Advice

[ataman]

Hi guys,

I've been on dutasteride (plus much longer term minoxidil, nizoral, & infrequent folligen & emu oil) for about 14 months with good results - hairloss stopped and some regrowth all over. No sheds of any signifcance.

Unfortunately the last 6 weeks or so has seen significant shedding at the front. I'm losing it where I always tend to start losing it when a treatment is no longer working and am therefore pretty terrified that dutasteride has stopped working for me.

The question is...is this likely to just be a shed that a lot of guys here seems to have experienced, or is this the beginning of the end of dutasteride effectiveness for me?

Thanks guys. As with so many of you out there, hairloss has had an utterly detrimental and profoundly negative impact on my life (34 now - been fighting this for 15 years). I am dealing with it a little better as I get older, but that worry that another 'wonder drug' is no longer working for me scares the hell out of me.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Wouldn't you expect the ending of a drug's effectiveness to be accompanied by a gradual process of loss, not the sudden, significant shedding that you describe? For what it's worth, frontal shedding that late into the game is something I enjoyed, actually even a few months further on than you are.

Slarti

 

[oni]

2 years and 8 months on dutasteride no regression so far.

 

[ataman]

...I need to clarify what I'm seeing. I know from experience that a lot of guys will hate anything negative they see about dutasteride, so I'm going to keep things in perspective.

When I say significant shedding, I mean significant to me. Although my hairline still looks pretty good, I have definitely lost some hair in my left, and possibly right temple areas. - It is very noticably thinner both wet and dry than it was a couple of months ago.

The shedding itself hasn't been massive - maybe 10-15 hairs in the comb / falling out when I'm styling my hair in the morning, but has been going on for quite a few weeks now (from almost 0 hairs a day for quite a while).

I've been on one (genuine) avodart every 2 days, for the last 14 months.

Any other longer term dutasteride users who have noticed thinning at this stage?

If not, would you recommend upping the dosage to 1 a day?

Thanks guys.

 

[ataman]

...I need to clarify what I'm seeing. I know from experience that a lot of guys will hate anything negative they see about dutasteride, so I'm going to keep things in perspective.

When I say significant shedding, I mean significant to me. Although my hairline still looks pretty good, I have definitely lost some hair in my left, and possibly right temple areas. - It is very noticably thinner both wet and dry than it was a couple of months ago.

The shedding itself hasn't been massive - maybe 10-15 hairs in the comb / falling out when I'm styling my hair in the morning, but has been going on for quite a few weeks now (from almost 0 hairs a day for quite a while).

I've been on one (genuine) avodart every 2 days, for the last 14 months.

Any other longer term dutasteride users who have noticed thinning at this stage?

If not, would you recommend upping the dosage to 1 a day?

Thanks guys.

 

[ataman]

...I need to clarify what I'm seeing. I know from experience that a lot of guys will hate anything negative they see about dutasteride, so I'm going to keep things in perspective.

When I say significant shedding, I mean significant to me. Although my hairline still looks pretty good, I have definitely lost some hair in my left, and possibly right temple areas. - It is very noticably thinner both wet and dry than it was a couple of months ago.

The shedding itself hasn't been massive - maybe 10-15 hairs in the comb / falling out when I'm styling my hair in the morning, but has been going on for quite a few weeks now (from almost 0 hairs a day for quite a while).

I've been on one (genuine) avodart every 2 days, for the last 14 months.

Any other longer term dutasteride users who have noticed thinning at this stage?

If not, would you recommend upping the dosage to 1 a day?

Thanks guys.

 

[ataman]

Bugger - sorry for the duplicates. Can you believe I work as a website developer?!!

 

[Slartibartfast]

Okay, I see, so it's not a cascade of hairs but a nonetheless worrying decline in density after a lengthy period of stability, I guess that ups the possibility that it's dutasteride's effectiveness on the wane rather than a late-in-the-day shed. I actually switched to a daily dose after 15-odd months of taking dutasteride every-second-day because I suspected the same thing, only for me it wasn't any new loss in density that caught my eye, but a stalling in the regrowth of hairs from an earlier shed.

I've had 2 years and 4 months on the daily dose and, despite a particularly nasty shed between months 6 and 8, I'm glad that I upped my dosage and persevered with it through the months of shedding and tedious post-shed inactivity (hair wise that is, I moved around all the time).

Slarti

 

[ataman]

Slarti - thanks for the comments. I've decided to see how things go over the next month or so and, if they're not looking great, I'll up the dose to 1 a day.

Have a good xmas/holiday season & new year.