FightForIt
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I started finasteride 1.25mg/day in October of 2010 to at least slow down the progression of my male pattern baldness. At the time I was noticing lots of shedding during showers even though my hair wasn't noticeably thin. I knew it was substantial because oftentimes I would shower with my girlfriend, and we would compare the numbers of hairs lost upon shampooing. I was consistently losing around 6x more than she was. Density hair counts on my crown confirmed this as they were at about 60% of other regions of my scalp.
I started finasteride and within about 6 weeks and my shedding came to an abrupt halt, most of the time I'd lose less hairs than her. After about 5 months my crown density was about 85% of the rest of the scalp and all was well. However about 8 months into the treatment, my shedding started picking up again. I changed nothing with my dosing but hair started falling out substantially throughout the month of June this year (2011.) Toward the end of the month the rate had slowed to about 1/2-1/3 of what it was at the beginning, but my crown density has dropped back down to about 60% (in a small region as low as 30%.)
To combat this I decided to use minoxidil 5% once a day on my crown, since it had so much success in my temples. However I only started this about 10 days ago so I haven't seen results yet.
So with the back story done, my question is there anything that is known to disable or interfere with finasteride? I checked interactions on Drugs.com and saw that most of finasteride's interactions were with drugs that inhibited the CYP3A4 liver enzyme. I also know that grapefruit juice is a CYP3A4 inhibitor, and I was drinking this often earlier in the year. Even though this should increase the bioavailability of finasteride, I wonder if my body adapted to the larger amount, and then once I stopped the grapefruit juice the regular bioavailability wasn't enough.
Additionally throughout the month of May I was on the SSRI citalopram, but stopped by the start of June because of side effects. Furthermore, it seems that due to the growth phases of the hair, once it's signaled to stop growing it takes about 3 months or so to actually fall out, so I should really concentrate on any changes I had back in February, and I wasn't on the SSRI then.
Does anyone know if ways to limit the effectiveness of finasteride? Thanks.
I started finasteride and within about 6 weeks and my shedding came to an abrupt halt, most of the time I'd lose less hairs than her. After about 5 months my crown density was about 85% of the rest of the scalp and all was well. However about 8 months into the treatment, my shedding started picking up again. I changed nothing with my dosing but hair started falling out substantially throughout the month of June this year (2011.) Toward the end of the month the rate had slowed to about 1/2-1/3 of what it was at the beginning, but my crown density has dropped back down to about 60% (in a small region as low as 30%.)
To combat this I decided to use minoxidil 5% once a day on my crown, since it had so much success in my temples. However I only started this about 10 days ago so I haven't seen results yet.
So with the back story done, my question is there anything that is known to disable or interfere with finasteride? I checked interactions on Drugs.com and saw that most of finasteride's interactions were with drugs that inhibited the CYP3A4 liver enzyme. I also know that grapefruit juice is a CYP3A4 inhibitor, and I was drinking this often earlier in the year. Even though this should increase the bioavailability of finasteride, I wonder if my body adapted to the larger amount, and then once I stopped the grapefruit juice the regular bioavailability wasn't enough.
Additionally throughout the month of May I was on the SSRI citalopram, but stopped by the start of June because of side effects. Furthermore, it seems that due to the growth phases of the hair, once it's signaled to stop growing it takes about 3 months or so to actually fall out, so I should really concentrate on any changes I had back in February, and I wasn't on the SSRI then.
Does anyone know if ways to limit the effectiveness of finasteride? Thanks.