AVODART EXPERTS-Switching from 0.5 mg to 2.5mg Cause A Shed?

[GSTAR69]

,im thinking of going from 0.5 mg avodart to 2.5mg avodart and was wondering if doing this will cause a shed?anyone with opinions or past experiences...what do u think?

 

[serdar]

do you mean .25 or 2.5 mg?
im using .5 mg every other day which has same affect with using .25mg everyday..so 2.5 mg can be too much for you..you might have real problems in the future

 

[GeminiX]

2.5mg is apparently a pointlessly high dosage, the results are hardly any better than at .5mg.

I get the stuff for next to nothing and have a pretty extreme regimen, but even so I don't think 2.5mg is worth considering...

Saying that, it might be worthwhile using that much for a few months as a "loading" dosage.

D

 

[GSTAR69]

well studies showed using 0.5mg reduced scalp dht by 50% while using 2.5mg reduced it by 90% and on top of it 2.5mg grew an extra 14 hairs per square inch vs 0.5 which is something like 1000 extar hairs on ur head.but the question is will making this jump cause a shed or no?

 

[GeminiX]

Hmm, I've read some different studies which put the dosages *much* closer together, but I'm by no means an expert so might be wrong.

On the shedding issue, I'm afraid no-one knows. Some people shed, some don't. Some people seem to shed loads, others hardly anything at all etc.

I had a long noticeable shed when I switched from 2.5mg finasteride to 0.5mg of dutasteride and it seems to have messed up my shedding cycle slightly, however in three months since switching I have seen MASSIVE amounts of re-growth. Of course, I've been treating this for nearly two years now, so I might simply be experiencing a high volume of hairs beginning their growth cycle which may have still happened if I had remained on finasteride.

D

 

[Cornholio]

Compared to the .5mg/day dose the 2.5mg dose DOES reduce serum DHT a little more (from 90 to 96%) and did grow more hair than the .5mg/day dutasteride dose in the phase II trial. Hair counts at 6 months were slightly better with 2.5 mg/day vs .5 mg/day as the following graph summarizes http://www.dutasteride.org/dutasteride/ ... schart.gif
from http://www.dutasteride.org/dutasteride/ ... esults.htm

It is possible that the difference in hair counts between different drugs and doses would have widened if studied longer than 6 months, but this is not proven. It is possible that people who did not respond or maintain with propecia might respond or maintain with .5 or 2.5 mg/d dutasteride (since DHT is a little lower, and hair response is a little better) but this is not proven. Unfortunately larger and longer studies (phase III) will not be completed for dutasteride, so you are left to try it yourself to see if it works for you if you are convinced that the possible benefits are worth the cost and risks. I believe that the Phase III avodart trials would have used dutasteride 2.5mg/day for 6 months then .5mg/day so it is not an unheard of dose... But the risk/benefit hasnt been worked out by a phase III study so you are experimenting on yourself.

The cost of .5mg/day generic dutasteride is 1$US a day, and 2.5mg/day can only be obtained by taking five .5mg tablets/day for a cost of 5$US a day. That is for the admittedly "marginal" hair count difference suggested above. If the reduction tips you over from hair loss to maintenence or hair maintenence to regrowth then that might be worth it for you, but the only way to know what it will do for you is to try it.

Regarding shedding, it is unpredictable and there is no way to know if you will get one or not. Shed (or lack of shedding) does not seem to predict whether a medicine will have benefit for you. (As GeminiX said).

Personally I was thinning with propecia and added LOTS of things to my treatments 3 months ago. I used Dutas .5mg, 5 tablets a day for almost 3 months. I can't be sure how much of the benefit I've seen (some) might be due to dutasteride vs. minoxidil (which was also new) but I can say that after 3 months on that dose I started developing side-effects... Mainly decreased libido and early sexual dysfunction. I've cut back to .5mg/day and am seeing some improvement after a couple of weeks of this lower dose but know it will probably take a while for a full recovery : ) . I am still glad I did it this way and think I will eventualy find my maximal tollerated dose of dutasteride (between .5 and 1.5mg/day probably). I never had side-effects on finasteride, but it wasn't doing as well as I needed regarding hair either. Hopefully I can tollerate a dose of dutasteride that will "work" when combined with the other treatments.

 

[GSTAR69]

but studies did show SCALP dht reduced 50% with 0.5mg and 90% with 2.5mg,to me that is a huge difference!

 

[Cornholio]

but studies did show SCALP dht reduced 50% with 0.5mg and 90% with 2.5mg,to me that is a huge difference!

Yes, but the hair count difference at 6 months is what it is... That difference may have gotten better with time due to lower scalp DHT or may not have. First, if you argue with Bryan he will tell you that other researchers have found widely different numbers for scalp DHT level reduction after finasteride and dutasteride, making the results debatable. Second, most of the DHT reduction in the scalp due to dutasteride is due to its blockade of the TYPE I 5AR enzyme, which is primarily present in the sebaceous gland. The DHT it produces does not seem to be as relavent as the DHT produced in the follicle itself by TYPE II 5AR (which finasteride blocks). Drugs that only block Type I do not stop hair loss. Drugs that block type II (finasteride) have been proven to help male pattern baldness. Drugs that block both types (dutasteride) may or may not be much more effective than those that block only type II (finasteride)... How much more effective they are needs to be proven, and the phase II Avodart study is the only data that shows how much more effective it is (marginally). http://www.dutasteride.org/dutasteride/ ... schart.gif Is that marginal difference enough to be the difference between losing hair and maintaining or regrowing for some people? Maybe. High doses of Dutasteride ARE lowering TOTAL dht about as much as possible... 90% in the scalp if you believe the phase II Avodart study numbers (Bryan will argue that they are "meaningless"). Even if it is lowered 90% it is not proven that will stop male pattern baldness in all succeptible men once it has started... I hope it does, and will take as much dutasteride as I personally tollerate (as above), but it is not proven (yet) how effective this will be (or even what the rate of side effects after 10 or 20 years will be at high doses). I'm not trying to tell you it won't help... I'm just saying that despite the possibly dramatic reduction (debatable) in scalp DHT, the long term relative benefits (and tollerability) of that level of DHT reduction are not proven. It may be great, or it may ultimately disappoint.

As DHT is reduced in the serum testosterone secretion increases to compensate for loss of androgens. This may account for continued male pattern baldness in some highly sensitive people despite DHT blockade. I WISH people were studying this quesion, but for now the only possible response to this concern is to use topical anti-androgens in addition to DHT blockade (unstudied/unproven benefit).

 

[global]

I personally doubt that testosterone has any effect on male pattern baldness since the pseudohermaphrodites who do not produce DHT but have normal levels of testosterone do not experience any hairloss ever, not even mild loss.

I believe testosterone must be converted to DHT in order to show any activity in the hair follicle.

 

[Cornholio]

I believe testosterone must be converted to DHT in order to show any activity in the hair follicle.

I dont know.... There is just one androgen receptor and it binds DHT and testosterone. It just has more affinity for DHT (DHT is more potent). In any case all you can do is lower androgen stimulation as much as you can using oral and topicals and hope that is enough to arrest or reverse male pattern baldness.

 

[GSTAR69]

but the question is i have been on avodart for 2 years now at 0.5mg...will switching to 2.5mg cause an extra shed because of upping the dosage or not?????

 

[Cornholio]

but the question is i have been on avodart for 2 years now at 0.5mg...will switching to 2.5mg cause an extra shed because of upping the dosage or not?????

This link will provide the answer you seek... http://www.cavernsofblood.com/magic-8-b ... -ball.html? However shedding doesn't seem to be predictable, and shedding (or not) doesnt seem to predict whether you will be a good responder.

 

[global]

I believe testosterone must be converted to DHT in order to show any activity in the hair follicle.

I dont know.... There is just one androgen receptor and it binds DHT and testosterone. It just has more affinity for DHT (DHT is more potent). In any case all you can do is lower androgen stimulation as much as you can using oral and topicals and hope that is enough to arrest or reverse male pattern baldness.

How do you know that? I wish I knew more about this subject but is there any evidence that there is just one type of androgen receptor? Is there any evidence that testosterone binds to androgen receptors in hair follicles or skin without converting to DHT?

These are the sort of things we need answers to.

 

[Bryan]

I believe testosterone must be converted to DHT in order to show any activity in the hair follicle.

There's at least one line of evidence which I think argues against that idea (besides the apparently less-than-stellar performance of Avodart): testosterone suppresses the in vitro growth of not only human hair follicles, but also stumptailed macaque follicles.

I know what you're thinking right now: how do we know that the effect isn't simply being mediated by the conversion of the testosterone to DHT, rather than the testosterone itself? Answer: there's a recent Japanese study showing that hair follicles in vitro rapidly start to lose their ability to express 5a-reductase type 2. That suggests that it really is the testosterone itself (rather than any DHT) which is causing the effect.

Bryan

 

[Bryan]

How do you know that? I wish I knew more about this subject but is there any evidence that there is just one type of androgen receptor?

Man, is THAT a real can of worms!

There's only one type of androgen receptor, but there are at least a couple of different studies documenting the fact that certain specific polymorphisms of androgen receptors are strongly associated with hairloss.

Is there any evidence that testosterone binds to androgen receptors in hair follicles or skin without converting to DHT?

See my post directly above this one.

Bryan

 

[Dice_Has_Hair]

How do you know that? I wish I knew more about this subject but is there any evidence that there is just one type of androgen receptor?

Man, is THAT a real can of worms!

There's only one type of androgen receptor, but there are at least a couple of different studies documenting the fact that certain specific polymorphisms of androgen receptors are strongly associated with hairloss.

Is there any evidence that testosterone binds to androgen receptors in hair follicles or skin without converting to DHT?

See my post directly above this one.

Bryan

Wait a minute.............you said certain specific polymorphisms of androgen receptors are strongly associated with hairloss. HHHmmmmmmm.....................it would be cool if they could make a pill, like an androgen receptor blocking pill that you could take that "target" these specific polymorphisms of androgen receptors..........but only those specific ones, nothing else.

 

[powersam]

Mr G-Star sir,

i was on avodart .5mg dosage for quite awhile then upped my dosage for no good reason whatsoever. I had what can only be called a MASSIVE shed, losing huge amounts of density in just a few months. if you're going to increase your dosage, do it incrementally and definately use some kind of topical anti androgen like spironolactone or fluridil.

 

[Guest]

Is this true that 5 mg of finasteride like is showed in graphic is better than 1 mg that is the usual? i use only 1mg of finasteride the propecia. if this is so much diferent in the results of 1 mg and 5 mg why the people dont buy proscar and use a pill in a day? one pill of proscar have 5 mg of finasteride. Ppl usually cut that in four pieces.... please try to answeer my question

 

[Hussam]

Is there anyone on 2.5 mg dutasteride?

 

[Father_of_Shiseido]

I

Is there anyone on 2.5 mg dutasteride?

I am on dutasteride 2.5 mg. It works better than .5 mg.