Switched to Dutasteride after 5 years of Finasteride with good results and noticed some rapid loss that has yet to stabilize...what do I do now?
So here's my story: I was a good responder to finasteride, which I started at age 29 as my hairline was maturing and saw good maintenance and some regrowth. Stupidly, I was on 5 mg as I was too lazy to cut the pill. Regardless, for the past five years, nobody would look at me and think I had any hair loss. So I was doing a good job and my hair looked great at 5mg Finasteride.
Fast forward to March 2016:
At age 34, just this past March, I noticed a SMALL bit of loss at the temples and my crown. On my own accord, and perhaps due to anxiety, I had a friend who is a doctor start me on 0.5 mg of Dutasteride daily and phased out the finasteride over the course of month. Within a week, I noticed deeper temporal loss. However, I figured it would grow back and my body needed to adjust. Since then, however, not only have I noticed increased shedding, I have also noticed that I lost a lot of ground at my temples very quickly...much more than I was noticing when I made the switch. Some of it looks still looks like it *might* be growing back, but it's been 5 months and I am still worse off than when I started Dutasteride. I'm also seeing some recession at the hairline as well as loss in the other temple and additional frontal thinning at the center behind my hairline, which was definitely *not* a concern when I made the switch to Dutasteride in March.
My question is, should I ride it out, or go back to finasteride?
It's clear that the abrupt changes were caused by Dutasteride, but I would've thought that by the end of July, things would've stabilized. But given the anecdotes about guys who started Dutasteride and lost hair at the hairline/temples, I'm wondering if there was some truth behind the anecdotes.
I really don't think it's possible to have just lost so much ground naturally in a couple of months, and the Internet is filled with people who claim to have lost frontal hair when they started Dutasteride. But few people decided to stick it out from what I can glean from these scattered posts.
So my question is, what do I do?
Do I need to be on Dutasteride longer to see what happens? Is four months enough time? Do I ride it out, or will I never get back what I've lost at the front since starting Dutasteride?
(Note 1: Apologies, I didn't think to take before and after photos, and I should have.)
(Note 2: I have also always been on minoxidil since age 29, which has helped me, but I can't seem to apply it fast enough these days to try to counteract the apparent loss from dutasteride)
So here's my story: I was a good responder to finasteride, which I started at age 29 as my hairline was maturing and saw good maintenance and some regrowth. Stupidly, I was on 5 mg as I was too lazy to cut the pill. Regardless, for the past five years, nobody would look at me and think I had any hair loss. So I was doing a good job and my hair looked great at 5mg Finasteride.
Fast forward to March 2016:
At age 34, just this past March, I noticed a SMALL bit of loss at the temples and my crown. On my own accord, and perhaps due to anxiety, I had a friend who is a doctor start me on 0.5 mg of Dutasteride daily and phased out the finasteride over the course of month. Within a week, I noticed deeper temporal loss. However, I figured it would grow back and my body needed to adjust. Since then, however, not only have I noticed increased shedding, I have also noticed that I lost a lot of ground at my temples very quickly...much more than I was noticing when I made the switch. Some of it looks still looks like it *might* be growing back, but it's been 5 months and I am still worse off than when I started Dutasteride. I'm also seeing some recession at the hairline as well as loss in the other temple and additional frontal thinning at the center behind my hairline, which was definitely *not* a concern when I made the switch to Dutasteride in March.
My question is, should I ride it out, or go back to finasteride?
It's clear that the abrupt changes were caused by Dutasteride, but I would've thought that by the end of July, things would've stabilized. But given the anecdotes about guys who started Dutasteride and lost hair at the hairline/temples, I'm wondering if there was some truth behind the anecdotes.
I really don't think it's possible to have just lost so much ground naturally in a couple of months, and the Internet is filled with people who claim to have lost frontal hair when they started Dutasteride. But few people decided to stick it out from what I can glean from these scattered posts.
So my question is, what do I do?
Do I need to be on Dutasteride longer to see what happens? Is four months enough time? Do I ride it out, or will I never get back what I've lost at the front since starting Dutasteride?
(Note 1: Apologies, I didn't think to take before and after photos, and I should have.)
(Note 2: I have also always been on minoxidil since age 29, which has helped me, but I can't seem to apply it fast enough these days to try to counteract the apparent loss from dutasteride)
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