Exploring The Hormonal Route. Hair=life.

[Derelict]

Were you starting to get gyno? If so, has it since dissipated? I'm making progress, but I'm in a hurry to at least get to my midscalp to fill in so it looks like I just have recession.

The gyno really snuck up on me, i still have it but i should say im a bit overweight so that may be making it look worse, im on a pretty strict diet right now trying to lose some weight before i hop back on it some time around the start of next year

 

[Ikarus]

Are you more androgynous looking now with bica and estradiol? i know you always said you naturally looked a bit like that but would like to be even more androgynous looking. Has it helped so far, i know your hair is looking much better but i thought another one of your goals was that as well.

I am more androgynous looking, but positively. It has made my cheekbones more prominent, and often get compliments that my face resembles a male model. It has also made my forehead smaller; it’s at a length of four fingers nowadays.

View attachment 131884

37% in the dutasteride group had greatly increased hair assessment versus only 5% in the finasteride group.

Dutasteride isn't just slightly better than finasteride, it is superior. It reduces DHT by over 90% versus 70% for finasteride. A higher dose of dutasteride will virtually eliminate DHT. What is common knowledge to people who have been here for a while is not common knowledge to people who have 3 posts. We see that even some people who have been here for years don't even know that dutasteride is superior to finasteride. A lot of newcomers aren't aware of how effective alternative treatments like RU and PGE2 can be, and they may wish to try that route before risking impotence and breast growth. Personally I don't care what they choose. It would benefit me if every other man in the world chose to feminize himself. I am suspicious of some people's motives though as I've known a m2f who admitted to getting a perverse pleasure out of tricking or brainwashing other men into feminizing themselves, and that's just plain wrong.

Why are you acting as if DHT is the sole hormone of hair loss? It’s slightly more effective than finasteride, at blocking DHT, but that doesn’t mean its rate of success used alone is great. And, I don’t mean slight improvements, I mean significant improvements similar to the extremes. It doesn’t have that power, which means it will be useless in those who are under twenty with severe androgenic alopecia, such as myself.

You do care about what they choose, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But you are here to promote treatments which we are aware of, in which these treatments are evidently stated on the ‘Success Stories’ page:

I’m not transgender, neither is there a point of tricking people into feminising themselves. In fact, the feminisation is rather minimal and more so beautifying if you are strategic with doses. I want people to make a decision based on their gut instinct, and whether it will make them happy.

I have considered the HRT route. I would probably do it if it were a guarantee that I would get ALL of my hair back. That would be preferable to a hair transplant because a hair transplant doesn't look natural, and I don't want the scars. The problem is even with HRT you're still going to need a hair transplant because even that rarely, if ever, grows the hairline back 100%.

People such as Noah and myself are examples that it can lead to hairline regrowth, which is evident. It depends on when you catch your hair loss; if you have been an NW3 for over five years, your likelihood decreases unless you use oral minoxidil in the mix.

To each their own. Some people are more comfortable with research drugs. There's no need to get angry that we inform these people that they have that option, and then they can choose for themselves. It's not like I'm insulting people for choosing the HRT route.

There is no anger here. Throughout this thread, we have all been honest about our side effects and that’s all we can do. If someone expects they won’t get side effects when they’re going on female hormones, then they’re setting themselves up to fail.

 

[Derelict]

How long were you taking spironolactone before it hit? As a standalone treatment the risk of gyno is quite high. I imagine adding dutasteride to it, and in my case gobs of estrogen, virtually guarantees gyno. I might just try 50mg for a bit.

I honestly couldn't say, i was just getting out of the shower one morning and realized how bad it looked and started panicking, like i have said before i don't mind mild to moderate gyno, it's a side im willing to tolerate to get my hair back but i would say my current gyno is severe.

 

[Jacob Williams]

Gyno would return. My elder brother who is on finasteride, Had to go for second surgery.

That’s disheartening. I wonder if I can reach some sort of balance between my drugs that would allow me to maintain without gyno. I’m currently taking 0.5 mg Dutasteride, 100 mg of bicalutamide, and 60 mg of raloxifene daily. Maybe I could try switching to tamoxifen, lowering my bicalutamide dose, or dropping the Dutasteride.

 

[JaySegura]

I am more androgynous looking, but positively. It has made my cheekbones more prominent, and often get compliments that my face resembles a male model. It has also made my forehead smaller; it’s at a length of four fingers nowadays.




Why are you acting as if DHT is the sole hormone of hair loss? It’s slightly more effective than finasteride, at blocking DHT, but that doesn’t mean its rate of success used alone is great. And, I don’t mean slight improvements, I mean significant improvements similar to the extremes. It doesn’t have that power, which means it will be useless in those who are under twenty with severe androgenic alopecia, such as myself.

You do care about what they choose, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. But you are here to promote treatments which we are aware of, in which these treatments are evidently stated on the ‘Success Stories’ page:

View attachment 131891

I’m not transgender, neither is there a point of tricking people into feminising themselves. In fact, the feminisation is rather minimal and more so beautifying if you are strategic with doses. I want people to make a decision based on their gut instinct, and whether it will make them happy.



People such as Noah and myself are examples that it can lead to hairline regrowth, which is evident. It depends on when you catch your hair loss; if you have been an NW3 for over five years, your likelihood decreases unless you use oral minoxidil in the mix.



There is no anger here. Throughout this thread, we have all been honest about our side effects and that’s all we can do. If someone expects they won’t get side effects when they’re going on female hormones, then they’re setting themselves up to fail.

hey Ikarus Amma leave you a DM.

 

[bridgeburn]

Infertility is the biggest obstacle for me to overcome when it comes to estradiol, at my age(30) people have usually found someone to settle down with etc lf i were in a better place and had settled down with someone and started a family i would probably find taking estradiol easier than i do right now, i really wouldn't want to freeze my sperm either tbh.

you'll most likely get sperm back if you stop HRT and take clomid, unless you've been on Hrt for over 5 years

 

[bridgeburn]

Yeah I’m pretty a pretty skinny guy, although I’m currently trying to bulk which could be a mistake. My nipples are huge now, and very visible through most of my shirts. Its definitely manageable at its current stage, but it’s scary to not know how much worse it will get. Unfortunately I’m kind of in uncharted territory at the moment as someone trying to do this regimen and maintain his masculinity. There’s very little research on the efficacy of gyno surgery when the patient doesn’t cease taking the drugs that caused the gyno. I have to pretty much take my best guess and go with it.

Mine actually seemed to get a bit smaller initially from muscle loss. Now, I definitely can't take off my shirt and look normal as a guy at this point, I also strategically layer clothing. Even though on a skinny guy it won't get that big overall, it may look more severe because of proportions like having a flat stomach, etc. It's normal to have man boobs as a fat guy, but even having gyno half as worse while skinny looks even more unusual lol.

Flattening the puffed out nipple with tight compression shirt underneath and ppl will just assume it's muscle. I was sitting with straight posture next to someone and he asked if I had been working out

 

[Thatguy0]

i've been watching this thread for awhile now, i myself have started using spironolactone a little over a month ago.
I took spironolactone not other meds because i can easily buy it from our local pharmacy without the need for prescription.
i started with 25mg and walked my way slowly to 200mg, been on 200mg for around 2 weeks. i'm not experiencing any side effects and i'm seeing some improvement although i can't tell if it's from microneedling with essintial oils or the spironolactone. I also have been taking finasteride and minoxidil but i've been on those for around a year and 9 months with minor improvements so the recent improvements couldn't be from those.
i don't have gyno and im not as scared as other people in this forum about getting it, i know that it can go away if i stopped spironolactone. My libido is still high but is less than what it used to, im fine with that too. body hair amount didn't change.

Here's a picture i took today, unfortunately i didn't take a picture before microneedling but the crown was 30% worse than this picture.

(https://imgur.com/a/58cptCl

my hairline and all other places are great but the crown is my only issue, which in my opinon is the worst place to have issues in hair. I'll definitely take a bad hairline for a good crown.

My question is, those who went on spironolactone, what was the timeline like? do you think the somewhat improvement that happened recently is from spironolactone if i was on 200mg spironolactone 2 weeks ago or could it be from the microneedling that i started a little over that(around 2 months ago). Should i add estrogel? i don't want to go too crazy just a tiny push to hopefully get my crown to fill up and i'd like to keep taking spironolactone because i've been reading about it for awhile and i can get it easily. My goal which is very hopeful is to get my crown all filled up before i start in a new school in two months.

Anyone has a recommendation of what to add in these two months to ensure the most growth possible? i really want a fresh start, if i start in two months with full/mostly full head of hair i know how much it'll do to my confident and overall happiness throughout the day.

thanks.

 

[Itsnoahkennedy]

HRT is lit, all my hair is legit, no minoxidil or stims, Im closing in on NW0, I was a diffusing NW6 and I'm not even 7 months in.

 

[Louisa]

HRT is lit, all my hair is legit, no minoxidil or stims, Im closing in on NW0, I was a diffusing NW6 and I'm not even 7 months in.View attachment 131924

Hair looks amazing.I know you stopped taking bica why did you stop.Im currently about 2 months in I'm taking loniten Advodart 25 mg cyp and 50mg of Bicaultumide and 4mg of estrogen will post pics in 4 months.Would love to get results like yours.Nice!

 

[Itsnoahkennedy]

Hair looks amazing.I know you stopped taking bica why did you stop.Im currently about 2 months in I'm taking loniten Advodart 25 mg cyp and 50mg of Bicaultumide and 4mg of estrogen will post pics in 4 months.Would love to get results like yours.Nice!

It's counter productive to take them together, Bicaludamide and avodart inhibit the metabolism of progesterone including progestins like CPA, all three drugs are extensively metabolized by the CYP3A4 enzyme. Bicaludamide has been shown to inhibit CYP3A4 in preclinical trials, but no recorded evidence of Bicaludamide inhibiting CYP3A4 is shown, so it may or may not inhibit CYP3A4 in humans. But still Bicaludamide and Dutasteride both inhibit the metabolism of CPA and progesterone, I need CPA, it's effects are more along the lines of what i desire. I may slowly transition from CPA to bio-identical micronized progesterone (Prometrium) as my testosterone blocker, because it's as effective as CPA and lowers LH and FSH without the Brain tumor risk that CPA carries, even though Prometriums side effects list is much longer. The only thing ive noticed from Prometrium is better, longer, deeper sleep, and I'm more hostile, moody but not in a way that makes me feel bad it's more like I'm just, meaner lol.

 

[Gergely]

So i placed an order on Spironolactone 100mg, Estradiol 2mg. I plan on taking one of each, daily with Dutasteride 0.5mg.
I decided against CA for now, because of the higher chance of liver damage.

 

[Ikarus]

So i placed an order on Spironolactone 100mg, Estradiol 2mg. I plan on taking one of each, daily with Dutasteride 0.5mg.
I decided against CA for now, because of the higher chance of liver damage.

You should eventually opt for 50mg of bicalutamide, instead of the spironolactone. 2mg of estradiol and 50mg of bicalutamide would work great.

 

[Gergely]

You should eventually opt for 50mg of bicalutamide, instead of the spironolactone. 2mg of estradiol and 50mg of bicalutamide would work great.

Any particular reason you recommend bicalutamide over spironolactone?

Keep us posted. How long have you been on dutasteride?

Im going to switch to dutasteride when or if my order arrives. I only used finasteride before, with no success.

 

[Ikarus]

Any particular reason you recommend bicalutamide over spironolactone?


Im going to switch to dutasteride when or if my order arrives. I only used finasteride before, with no success.

Spironolactone is insanely weak, and has more side effects than bicalutamide. That’s because spironolactones anti-androgenic properties are indirect, in which it’s actually a diuretic.

 

[bridgeburn]

I'm not making the case for one or the other, but:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20510769
"Spironolactone both reduces adrenal androgen production and exerts competitive blockade on androgen receptors in target tissues."

Also, what's worse fluid retention with bicalutamide, or a diuretic?

I don't think it matters much which one you choose.

Bica is honestly safer

 

[Thatguy0]

with 200mg spironolactone, should i add 2mg estradol or oestrogel.
I also take 2x minoxidil a day, 1mg finasteride, biotin and micro needle.

 

[Louisa]

Bica is honestly safer

Good evening Bridge! Do you think Bicaultumide 50mg Advodart 1xa day cypr 25 mg 1x daily 2mg of Estrogen 2x daily and loniten 5mg 2x daily is a GD approach.Im about 2 months in and no terrible sides.Hairgrowth is starting will post before and after at 6 month mark.Thanks.My thought with Bica Advodart and cypro and estrogen is to nuke all angles of dht.

 

[baldingAF]

What about all this that people are saying once you start bica you have to stay? I need one more solid AA (all I have is CB) and I’ll be good to start a whole new regiment. I have an in with a US research chem company so I can get purity but at high prices

Would anyone recommend topical bica? Can I do it sparingly at the beginning as that was kind of my plan with either OHflutamide or dimethylcurcumin(ASC-j9) and then taper off when I get some growth

I want to be careful with sides on this front cause I took duta for like 3 days and besides the sexual the brain fog was so intense

 

[Ikarus]

I'm not making the case for one or the other, but:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20510769
"Spironolactone both reduces adrenal androgen production and exerts competitive blockade on androgen receptors in target tissues."

Also, what's worse fluid retention with bicalutamide, or a diuretic?

I don't think it matters much which one you choose.

You have never used spironolactone, whilst we have. From my experience, the side effects consisted of: nausea, tiredness, lack of energy, vertigo. Since it’s a diuretic, it can also lead to electrolyte abnormalities.

Bicalutamide is significantly stronger than spironolactone, and that’s because it’s direct goal is to be an anti-androgen, which is why it’s used within prostate cancer patients. Whilst it’s stronger, it has significantly less side effects than spironolactone. And, if you experience fluid retention (which none of us are since it’s an unheard side effect, so I’m not sure why that’s even being bought up), add spironolactone until it goes away, since that’s the actual job of that medication.