DHT inibition. Am I off base in that assessment?

i imagine since i am early in my hair loss that i can also expect to see some regrowth from dutasteride, even if minimal, assuming its authentic?

in the back of my mind though i cant stop worrying that there are other hormones at play and other things causing people to lose hair besides DHT so even by blocking almost all of the DHT in my body, i might still lose a lot of hair.

Thanks.