My story and experiment for those who have waged the DHT wars for a long time:
I have been in the hair fight for about 14 years.
I took finasteride for about 7-8 years and then the effects on the hair decreased and I saw some thinning and loss of hair weight. I wrestled with the dutasteride idea for a while and was nervous about it, but in the end I realized that to many guys (including me and many on this board) feeling that your hair is OK or holding makes life a HELL of a lot better. Therefore, worth the risk. So I switched to dutasteride 0.5 per day for four months and it worked GREAT, but sides kicked in (never had any on finasteride) and the dutasteride sides were BAD: bloating/flushed face like rosacea/ higher blood pressure/ headaches: sort of a steroid/estrogen reaction). Had to stop.
I then tried dutasteride 0.5 every 3rd day for 2 years which actually
worked quite well and the sides went away too (Yeah!!). Recently I still felt I could improve a bit. I started two months ago with a new approach (the Combo meal).
I always liked finasteride because it had no sides for me except minor decrease in sex drive and reduced ejaculaion. dutasteride worked great and actually for me was a bit of a sex drive booster and had no neg effect on ejaculate volume...but at 0.5 per day caused me hormone tinkering sides. If I could take dutasteride every day I would but I cannot so I figure I can try some synergy.
So now I do finasteride 1.25 a day and one dutasteride 2 or 3 times a week as a booster. That is like finasteride 1.25 per day and dutasteride apprx 0.2 mg per day (on average).
After two months the consensus from me, my girlfriend and the hair stylist and another best buddy is that the mop is thickening up. No sides. I see a nice improvement in the key things we all look for(can you see through the hair under bright lights/sunlight/ the weight of the hair/pictures etc...
Now for those who say it makes no sense to combo as the two meds do the same thing...I think that is too simplistic. I can say that having taken them both that they do similar things (help hair) but also do different things to other hormones as well as what they do to DHT. For example finasteride made me have a slightly reduced sex drive and less ejaculate volume. dutasteride restricts more DHT than finasteride but dutasteride against the extrapolated assumption did not make that worse but actually made me hornier and no effect on ejaculate volume. Now my dutasteride counters any finasteride neg sex effects.
I have no idea why this all is, but perhaps finasteride's tinkering with hormones and dutasteride's are slightly or quite different and they may have a synergistic effect on hair growth (not just DHT suppression angle). My real point is this, you won't know till you try yourself how anything works for you. There is no absolute for what will work for who and how. With all due respect to the pundits and predictors, unless you have done it all yourself(finasteride, dutasteride every day, dutasteride every other day, finasteride + dutasteride) you can never accurately guess the results for yourself or the sides. If you are happy with the results then great..stick with it. If you think that you might do better on another plan-give it a shot (just don't do nothing). I figure better to tinker a little with these things that WORK than to sprinkle ten different peptides and dung extracts in a paste of arginine and ground up grapefruits on your mellon at night.
Best of luck to all[/b]
I have been in the hair fight for about 14 years.
I took finasteride for about 7-8 years and then the effects on the hair decreased and I saw some thinning and loss of hair weight. I wrestled with the dutasteride idea for a while and was nervous about it, but in the end I realized that to many guys (including me and many on this board) feeling that your hair is OK or holding makes life a HELL of a lot better. Therefore, worth the risk. So I switched to dutasteride 0.5 per day for four months and it worked GREAT, but sides kicked in (never had any on finasteride) and the dutasteride sides were BAD: bloating/flushed face like rosacea/ higher blood pressure/ headaches: sort of a steroid/estrogen reaction). Had to stop.
I then tried dutasteride 0.5 every 3rd day for 2 years which actually
worked quite well and the sides went away too (Yeah!!). Recently I still felt I could improve a bit. I started two months ago with a new approach (the Combo meal).
I always liked finasteride because it had no sides for me except minor decrease in sex drive and reduced ejaculaion. dutasteride worked great and actually for me was a bit of a sex drive booster and had no neg effect on ejaculate volume...but at 0.5 per day caused me hormone tinkering sides. If I could take dutasteride every day I would but I cannot so I figure I can try some synergy.
So now I do finasteride 1.25 a day and one dutasteride 2 or 3 times a week as a booster. That is like finasteride 1.25 per day and dutasteride apprx 0.2 mg per day (on average).
After two months the consensus from me, my girlfriend and the hair stylist and another best buddy is that the mop is thickening up. No sides. I see a nice improvement in the key things we all look for(can you see through the hair under bright lights/sunlight/ the weight of the hair/pictures etc...
Now for those who say it makes no sense to combo as the two meds do the same thing...I think that is too simplistic. I can say that having taken them both that they do similar things (help hair) but also do different things to other hormones as well as what they do to DHT. For example finasteride made me have a slightly reduced sex drive and less ejaculate volume. dutasteride restricts more DHT than finasteride but dutasteride against the extrapolated assumption did not make that worse but actually made me hornier and no effect on ejaculate volume. Now my dutasteride counters any finasteride neg sex effects.
I have no idea why this all is, but perhaps finasteride's tinkering with hormones and dutasteride's are slightly or quite different and they may have a synergistic effect on hair growth (not just DHT suppression angle). My real point is this, you won't know till you try yourself how anything works for you. There is no absolute for what will work for who and how. With all due respect to the pundits and predictors, unless you have done it all yourself(finasteride, dutasteride every day, dutasteride every other day, finasteride + dutasteride) you can never accurately guess the results for yourself or the sides. If you are happy with the results then great..stick with it. If you think that you might do better on another plan-give it a shot (just don't do nothing). I figure better to tinker a little with these things that WORK than to sprinkle ten different peptides and dung extracts in a paste of arginine and ground up grapefruits on your mellon at night.
Best of luck to all[/b]
