Applying rogaine once a day?

[Franmiester]

Hello! I am a 24 year old male with diffused thinning on my crown. It's become visible when my head is exposed to direct lighting and I have been getting a few comments from friends and family about my thing hair. So I decided that today after work, I would go out to wal mart and buy a box of liquid rogaine.

So my question is this: once I regrow some hair by applying rogaine twice a day, is it possible to apply only once a day for maintenance? Will I still be able to hold on to the newly grown hairs?

And also, do you think if I change my diet and lifestyle, I can slow down the balding process? I am currently 15 pounds overweight and I have a abnormal sleeping pattern. Thanks in advance.

 

[Bryan]

So my question is this: once I regrow some hair by applying rogaine twice a day, is it possible to apply only once a day for maintenance? Will I still be able to hold on to the newly grown hairs?

Topical minoxidil doesn't really "maintain" hair, except in a very superficial sense. Once you get past the initial surge in hair counts (takes a few weeks), the balding process begins again, at what appears to be about the same rate as before.

Propecia, on the other hand, _does_ slow down the fundamental balding process.

And also, do you think if I change my diet and lifestyle, I can slow down the balding process?

Probably not to any really noticeable degree, in my opinion, unless you're frankly malnourished.

 

[halpmeplease]

Bryan, are you saying Rogaine is no good? Are you saying Minoxidil only works for a few weeks and then doesn't work any longer after that, and you continue to lose hair?

Sorry if I misunderstood. I've been on finasteride for about 6 months, and tried minoxidil at the beginning for about one month and quit, but now have been thinking about using it once a day. But I'm worried about the dependency thing that some have suggested... the hairs becoming dependent on the minoxidil.

 

[halpmeplease]

Also, Bryan, what do you use? finasteride, minoxidil, spironolactone, whatever.

 

[Bryan]

Bryan, are you saying Rogaine is no good?

No, I'm not saying that Rogaine is no good. I'm saying that it's not AS good as something that interferes with the balding process more directly.

Are you saying Minoxidil only works for a few weeks and then doesn't work any longer after that, and you continue to lose hair?

No, I'm NOT saying that Rogaine stops working after a few weeks. As far as I know, it keeps working for as long as you use it. What I'm saying is that balding continues, even while you're using topical minoxidil. Rogaine continues to give you that extra "offset of growth", even as your haircounts slowly decrease. In other words, at each step of the way, you will have a bit more hair than you would have had, had you not used Rogaine at all. But it's still declining! Do you see what I'm saying?

Sorry if I misunderstood. I've been on finasteride for about 6 months, and tried minoxidil at the beginning for about one month and quit, but now have been thinking about using it once a day. But I'm worried about the dependency thing that some have suggested... the hairs becoming dependent on the minoxidil.

What do you think it means to become "dependent on minoxidil"?

 

[Bryan]

Also, Bryan, what do you use? finasteride, minoxidil, spironolactone, whatever.

I haven't used anything at all for a few years, and my hair is definitely suffering as a result.

I've never used finasteride or dutasteride. The basis of my treatment (when I was using anything at all) were Dr. Proctor's products: Prox-N, Proxiphen, and NANO shampoo. I've also experimented with my own topical concoctions, including green tea extracts, phenytoin, spironolactone, 11a-hydroxyprogesterone, linoleic acid, and probably others that I'm forgetting at the moment!

 

[Cassin]

In Short, Bryan is saying you need to attack this problem from more than one angle in terms of treatments.

Both Rogain and Propecia work, but they work in different ways and do different things.

 

[halpmeplease]

Yeah, I see what Bryan is saying now, I was just waking up earlier and was probably a bit out of it haha

Anyway, as far as "becoming dependent on minoxidil", I meant that using minoxidil makes the hair sort of need minoxidil, and once you stop, the hairs suffer because they no longer have the minoxidil and they... fall out?

I don't know, it's just what I've read a lot, and have also seen other users have the same concern. But it would also make sense that it's just simply the effect of stopping minoxidil, the same thing that the product itself says on the label. Stopping minoxidil will make you go back to how you were before you ever started it at all.

All I know is that I put Rogaine on my hair for the first time this morning since probably about March of this year, and I've been smelling it all day! haha

Also, Bryan, why haven't you ever used finasteride or minoxidil? Because of the sides, or do you just like to go natural or something? Don't mean to seem all nosey, just wondering

edit: and you seem to know about studies and post some good info, so do you think Rogaine once a day has about the same effect as twice a day?

 

[Bryan]

Anyway, as far as "becoming dependent on minoxidil", I meant that using minoxidil makes the hair sort of need minoxidil, and once you stop, the hairs suffer because they no longer have the minoxidil and they... fall out?

The best available medical evidence (from Vera Price's excellent 1999 study of topical minoxidil) seems to indicate that when you stop using minoxidil, haircounts and hairweights dramatically plummet, even to below what they are in placebo users! But in another 6 months, they had pretty much rebounded back to about the same level as the placebo users.

So I don't know why people on hairloss sites keep using this annoying phrase about "becoming dependent on minoxidil"! All that apparently happens when you stop using topical minoxidil is that you eventually go back to the way you were (or would have been), even if it takes a while for that to happen.

Also, Bryan, why haven't you ever used finasteride or minoxidil? Because of the sides, or do you just like to go natural or something? Don't mean to seem all nosey, just wondering

I've used topical minoxidil, but not finasteride. At first it was just because of a fear of sides, but then I also started to get more and more interested in the claims I was seeing on hairloss sites about how it was supposedly impossible to stop male pattern baldness without using a systemic agent like finasteride. I decided to put that claim to a direct test, by using ONLY topicals!

edit: and you seem to know about studies and post some good info, so do you think Rogaine once a day has about the same effect as twice a day?

Give me a few minutes to post something on that issue. I'll post it right here in this same thread.

 

[Bryan]

The following is something I posted on another site, titled "Using topical minoxidil only once a day, compared to twice a day!"

That study is the following: "Five-year follow-up of men with androgenetic alopecia treated with topical minoxidil", Olsen et al, J Am Acad Dermatol 1990; 22:643-6. Here is an excerpt from the third page of the study:

We attempted to identify whether patients who were treated with topical minoxidil once daily (n = 17) for 9 to 12 months had a different subsequent course of hair growth or loss compared with those who continuously used twice-daily topical minoxidil throughout the study (n = 14, Fig.3). The once-daily group had a notable decline in target area nonvellus counts between 1 and 3 years (-68.2 +/- 90.9, p = 0.015) compared with the twice-daily group, who continued to have a slight increase in counts (22.6 +/- 104.3). After transfer back to twice-daily treatment, the hair loss stabilized in the daily dose treatment group. At 4 1/2 to 5 years the change from the 1-year nonvellus hair counts in both treatment groups was not statistically different (p = 0.87). The statistical results of the comparison of daily regimens were unaltered by a covariate adjustment for age, duration of baldness, and baldness pattern.

They have a graph of the haircounts on that same page, allowing a more direct comparison of the once-daily and twice-daily regimens (unfortunately I haven't scanned it, so I can't post the graph itself). My best estimate from looking at the graph is that the once-daily regimen appeared to work about 2/3 to 3/4 as well as the twice-daily regimen after 12 months (I'm taking into account the fact that the two groups started from somewhat different haircount levels at the very beginning).

One fairly important thing to keep in mind with this early study is that they only used combinations of 2% and 3% minoxidil (after 1 year, the 2% users were switched to 3%). For people who use modern 5% versions of topical minoxidil, I would expect there to be even LESS of a difference between once-daily and twice-daily applications, for the simple reason that even a single application of 5% is more nearly capable of saturating the scalp with minoxidil, compared to the older 2% and 3% versions.

 

[halpmeplease]

I've used topical minoxidil, but not finasteride. At first it was just because of a fear of sides, but then I also started to get more and more interested in the claims I was seeing on hairloss sites about how it was supposedly impossible to stop male pattern baldness without using a systemic agent like finasteride. I decided to put that claim to a direct test, by using ONLY topicals!

Annnnnnnd, the test didn't go as you had planned? haha

Well, I've been on finasteride for about six months and haven't noticed any difference if it makes you feel any better.

Anyway, thanks for posting the info about once daily use. I think I'm going to use Rogaine at night and see how it goes, I just can't use it while going about my day, just because of the smell.

 

[Bryan]

Annnnnnnd, the test didn't go as you had planned? haha

Yes, it went exactly as planned.