Been on finasteride for 7 years. Worked wonders maintaining and even thickened my hair to the point that no one knew I ever started going bald. Frankly, I never even thought about it anymore. HOWEVER... In the past year, my hair has thinned dramatically. it's as I've stopped the drug cold turkey. Since February, I've gone from a full head of hair to pretty bad diffuse thinning. My derm says you can't develop tolerance to finasteride (kind of like women don't develop tolerance to birth control pills) and that it's maybe telogen efluvium (I'm sure it's not because the hairs I lose are totally club shaped), but otherwise, he can't explain what's happening. Has anyone had a similar experience? Anyone have solid info on finasteride tolerance? Should I up my dosage? Any help would be much appreciated.
Finasteride tolerance?
- Thread starter Adrian1
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Wow, never heard someone was taking Propecia for so long time.
You are taking Propecia since it was released in market.
How did you heard about Propecia 7 years ago?
It was almost unknown.
You are taking Propecia since it was released in market.
How did you heard about Propecia 7 years ago?
It was almost unknown.
fantasiauae
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Justlooking
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Been taking it for 3 or so years, just the last few months I've noticed a lot of thinning on my left temple only. Kinda scary, but I hope its just a shed and will regrow even thicker..
KipWinger
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i am not responding to finasteride so well now too. but my story is a little different. i am taking this in 1 year and a month. since 6 months it stopped working. in the begginning it worked like i dream, i had soo many new hair, my hair was beautiful with a fine head of full hair. now the hair is a mess. is this possible be tollerant to finasteride in so small time?
I've been on finasteride for almost 6 years and like you I noticed a diminishing effect two years or so ago. Progressively getting thinner overall and more noticeably thin on the crown. Maybe it is tolerance, maybe it is also due finasteride not completely blocking all dht. who knows! Don't really know what you can do about it. I bumped up my finasteride to 1.25mg per day recently to see if this has any effect. Perhaps cycling off for a week every couple of months would help to avoid building up a tolerance.
guess i'm just happy it worked at all for me at all, the way i was going i'd be screwed if i never would have started it
guess i'm just happy it worked at all for me at all, the way i was going i'd be screwed if i never would have started it
I posted an article just like this months ago. I have had the same exact problems. I also started finasteride as soon as it hit the market ( maybe 6-7 years ago ) and never worried about hair loss again. I was maintaining my hair and was happy. Then about a year ago I started to notice that my hair was thinning again and I was difussing up top.
I hadn't seen or worried about this since I started finasteride years ago. I had to start worrying about losing my hair again, it had been so long that it was wierd to start worrying about it again.
To make a long story short, the way my hair was going I had to do something because I was obviously thinning again. I started researching and looking on forums like this one. After all was said and done and I researched for months I decided I DID NOT want to put minoxidil on my head for the rest of my life so I decided to go with Nano, Revivogen, Folligen, Nizorel and T-GEL. Well, I don't want to go into all the details but putting these topicals on my head was the worst thing I could have done for myself. My hair thinning increased, and my head hasn't looked this bad ever, in my whole life. It has been 6 months now ( maybe more ) since I started on these topicals and I have had NO results. My hair just keeps shedding. Since I started these topicals I am pulling out clumps of hair at a time in the shower, which I haven't seen since I started finasteride. I have stopped now and am hoping that by just taking finasteride I can at least get my hair back to looking the way it was. I have also decided to do transplants because I do think that the finasteride is not doing it's job anymore.
Sorry for the long post , but to answer your question I think you do grow a tolerance to finasteride. As to what you can do I don't know. I am here to warn you about what happened to me and topical use so if you do decide to go down that road you know what may happen.
Glad I could help!!!!
I hadn't seen or worried about this since I started finasteride years ago. I had to start worrying about losing my hair again, it had been so long that it was wierd to start worrying about it again.
To make a long story short, the way my hair was going I had to do something because I was obviously thinning again. I started researching and looking on forums like this one. After all was said and done and I researched for months I decided I DID NOT want to put minoxidil on my head for the rest of my life so I decided to go with Nano, Revivogen, Folligen, Nizorel and T-GEL. Well, I don't want to go into all the details but putting these topicals on my head was the worst thing I could have done for myself. My hair thinning increased, and my head hasn't looked this bad ever, in my whole life. It has been 6 months now ( maybe more ) since I started on these topicals and I have had NO results. My hair just keeps shedding. Since I started these topicals I am pulling out clumps of hair at a time in the shower, which I haven't seen since I started finasteride. I have stopped now and am hoping that by just taking finasteride I can at least get my hair back to looking the way it was. I have also decided to do transplants because I do think that the finasteride is not doing it's job anymore.
Sorry for the long post , but to answer your question I think you do grow a tolerance to finasteride. As to what you can do I don't know. I am here to warn you about what happened to me and topical use so if you do decide to go down that road you know what may happen.
Glad I could help!!!!
mooman80, I'm happy finasteride worked for me for as long as it did, too. My derm seems pretty knowledgable and, again, said building a tolerance to Finasteride simply doesn't make chemical sense. I'd still be curious to find out it upping your dosage works for you.
On another note, I asked my derm about effective products other than finasteride and he said that aside from Minoxidil (which he describes as MARGINALLY effective for some at BEST), everything else is total B.S. and to not waste my hope and money on shampoos and sprays you buy on-line. He said he's never seen any credible stats on any of these products and that if there was anything else that worked, drug companies would put millions of dollars into making sure everyone knew about the stuff... AND you wouldn't be obligated to shell out big bucks to internet sales companies to get your hands on it. Makes sense, I guess. However, hearing all that still didn't stop me from ordering some Tricomin spray yesterday. I guess there really is a sucker born every minute! :roll:
On another note, I asked my derm about effective products other than finasteride and he said that aside from Minoxidil (which he describes as MARGINALLY effective for some at BEST), everything else is total B.S. and to not waste my hope and money on shampoos and sprays you buy on-line. He said he's never seen any credible stats on any of these products and that if there was anything else that worked, drug companies would put millions of dollars into making sure everyone knew about the stuff... AND you wouldn't be obligated to shell out big bucks to internet sales companies to get your hands on it. Makes sense, I guess. However, hearing all that still didn't stop me from ordering some Tricomin spray yesterday. I guess there really is a sucker born every minute! :roll:
md2002, WOW! Thank you so much for the info. I was going to do exactly the same thing you tried. Perhaps finasteride, for whatever reasons, has a six to seven year efficacy. Weird! I'm going to stop taking it for a while and go back on later. Maybe that will give my body a chance to become sensitive to it again. Again, thank you for the very meaningful post!
There is a pharmacogenomic (interplay between the drug and your genetic composition) component to this. But I can't make any definitivie statements, as this is well outside my field. But essentially, it is possible that, over time, that the decreased [DHT] has somehow upregulated expression of the androgen receptor. Over time, this could make you become "more sensitive" to DHT. Does anyone know anytihng about signal transduction?
Again, this is just speculation. For some reason, I was reminded of hypercholestolemia with the squalene synthase inhibitors. These inhibitors upregulate expression of the LDL receptors. Very potent drug from what I can remember. The synthesis itself is a good example of rational drug design.
Anyway, just throwing this out there.
Again, this is just speculation. For some reason, I was reminded of hypercholestolemia with the squalene synthase inhibitors. These inhibitors upregulate expression of the LDL receptors. Very potent drug from what I can remember. The synthesis itself is a good example of rational drug design.
Anyway, just throwing this out there.
Adrian1 said:
I wouldn't count on it... I tried taking it every other day for 3 months to see if the tolerance would go away and I had no luck the same thing was going on. I think maybe it is age ( 25 then / 32 know ) and it's just a natural process???
As for the topicals, they work differently for everyone but for me my hair fell out more than it ever had, my hair looked and felt unhealthy, and I couldn't style it. My hair was ABSOLUTLEY LIFELESS and LIMP. My hair literally looked like a pile of hay on my head, dry and lifeless. I wouldn't do it if I were you but who know, some people swear by the stuff. I think it is all in there heads at this point. There are some that would say 6 months isn't enough time but another 6 months of this and my hair would be gone. Since none of the topicals I tried have been PROVEN to grow hair the only thing they could possibly do is continue to make my hair fall out.
Glad I could help!!!!
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md2002 said:
MD2002 - Do you have any before/After pics ? .. That would be much appreciated. Also what Norwood scale were you when you started it and what Norwood scale did u go back to after a year or so ?
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Zim said:
Zim - Any before after pics would be great !
How long have you been taking minoxidil for and how much do you feel has it contributed ?