Warlord who is the guy who believes minoxidil is poison? I would like to talk to him. I'm not saying that minoxidil is bad for everyone, but as with any drug there can be non or negative responders. I think there might be the same with minoxidil. Soon as I started is when I got more questions from people about becoming bald. I learned the shed was normal and saw regrowth, but for everywhere I applied growth never stabilized. I would get a shed, strong regrowth in the area to another shed to growth of weak strawlike minoxidil hair. Happened to my crown, which is still very thin after applying 5% for 2 years, happened to my hairline and my main scalp as well. I do not experience terrible side effects but I do get bad acne with it as well as a lil raccoon eyes. I didn't think I got the puffy face but after using it yesterday of several days off, I looked in the mirror at the gym and my jaw line and cheek bones were not as defined. I never really got thick hair on minoxidil which is what it is supposed to do. I really began questioning it as I wasn't seeing the results I wanted but was scared to get off and lose all my hair. I did look in the success stories section and saw some people get great results with minoxidil. As for me, the more I use it, the thinner my hair gets. Now that I am on finasteride and 2% keto I think I am going to try to get off minoxidil entirely. For my week off I did not experience massive shedding as I thought. If I do start shedding, I may mix minoxidil in every 3-4 days or so. I'll see how it goes, but again if you could give me the users name who thinks minoxidil is poison that would be great.
I wouldn't recommend you to quit minoxidil. The consequences can be scary. Furthermore, I don't understand why people take a medication that doesn't work for many years, without any counteraction? There are high percentage minoxidil versions available, so you should have increased the dosage a long time ago.
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haha yeah good point...why is he even bothering posting on this forum anyways?? :doh:
A lot of people don't seems to get it with minoxidil. Even if it's "only" buying me time i'm buying! If i can gain/maintain what i have for 10+ years than i'll be happy.
Who would rather be bald at 35 instaed of let say 45??
I think that you highly understimate the power of minoxidil. The difference wouldn't be 10 years, but rather many decades. Furthermore, with the high% minoxidil formulations available (not speaking about anti-androgens), the answer can be "NEVER".
There are no long-term (5+ years) studies on minoxidil, but what we already know is that there are huge differences in response. Some patients taking minoxidil were regrowing hair even after 4-5 years. And that was 3% minoxidil! Others were continually losing hair.
I often see that some "experts" pick up graphs from some minoxidil studies in order to show that minoxidil works only for 2 years or so, because that's the time, when the average hair counts peak. They usually don't use minoxidil on their own and can't fully understand, what these studies actually say. First of all, they can't grasp the difference between the loss of regrown hairs and a fall below baseline.
The counts of regrown hair may decline with time, but if I extrapolated the curve of hair counts e.g. from the study of Olsen et al. 1990 to the future, the average participant in this study would reach the baseline after ca. 15 years. And I repeat that this was 3% minoxidil. On 5% minoxidil, we could expect 20 years or so. The "baseline" in this study would be NW3-NW5, but an intelligent man wouldn't start with the cure in this stage, of course. He would be NW2 at worst.
Naturally, this would be an average result, and considering that hair counts in 30% patients were still growing after 5 years, some of them could probably use this drug with success virtually infinitely. And remember:
No study on minoxidil has been enough long to show a fall of average haircounts below baseline! Not even after 5 years! Thus, I wonder, how all those internet Bryans and pr*cks with M.D. titles can forecast that minoxidil will stop working in all patients after several years. They can't prove it. They are pulling this crap out of their asses.
After my 16-years' successful maintenance with minoxidil (2-5%), I think that my result may be quite average. Several years ago I met a man, who had been taking 2% (!) minoxidil successfuly since early 90's. And I know a guy nicknamed Beach Man (from Hairlosshelp.com), who has maintained his hair on 5% minoxidil for 20+ years. But the problem is that successful minoxidil users don't go to internet forums, because they have no reason to go here. What we get on these pages are whining guys in the NW4 stage or unfortunates, in whom the traditional 5% versions simply don't work.
The situation with finasteride is very similar. We know that this drug can keep hair in 86% people for 10 years, and even the early, very large 5-years' studies indicated that only 10% users were below baseline after 5 years. Yet if we were to infer the efficiacy of finasteride from the posts on this forum, it would seem that finasteride works for only 5-7 years or so. Again, these unsuccessful users are not representative. They go here and whine here just because they belong to the small minority of 10-15% men, in whom the stuff doesn't work long-term or doesn't work at all. The 85-90% successful users are happy and don't need to visit internet forums and ask for help. Why would they do it, when the stuff works? As a result, the picture that we get on internet forums is perversely skewed.
So I dont know for 100% if its good to stop it but whatever you may have on your hair its best to keep what you can even if you are loosing it gradually over time, so keep it up if you can !