Avodart Once a Week Works!

[JohnnySeville]

Guys...

A while back I posed a question to Dr.Bernstein about intermittant use of finasteride to avoid the eventual possibility of it not working for us as time goes on. I just noticed he responded to my question in his blog.

One statement he made during his response was particularly interesting, concerning the use of avodart. His statement was:

"Dutasteride has a ½ life of 5 weeks and is found to bind to scalp tissue for many months, so with dutasteride, a dosing of even once a week will most likely be just as effective as once a day."

I know you guys would like some hard concrete study showing this is true, but Dr.Bernstein is probably the best researcher in the field, and even an educated guess by him should hold some weight. Maybe taking it everyday is not necessary.

This is the link to his response

http://www.bernsteinmedical.com/blog/in ... pecia.html

 

[WorldofWarcraft]

Awsome score dude! Thanks for the info.

 

[roki]

i think if you want fast regrowth and thickeninng you should start taking it everyday and when you reach the point that your satisfied with it or think you cant gain anymore just take it down gradually as much as your hair can take if its on per week that's all good...

 

[Old Baldy]

Yes Johnny, but isn't Dr. Bernstein saying you'd have to take seven dutasteride. gelcaps on that one day per week you'd take dutasteride. internally to get the same benefits as 0.5mg of dutasteride. daily?

I mean, that's what he said you'd have to do with finasteride. when you use it on alternate days?

You'd have to AVERAGE 0.5mg per day is how I read his answer?

Per Dr. Bernstein on alternate day finasteride. dosing:

Therefore, alternate day dosing with 2 mg of finasteride (or approx. 1/2 of a 5mg tablet) should work just as well as 1mg a day.. An average daily dose of less than 1mg, however, does not seem to be as effective.

I'm thinking Dr. Bernstein's answer on alternate dutasteride. dosing was incomplete?

 

[JohnnySeville]

Old Baldy,

I can see how you would interpret it to mean this. If you draw the same analogy as his finasteride statement. it would seem logical that this may have been implied. It would have been nice if he had been more specific in his dosing of dutasteride one way or another.

Personally my slant on the whole dutasteride dosing is toward one per week, based on other info I have found. I recall reading some info on hairsite.com concerning a study a few years back by Dr.Sawaya on dutasteride and hair loss. She is perhaps the foremost researcher on hair loss today. In this article statements were made that due to its incredibly long effects on DHT that it would be reasonable to conclude that one pill per week would be sufficient and furthermore possibly one pill per month for maintenance due to the fact that in testing, DHT level had remained low for more than a year after discontinuing.

http://www.hairsite2.com/library/article207.htm

I also ran across another article which drew the same conclusions based on the fact that in some patients DHT levels had only risen to 25% of initial value one year after cessation.

http://www.hairlosstalk.com/newsletter/article201.htm

Based on these and other articles I have found I am more inclined to interpret it as only one pill per week. Perhaps if I email Bernstein I can obtain a further elaboration of his prior statement. If he responds I will certainly post a followup on this. Thank you for pointing this out.

 

[Bryan]

Bernstein doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. He seems to be unaware of Glaxo's own clinical trial which showed that 2.5 mg/day was more effective than 0.5 mg/day, which was in turn more effective than 0.1 mg/day, which was in turn more effective than 0.05 mg/day. This is COMMON KNOWLEDGE. I'm shocked that he's apparently not aware of it.

BTW, don't take those last two links too seriously, either. The claim about DHT rising only 25% a full year after cessation is likely to be apocryphal.

Bryan

 

[JohnnySeville]

Bryan,

I go along with you on increasing doses of dutasteride being more effective, I have even read somewhere where 5mg daily was able to eliminate 98% DHT, but is it worth the risk and expense, its just a matter of diminishing returns. For the vast majority of users, 0.5mg would be more appropriate. I believe that even this dose need not be taken on a daily basis, based on its half life, taking it once weekly may well result in virtually equivalent results. I doubt any studies will ever be made to ascertain various combinations to prove or disprove how true this is.

 

[Bryan]

Johnny, your reasoning is based on a common misunderstanding that was very very widespread when Avodart first became available. I give credit to myself for helping to dispel that misunderstanding over the years by posting technical information about dutasteride on all the hairloss sites!

I'm going to try to explain this to you in as simple a way as possible: the various doses of dutasteride are effective (to the extent that they actually are effective), partly BECAUSE of its long half-life. Dutasteride builds-up in the bloodstream over time, which is one of the factors which determines how effective it is. A dose of 2.5 mg/day builds up 5 times as much of the drug in your bloodstream at steady-state as a dose of only 0.5 mg/day. A dose of 0.5 mg/day builds up 5 times as much of the drug in your bloodstream at steady-state as a dose of only 0.1 mg/day (I'm glossing-over some details having to do with the pharmacokinetics of dutasteride, but you get the general picture).

Do you see where I'm going with this? Taking only a single Avodart capsule once a week isn't going to be as effective as taking one every day, because the equivalent daily dose is going to be only 0.5 / 7 = 0.071 mg/day. The half-life doesn't really have anything to do with it, because it's already being taken into consideration. Do you see what I'm saying? And that equivalent 0.071 mg/day dose will be less effective than Proscar, as the Glaxo trial found. All that matters with dutasteride is the average daily dose, calculated over a reasonable period of time. You can't trick the system by taking, say, only one Avodart capsule per week, and "fooling" your body into thinking that you're taking one every day! :lol:

Bryan

 

[JohnnySeville]

Ok, I get it, it saturates the system, each dose adding to previous doses that are still active, a cumulative effect. Thanks for the clarification, for some reason it does not seem as attractive now, think I will stick with finasteride.

 

[plusryan]

doesn't seem as attractive anymore because it builds up in the system?

dutasteride seems more appealing because of the build up, and effectiveness rather than finasteride. I believe in the hair-loss arena, when finding the most powerful weapon against it, wouldn't dutasteride be the best course of action?

Just a thought.

 

[Bryan]

I think what he meant is that dutasteride seems a little less attractive to him now than it used to, because now he understands that you can't play tricks with the dosage. You can't take a single Avodart once a week and expect it to be as effective as taking it every day.

Bryan

 

[JohnnySeville]

plusryan

Like Bryan said, now that its apparent that it needs to be taken everyday to achieve it claimed results I don't feel comfortable about having a drug that continues to build up in my system just for the sake of some hair. Not like hairloss is a life threathening disease, contrary to what some guys on this forum think. I would love to keep as much as I can but not if it had the potential of causing problems sometime down the road. I actually don't even feel very comfortable with finasteride, and I am hoping to phase this out with some sort of topical anti-androgen.

 

[Old Baldy]

Johnny: I think Bryan is saying you have to average 0.5mg per day to achieve the results from 0.5mg per day?

I mean, with the longer half life, you might be able to skip more days than finasteride. but you'd still have to average 0.5mg per day to get those benefits.

Being a layman, I never really understood how the half life could reduce the amount of dosage from what the studies say you need per day? I simply never understood that theory. What am I missing?

Didn't the dutasteride. "accumulate" in the bodies of the men in the study also?

 

[Harry21]

For what it's worth..... the Doctor who presribed me dutasteride. told me to use it once every 5 days or so becasue the half life characteristics of dutasteride. makes it effective, even at such a dosage....

Dr. Bernstien says the same thing... That's two docs saying dutasteride. is effective taking it once every 5 days or so......Maybe they're on to something?

 

[Bryan]

For what it's worth..... the Doctor who presribed me dutasteride. told me to use it once every 5 days or so becasue the half life characteristics of dutasteride. makes it effective, even at such a dosage....

Dr. Bernstien says the same thing... That's two docs saying dutasteride. is effective taking it once every 5 days or so......Maybe they're on to something?

OF COURSE it's effective at one Avodart capsule every 5 days. That's not some huge discovery by those two docs, Harry! :wink: It's simply the equivalent of taking 0.1 mg/day, which Glaxo's trial several years ago clearly showed to be as effective as taking a Proscar tablet every day. It's now common knowledge.

Bryan

 

[Bryan]

Like Bryan said, now that its apparent that it needs to be taken everyday to achieve it claimed results I don't feel comfortable about having a drug that continues to build up in my system just for the sake of some hair.

Johnny, I want to be absolutely sure that you understand a couple of very important points:

1) One very handy and convenient feature of dutasteride is that because of its long half-life, you don't really NEED to take it every day, as long as you AVERAGE the desired dose over a period of time. For example, if you decide to take the standard, recommended dose of one Avodart capsule every day and then one day you forget to take it, it's no problem at all: just take an extra capsule the next day. If you're going out of town over the weekend and you don't want to hassle with taking your medications with you, it's no problem: just swallow a couple of extra capsules before you leave (or after you get back). See what I'm saying? The long half-life "smoothes-out" any daily fluctuations in dosage, giving you a great deal of leeway and flexibility in how you take it. As long as you AVERAGE the same amount over a period of a week or so (I wouldn't use a "timing period" of longer than about a week or so), you can mix it up any way you want. For example, all the following dosing schemes are equivalent: taking one Avodart capsule per day; taking two Avodart capsules every other day; taking three capsules every third day; taking four capsules every fourth day; or taking seven capsules once a week. See what I'm saying?

2) Dutasteride "builds up in your system", but only to a certain point. After a while, it reaches steady-state and stays the same from that point on.

Bryan

 

[JohnnySeville]

Bryan,

Thank you for taking the time to further explain the required dosing of dutasteride. I had initially contemplated switching due to the notion I could get away with taking only one 0.5mg cap a week, but obviously I was mistaken. I have been on finasteride for about 3 months, and am looking for an alternative to address the DHT issue.

At my age (53) I sometimes wonder about the long term issues of altering hormones levels. I have been reading through posts, yours in particular, and have decided to try a topical regime consisting of Revivogen/spironolactone. It may be a bit messy, but I at least have to try it. Since I have been on finasteride for only 3 months, I doubt I have gotten much benefits from it so the changeover should not be too traumatic to my hairs, I will just begin to taper off slowly as I start the topicals. All I am seeking through this is to hold on and stabilize hair loss, the rogaine/retin-a I am currently on is doing a fine job of regrowing what I have lost. Thank you again for setting me straight on this and pointing me in a promising direction.

 

[WorldofWarcraft]

Bryan,

Thank you for taking the time to further explain the required dosing of dutasteride. I had initially contemplated switching due to the notion I could get away with taking only one 0.5mg cap a week, but obviously I was mistaken. I have been on finasteride for about 3 months, and am looking for an alternative to address the DHT issue.

At my age (53) I sometimes wonder about the long term issues of altering hormones levels. I have been reading through posts, yours in particular, and have decided to try a topical regime consisting of Revivogen/spironolactone. It may be a bit messy, but I at least have to try it. Since I have been on finasteride for only 3 months, I doubt I have gotten much benefits from it so the changeover should not be too traumatic to my hairs, I will just begin to taper off slowly as I start the topicals. All I am seeking through this is to hold on and stabilize hair loss, the rogaine/retin-a I am currently on is doing a fine job of regrowing what I have lost. Thank you again for setting me straight on this and pointing me in a promising direction.

3 months? Why do people give up so soon?

 

[JohnnySeville]

WofW...

It's not that I am giving up on finasteride, I believe it works, and actually I also think that in the short time I have used it, it may have actually contributed to my growth. The point is I am not comfortable with manipulating my hormones. Despite what DHT does to my hair, I feel it has good qualities, at least for me. I have noticed since I began using this stuff I do not have the drive I usually have. I tend to be a very competitive person and lately I am losing that part of me. Aggression, is one of the primary attributes of higher levels of DHT, cutting back on it, seems to have made me lose the edge I once had. I want to regain this, so I have decided to try these topicals to at least diminish it effects on my hair, but keep its good points. At some point I may return to it depending on how successful I am at this, but for the time being I will try this alternative. Its just a personal decision.

 

[Gentian]

WofW...

It's not that I am giving up on finasteride, I believe it works, and actually I also think that in the short time I have used it, it may have actually contributed to my growth. The point is I am not comfortable with manipulating my hormones. Despite what DHT does to my hair, I feel it has good qualities, at least for me. I have noticed since I began using this stuff I do not have the drive I usually have. I tend to be a very competitive person and lately I am losing that part of me. Aggression, is one of the primary attributes of higher levels of DHT, cutting back on it, seems to have made me lose the edge I once had. I want to regain this, so I have decided to try these topicals to at least diminish it effects on my hair, but keep its good points. At some point I may return to it depending on how successful I am at this, but for the time being I will try this alternative. Its just a personal decision.

trust me, as soon as you stop it you'll feel a new person, full of life and desidere to have sex