pratc said:
Would the following be correct?
The dosage of finasteride for prostate problems is 5mg/d
The dose for hair loss is 1mg/d (or 1.25mg/d if using proscar because of splitting the tablet)
Some people cut their tablets in fifths or eighths. There are people on here who take 0.625 mg a day or 1 mg a day of proscar. There is not much variance in results beween 0.625 mg and 1.25 mg a day.
Side effects for finasteride affect about 2%
so a 1mg/d dose i.e. a fifth of the 'normal' dose for finasteride should be very safe (?)
Even 5 mg a day of finasteride is very safe. You are at an increased risk for side effects at 5 mg a day compared to 1 mg a day, but the sides are temporary and if you find they occur when you increase from 1 mg to 5 mg, you can always go back to 1 and they'll go away.
The dosage of dutasteride for prostate problems is 0.5mg/d
The dose for hair loss is between 0.5mg/d and about 0.2mg/d (if using 0.5mg/d every 3 days)
No one knows the exact dose people should take for hair loss. We do know that 2.5 mg of dutasteride per day regrew at least 25% more hair than 0.5 mg of dutasteride a day did. But in that case you'd be inhibiting all of your type II DHT and like 75% of your type 1, which may be unwise. That dose has never been tested in patients like the 0.5 mg dose has so you're on your own if you try that I guess.
19% had 'adverse effects' from a sample of 2167 patients (placebo controlled)
As the dutasteride dose for hair loss is a larger porportion of the 'normal' dose compared to finasteride's dose, the chances of side effects are greater for dutasteride (?)
Not sure about the number but I will trust you on it. The chances of side effects are greater on dutasteride than finasteride, yes. The drug also has a longer half-life so if these sides occur when you're a month into the drug, they could persist for months. Generally if your sides are temporary or never happen on finasteride, they are unikely to happen on dutasteride.
Any comments welcome, as dutasteride would seem to be the better drug for actually treating hair loss.
It is the stronger drug for treating hair loss. The reason why people recommend Propecia over Avodart for starting out is that Propecia may be all some people need to maintain their hair for a few years- say 7. I heard 7 is average for your hair count to reach baseline again. When the hair starts to thin again noticeably then someone could add the Avodart. Propecia is also approved by the FDA for hair loss while Avodart is only approved for BPH. This matters to some people but not to me- many doctors will off-label Avodart scripts for hair loss. I got one myself. If the drug was that unsafe for people with hair loss and no bph then doctors wouldn't do it.
Avodart 0.5 mg per day blocks 50% of type I DHT and 98.5% of type II DHT.
Propecia 1 mg per day blocks around 0-1% of type I DHT and maybe around 80% of the type II. Not sure of the exact number.
So as you can see Propecia is letting more DHT into the follicles to do damage than dutasteride is. But for most people who get on Propecia, the 80% inhibition or whatever it is is enough to stop hair loss, because the hair follicles aren't as sensitive to dht yet as they will be later. But this is why people early in hair loss have better results on Propecia than norwood5s. Their follicles probably arent as sensitive to DHT yet as the older people's, which is why they have more hair.
The extra type II that Avodart makes a big difference in maintenance as well as regrowth. Avodart regrows on average 50% more hair than Propecia I have read. I also read that type I can leak into the follicles more frequently when most of the type II is blocked, and that the type I can be more potent when the type II is gone.
So I'm on Avodart 0.5 mg per day and I'm blocking like 99% of my type 2 and 50% of my type 1. I was on finasteride for a month and a half and have now been on dutas for 3 weeks. I already see new hairs along my hairline and inside my temples. I know they are new because they are shorter than the other hairs. They are also quite dark. This may indicate that I will be an excellent responder to Avodart. Those hairs are probably there because of finasteride because even Avodart does not work that fast at regrowth.
I probably could have stayed on finasteride to halt my hair loss but I wanted the best chance to regrow all of the hair that I have recently lost(like within the past 6 months), and Avodart is the best drug to do that. I figured later on that I will be switching to Avodart anyway once my genetics overpower the Propecia, so why not just get on it now. My insurance company covers it too so the total cost to me each year of Avodart is only $360. A year's supply of 1.25 mg Proscar would cost me $280 at my pharmacy so it's not a big difference.
