Frontal thinning on Avodart

[Old Baldy]

Powersam wrote:

secondly it has been proven that even up to two years after stopping avodart dht levels still have not returned to normal, therefore yes i would still be protected for those 2 months i wasnt taking it. slowly the dht would have returned, but it would have happened SLOWLY. go read about duts half life.

also i doubt the hyperandrogenic effects would apply for avodart due to its 'long halflife'. the post of bryans that you quoted has been misunderstood by you. i do not think i had the same dht inhibition for those 2 months as i would have if i had stayed on the same dose but my dht levels would still have been far below normal at the time i started to take avodart again. once you have a reasonable level built up in your system it takes quite a while for it to dissipate

.

I don't mean to keep picking on you Power but I disagree with you on the above two paragraphs.

From all I've read, if you stop dutasteride. for 2 months the average guy will suffer. And I've read a massive amount of studies on drugs, dht, anti-androgens, making medicated creams, shampoos, soaps, lotions, liquids, etc. Along with a massive amount of reading on how the pros make medicated pills, lotions, solutions, etc. I would guess I've put in 1,000 hours on reading up on this stuff.

I've also read a alot about medicating your body with drugs that must be used for the long haul. Not an expert Power, but I've read an awful lot to give this layman a basic understanding of what you have to do to expect constant medication from a drug. You cannot go 2 months without taking a systemic, theraputic drug and expect no ramifications.

You simply cannot go 2 months without taking a medication and expect no reaction. Especially with anti-androgens IMHO.

I don't want guys to think they can go 2 months without taking finasteride. and/or dutasteride. and suffer no consequences. That just goes contrary to everything I've read on this subject. Half-life or not IMHO.

They could very well suffer a hyperandrogenetic reaction as well as not having regular doses of 5AR inhibitors put into their systems. This is too long a gap when considering finasteride./dutasteride. are needed constantly in order to "do their stuff" IMHO.

I guess Power we just have a very fundamental disagreement on this "half-life" stuff.

Now don't get senisitive with me because I am not trying to insult you. I just have a basic, honest disagreement.

If Bryan is saying what you opine, in the main, then I disagree with him also. You must be regular, within limits, with your consistent dosage. Two months without the drug falls outside this limit IMHO. In fact, I think it falls way outside the limit.

One of us is simply misunderstandint the half-life theory. I put extreme limits on the half-life theory and you appear to put liberal limits on the half-life theory.

I mean, why would Glaxo say you have to take 0.5 mg per day if it lasted for two months?

 

[powersam]

i'm not saying that there would be no changes whatsoever, but it would be very different to stopping finasteride. finasteride is out of your system in around 6 hours i think i read somewhere, and it then takes 3 or 4 days for dht level to return to normal. dutasteride on the other hand stays in your system for a long time in comparison once you've built up a reasonable level of it, hence dht levels would not return to normal for a long time.

bryan will probably weigh in here and tell me i'm totally wrong, but i remember reading a study which said that even after 2 years off dutasteride dht levels had not reached normal levels yet in some individuals. hence my belief that in those 2 months i was not on dutasteride, i was still protected from dht to some degree. not as much as if i had been able to take the drug regularly through those 2 months but still would not have been back to normal levels.you've done a lot of reading on various things yes, but anything specifically about dutasterides half life?

 

[Old Baldy]

i'm not saying that there would be no changes whatsoever, but it would be very different to stopping finasteride. finasteride is out of your system in around 6 hours i think i read somewhere, and it then takes 3 or 4 days for dht level to return to normal. dutasteride on the other hand stays in your system for a long time in comparison once you've built up a reasonable level of it, hence dht levels would not return to normal for a long time.

bryan will probably weigh in here and tell me i'm totally wrong, but i remember reading a study which said that even after 2 years off dutasteride dht levels had not reached normal levels yet in some individuals. hence my belief that in those 2 months i was not on dutasteride, i was still protected from dht to some degree. not as much as if i had been able to take the drug regularly through those 2 months but still would not have been back to normal levels.you've done a lot of reading on various things yes, but anything specifically about dutasterides half life?

Not only am I saying you might not have been protected but you might very well have experienced a hyperandrogenetic response. dutasteride. is a very strong drug. Going off it cold turkey can cause extreme ramifications IMHO.

We really do disagree on this half-life theory. I'm just not understanding what you are saying. I'm getting old you know!

 

[powersam]

there are various dosing options for dutasteride. you dont need to take it daily. you could take .5mg a day or 2.5 mg once a week and it would have the same effect.

why does glasko say .5mg daily? convenience.

 

[Old Baldy]

there are various dosing options for dutasteride. you dont need to take it daily. you could take .5mg a day or 2.5 mg once a week and it would have the same effect.

why does glasko say .5mg daily? convenience.

I agree Power, but where do you place the limit on the "gap". That's where we disagree.

I've just never heard of a systemic, theraputic drug lasting 2 months after someone stopped taking it. Nothing I've read on dutasteride. makes me believe it is still theraputic 2 months after taking it. And I don't care if you've been taking it 2 billion years before stopping. I mean it. I'm not trying to be a smart aleck.

After 2 months, your natural genetic system has taken over IMHO.

 

[Aplunk1]

Powersam, my idea:

after taking dutasteride for a long time and then suddenly stopping dutasteride, all together, will create an increase in your androgen hormones... especially, DHT.

While taking dutasteride, your body slowly builds 5AR types back... however, in doing so, the androgens become more sensitive. (Bryan has explained this before)

As a result, a sudden stop of dutasteride, even for merely 2 months, will make your all-ready-sensitive androgens go into overdrive. Most of all of the dutasteride should be out of your body within a few weeks.

I think it's called hyperandro---something. You know.

 

[powersam]

The terminal elimination half-life of dutasteride is approximately 5 weeks at steady state. The average steady-state serum dutasteride concentration was 40 ng/mL following 0.5 mg/day for 1 year. Following daily dosing, dutasteride serum concentrations achieve 65% of steady-state concentration after 1 month and approximately 90% after 3 months. Due to the long half-life of dutasteride, serum concentrations remain detectable (greater than 0.1 ng/mL) for up to 4 to 6 months after discontinuation of treatment with dutasteride.

so if it has a half life of 5 weeks its not simply going to disappear instantly upon stopping the medication. i would assume that it would dissipate over time. i suppose once again i should state my position, i do not believe i would have had the same dht inhibition as if i had been taking it regularly but dht levels would still not have been near normal levels yet therefore no hyperandrogenic reaction could have kicked in. PLUS, the frontal loss didnt start until about 3-4 weeks after i had got back on dutasteride so it cannot have been what you propose.

"During the early stages of FDA trials there were cases of DHT levels only returning to 25% of their original levels almost 12 months after having discontinued the intake of Dutasteride." http://www.beIgraviacentre.com/dutasteride.htm


Aplunk: all true for finasteride as it leaves the body in 6 hours and dht levels return to normal over the next few days. but for dutasteride, if you stop taking it, 5 weeks later the amount in your body will have been reduced by half, then 5 weeks after that reduced by half again. thats how half life works. there is no sudden cessation of dht inhibition therefore i dont see any hyperandrogenic effect kicking in.

ps. i think Bryans slacking, he's usually smacked me down by now.

 

[Felk]

Well, spironolactone has at least two distinct actions, one of which tends to RAISE testosterone, while another tends to LOWER it. Which effect wins out over the other when you take spironolactone orally is difficult to say, and may depend to some extent on the dose. Maybe it's pretty much a push, since that study on oral spironolactone and hairloss that I posted recently claimed not to find any significant alteration of hormone levels.

Bryan

Does this apply to spironolactone when used topically, or only when used orally?

 

[powersam]

exactly what i asked. he said it applies to oral spironolactone.

 

[Felk]

Aaah, hope i didnt miss it in this thread... it sucks when the threads are this long, you miss things....

Anyway, good to know.

 

[Bryan]

ps. i think Bryans slacking, he's usually smacked me down by now.

Good god...I was having a relaxing evening playing EverQuest with some friends as I do every Friday night, and you guys were getting into a silly argument over the half-life of dutasteride!

I have some problems with what BOTH of you have said, so I suppose I'm somewhere in between your two positions. I'll post more about that, probably later today (Saturday). I'm a little bushed, after killing Deyid the Twisted!

Bryan

 

[CCS]

i guess i'll take care of this.

dutasteride 0.5mg per day should give you good protection for about a month after stopping, judging by 5ar2 inhibition in a graph on Bryan's website. It was a graph of 1mg/day, but 5ar2 levels were just a bit higher than proscar's DHT levels after 56 days, which is why i think the one month is a good estimate.

In the second month you would probably have an average of about 40-50% inhibition, which may not be therapudic.

Finasteride has a half life of 4 hours, and is out of your system in 1-3 days, depending on how strict your definitions are.

Dutasteride has a half life of 5 weeks once it is at steady state, but the half life shortens as you get rid of more of it. It is almost completely out of your system by 6 months. Also, if you take 2-3 per week, it will be out of your system in much less than 1/3 that time.

The person who had it for two years is probably rare. My guess is powersam was coverd for about 35 days and then had 10-15 days of mild protection followed by 10-15 days of almost no protection. By the two month mark I doubt the loading dose would be that much different than starting from scratch, though it would take 6 months before doctors would let him donate blood.

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/dutasteride2b.htm

 

[Old Baldy]

Well it's about time one of you commented. Ok!!

You weren't as badly affected by dropping dutasteride. for 2 months as I thought Power. Sorry...but.....??

Bryan, what the heck is EverQuest?

I'll accept the "somewhere in between" statement without explanation. Power said the effect of dutasteride. diminished more slowly than I concluded.

After Power explained further what he thought, he was really somewhere in between all along. I was taking the extreme position. :wink:

All I'm really arguing is when someone experiences frontal loss 2 months after stopping dutasteride., I cannot conclude it was the dutasteride. that caused the frontal loss. It may have been a hyperandrogenetic reaction from stopping dutasteride. or due to ... well... stopping dutasteride. :hairy:

That's how our silly (but fun) argument started.

I'm the one who is having a VERY hard time understanding how taking zero mg.'s of dutasteride. for two months would not have serious ramifications. Half-life considerations or not.

So if any of you guys want to educate me on half-lives I'd appreciate that.

 

[Bryan]

Bryan, what the heck is EverQuest?

One of the first online MMPG's (Massively Multi-Player Game). A world of swords & sorcery, and terrible monsters. A world of warriors, trolls, enchanters, magicians, rangers, necromancers, and a certain brave, powerful beastlord named "Bryaan"!

Bryan

 

[Old Baldy]

Bryan, what the heck is EverQuest?

One of the first online MMPG's (Massively Multi-Player Game). A world of swords & sorcery, and terrible monsters. A world of warriors, trolls, enchanters, magicians, rangers, necromancers, and a certain brave, powerful beastlord named "Bryaan"!

Bryan

Oh, that game, I've heard of it afterall!!

Was it out before Dragon's Quest or Dragon's ......?

Bryan, College, Power: I added more to my post above. Educate me a little on half-lives of dutasteride. I just can't see where stopping dutasteride. for 2 months won't have serious ramifications. You're taking zero mg.'s for 2 months for Godsakes.

Maybe point me to an article on half-lives. I'm not having much luck researching this subject beyond the simple explanations I've found. Or maybe, it is as College says and it is just that simple? Maybe I'm just not understanding that simple fact correctly?

 

[powersam]

this is one explanation i found OldBaldy

"When measuring side effects, and the time they take to leave one’s system, the term used is 'half-life'. The half life of a product is the time that it takes for the product to decrease to half the amount in one’s body since the time the product was taken. Reports state that Dutasteride (Avodart) has a half-life of over 240 hours. This means that if you take 5mg of Dutasteride, 240 hours later you will still have 2.5mg of Dutasteride in your body, and 1.25mg, 240 hours after that. After 1 month there will still be 0.625mg present in your body."


and just for kicks a little something else

"During the early stages of FDA trials there were cases of DHT levels only returning to 25% of their original levels almost 12 months after having discontinued the intake of Dutasteride."

 

[Guest]

sounds good to me!

 

[Bryan]

i'm not saying that there would be no changes whatsoever, but it would be very different to stopping finasteride. finasteride is out of your system in around 6 hours i think i read somewhere, and it then takes 3 or 4 days for dht level to return to normal.

Actually, finasteride is pretty much out of your system after a couple or three days, depending on how stringent your definition of "out of your system" is. And it takes up to a week or two for serum DHT levels to get fully back to "normal" after the last dose of finasteride. Check out my famous and well-worn graph of serum DHT levels after various SINGLE doses of finasteride:

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/graph8.htm

bryan will probably weigh in here and tell me i'm totally wrong, but i remember reading a study which said that even after 2 years off dutasteride dht levels had not reached normal levels yet in some individuals.

I vaguely remember hearing a story to that effect myself, but I suspect it's either exaggerated or apochryphal. While dutasteride's half-life is quite impressive, I think the idea that it could last as long as TWO YEARS (?!) is really really pushing it. Here are the Gisloskeg et al graphs showing the long-term effects (up to 84 days) of various doses of dutasteride:

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/dutasteride ... ow-res.htm

Notice that even with the very large single doses of 20 mg (!) and even 40 mg (!!), the DHT reduction was close to wearing off after 84 days. I should also mention here that those large doses were more than sufficient to get blood levels of the drug up to, or even higher, than the steady-state levels you eventually get with the standard Avodart dosage.

hence my belief that in those 2 months i was not on dutasteride, i was still protected from dht to some degree. not as much as if i had been able to take the drug regularly through those 2 months but still would not have been back to normal levels.

Oh, I totally agree with you on that!! I don't know why others here haven't mentioned the most powerful evidence for that claim of all, which is the data from Glaxo's own trial of dutasteride for hairloss. I suppose people have forgotten that Glaxo did something very interesting, which was to take final haircounts 12 weeks AFTER the medication (both finasteride and dutasteride) had been completely stopped after 24 weeks of use. Here are the results for each and every group. The stated haircounts are relative to what they were at the very beginning of the study (the baseline count):

Placebo dropped further, from -29.6 (24 weeks) to -37.3 (36 weeks).

Finasteride dropped from +73.2 (24 weeks) to +13.2 (36 weeks).

The 0.05 mg/day dutasteride dose dropped from +24.8 (24 weeks) to -17.1 (36 weeks).

The 0.1 mg/day dutasteride dose dropped from +72.3 (24 weeks) to +16.8 (36 weeks).

The 0.5 mg/day dutasteride dose dropped from +95.5 (24 weeks) to +84.3 (36 weeks).

The 2.5 mg/day dutasteride dose increased further from +109.8 (24 weeks) to +119.8 (36 weeks).

So the point of that data is obvious: even though the dutasteride had been discontinued for 12 weeks (almost 3 months), the steady-state levels of the drug that had been in place for at least the last couple of months or so of the study for the 0.5 mg/day test subjects were sufficient to stop their haircounts from dropping more than just a relatively small amount. And in the group taking 2.5 mg/day, the haircounts even continued to RISE by another 10 hairs, with no dutasteride being taken by them at all for almost 3 months! :freaked:

Bryan

 

[CCS]

that makes me think that 3x per week is halfway between 0.1mg/day and 0.5mg/day.

castration may not regorw a lot of hair, but dutasteride seems a lot stronger than finasteride here. still behind minoxidil, though.

In just 3 months, almost all hair regrown by finasteride is lost. that is not as fast as a minoxidil shed, but shows that a post finasteride shed is fast too.

 

[eaglescout]

Wow thats a really interesting study Bryan. Reading all of your hypothesis makes me wish i could stay awake in science class but a las. Being the poor kid that I am I have a question: If I was to order dutas would taking it three times a week be stronger than my current 1mg of finasteride daily. Also outta curiosity jayman I know you take finasteride on your dutas off days...do you plan to do that indefinatly or if you see a growth in your hair count are you going to assume your dutas are real and discontinue finasteride. Taking it only increases your chances of side effects right and serves no real hair helping purpose compared to your dutas?