How Dutasteride utterly destroyed my hair and why you shouldn't take it

[losingbattle88]

I shed like mad on spironolactone but I never shed from any other medication, including topical and oral min, Duta and finasteride. But spironolactone is similar in that certain sheds are benevolent but how do we determine which ones? So I am perplexed in terms of forming an algorithm because we have no statistical data that I know of regarding hair growing back after any shed regardless. If one has Telogen Effluvium, separate from male pattern baldness, then what do you do since presumably Telogen Effluvium does not respond to finasteride.

Well shedding can be a good sign that it's working, at least when it comes to minoxidil its common sense to shed on it. I never had any shedding on topical Minoxidil nor results. Now 2 weeks into oral minoxidill im shedding alot which means it stimulates the hair and doing its job, this is a good sign. I have read another guys saying that they started shedding 2 to 3 weeks into oral minoxidil and the shed lasted for 1-2 months then regrew even thicker so I'm not too worried. Being worried and stressed out Will make hair fall even worse.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Well shedding can be a good sign that it's working, at least when it comes to minoxidil its common sense to shed on it. I never had any shedding on topical Minoxidil nor results. Now 2 weeks into oral minoxidill im shedding alot which means it stimulates the hair and doing its job, this is a good sign. I have read another guys saying that they started shedding 2 to 3 weeks into oral minoxidil and the shed lasted for 1-2 months then regrew even thicker so I'm not too worried. Being worried and stressed out Will make hair fall even worse.

I think it is pretty clear that benevolent shedding exists and this means caused by a new med pushing out malformed hair or hair without any anagen time without treatment. It probably helps to synchronize all remaining scalp strands. This creates the "illusion" of higher hair counts but literally there's no such thing as going down in hair counts and then improving unless we separate out terminal hair from dormant follicles. Telogen Effluvium is so rare as to be entirely discounted. This whole "Hooray! I have Telogen Effluvium bluster" or having these guys ask us if they have male pattern baldness and then arguing about relatives is wacky. male pattern baldness doesn't care about anyone's relatives' hair. Again, in a Bayesian sense, once hair loss in temples and/or crown occurs, you can just throw the relatives out the window except perhaps regarding extent of Norwood pattern but that's not anything predictable.

So, I say, Stop, Do Not Pass Go. You have male pattern baldness and now what?

This is known in probability as the Monty Hall Problem and it shows how humans are poor at re-calculating odds say after seeing someone's hole card. But if you get a goat shown with two other doors not opened yet and say you chose A, now you want to change your choice to B. It seems at first glance to be a fifty-fifty proposition, so why change? Cause without the third door, the odds change from 1/3 to 1/2 that the contestant wins a car if they change from A to B, after C is shown having a goat behind it. Many mathematicians are even stumped by this but computer simulations prove it quite quickly and easily. Seeing those temples or crown thin, means you have new information from before where you had no balding relatives say. Bayes can help gamblers and speculators to earn risk-free earnings at times. It's incredibly powerful if used right with the right prior probability or something close to it.

Monty Hall problem - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[shoegazing]

@Caillou at this point your hair must've grown a bit. How does it look like?

 

[Norwoody]

Lately I am starting to believe in the idea that too much 5AR inhibition may cause an androgenic upregulation and the dreadfully reported dutasteride hairline sheds. Why else would there be less reported side effects on dutasteride compared to finasteride? I believe the receptors become much more sensitive so that they can attract enough T to compensate for the severe lack of DHT. Looking back at old threads, even Bryan suspected that it's most likely due to upregulation.

 

[Jeju]

If you start finasteride or dutasteride with a full head of hair you should expect a massive shed lol
I lost more than you during my 7 month shed on finasteride. I also quit but because I needed to use a splint on my dick to have sex. You’ll get some hair back. Some.

 

[Norwoody]

@losingbattle88 I am not saying that EVERYONE responds that way to the drug.

 

[losingbattle88]

Lately I am starting to believe in the idea that too much 5AR inhibition may cause an androgenic upregulation. Why else would there be less reported side effects on dutasteride compared to finasteride? I believe the receptors become much more sensitive so that they can attract enough T to compensate for the severe lack of DHT. Looking back at old threads, even Bryan suspected that it's most likely due to upregulation.

Its less reported because dutasteride is prescribed for prostate enlargement used by old men with already low libido, there are far more people being on finasteride than dutasteride so it's no surprise that more side effects are reported with finasteride usage. But if you make a Google search of dutasteride for prostate enlargement there are many men that do suffer sexual side effects. Finasteride is used by millions for hairloss and young healthy men with strong libidos, of course they notice side effects more than old men with already low libidos that use dutasteride. Dutasteride is prescribed for prostate enlargement only in rare cases is it prescribed for hairloss.

 

[Norwoody]

Its less reported because dutasteride is prescribed for prostate enlargement used by old men with already low libido, there are far more people being on finasteride than dutasteride so it's no surprise that more side effects are reported with finasteride usage. But if you make a Google search of dutasteride for prostate enlargement there are many men that do suffer sexual side effects. Finasteride is used by millions for hairloss and young healthy men with strong libidos, of course they notice side effects more than old men with already low libidos that use dutasteride. Dutasteride is prescribed for prostate enlargement only in rare cases is it prescribed for hairloss.

Hey maybe that's true. I would not be surprised if dutasteride causes more side effects, of course that only makes sense. However, not everyone responds the same way, and I'm sure there could be an upregulation/RH component for some individuals, and surely this is rare.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Since I have lived under normal male environment and under Duta/finasteride and then MtF HRT, I stress that elimination of DHT does not appear to reduce male sexual ideation or fixation at all. My original thoughts were that maybe DHT controlled sexual desire on it's own but it doesn't seem to. Not fun to think about but sex offenders often have great improvement in avoiding fetishes that they are unable to control like snitching panties off clothes lines is the nicest one I can think of, if all T is blocked.

People without DHT, meaning congenital males, seem to function fine, sexually albeit appear more androgynous. Whether they have beards or increased beard-like growth or none, is not clear to me though although I haven't looked that hard. Rob English writes about this congenital type of non-reductase secreters. One piece of the puzzle I continue to search for is if T grows beards on it's own or together with DHT because this seems likely to shed more light on which things the different two androgens and other androgens might do. The estrogens seem to have fairly similar effects from my research so I would predict the same for androgens.

 

[Selb]

Reflex hyperandrogenic effects are rare. And most likely temporary as your body regulates back to normal. If you do experience it, RU may help overcome it.

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Reflex hyperandrogenic effects are rare. And most likely temporary as your body regulates back to normal. If you do experience it, RU may help overcome it.

But what does that mean in the binary situation of 1) continue treatment since it's a "benevolent" shed or 2) Desist immediately. Maybe those that shed to the extreme are not in a benevolent shed plus nobody counts hairs in terms of recovering from complete baldness. This might mean in a male-environment sheds might never entirely grow back but if treatment is the only solution to male pattern baldness, you end up not knowing what to do. I usually advise riding out sheds to people on extreme meds like HRT or oral min at very high dosages but I am not putting myself out there because I frankly only have shed from spironolactone and I knew I had an extremely favorable regrowth environment.

I advise everyone to ask about the extent of the person's beard growth. This is a key in terms of correlation it appears so that should be taken in account plus except for non-whites, I toss all relatives since the beard gene exists in virtually all whites and Semites anywhere so that's why the family tree thing works so terribly for whites and Telogen Effluvium is simply not worth considering if you do Bayesian analysis given the ticking clock: Tick, Tick, Tick.

 

[Jacoby77]

Because it isn't normal. People have just deluded themselves into believing that it's normal because it happens to a bunch of other people and none of them actually understand what's going on.

The shedding and dry hair was caused due to a lack of ability for the skin and hair to produce sufficient estrogens because of the HPTA dysregulation that finasteride causes. The only way to change that is to reset and let the HPTA recover. finasteride works mostly because of its acute effects on estrogen synthesis, imo. It's a really ineffective way to cause these effects, though, and you're more than likely going to suffer from some kind of HPTA dysregulation.

Finasteride shedding happens though literally to replace the shitty hairs. What other options do us balding men have. If you ain't the rock chances are you look absolutely sh*t without hair, like me, so finasteride is our hope..

 

[Caillou]

@Caillou at this point your hair must've grown a bit. How does it look like?

Looks better than before

 

[TressFracture]

As someone who started dutasteride ten days ago, this post terrifies me. My hair doesn’t look all that different from yours at the starting point, so maybe this is a bad idea.

it sounds like it would’ve EVENTUALLY regrown some hair, but persevering through a year long shed seems to defeat the purpose if you currently have a presentable head of hair.

 

[sonofvegeta]

anyone have any shedding from topical minoxidil and or dutas or finas ?

 

[NW9000]

garbage thread

 

[Jeju]

garbage thread

Bye.

 

[NW9000]

Bye.

 

[Guru0007]

Like spironolactone? nowadays i can't use any topicals anymore. my scalp has become so sensitive to dht blockers of any sort.

I have often wondered whether our immune systems have some connection to whether these treatments work for us or not. i also tried minoxidil for and received some really bad joint pain in my knee and wrist.

Neddy how r u now... Any progress?

 

[neddy2016]

Neddy how r u now... Any progress?

My hairline isn't looking great. everything is slowly creeping back. it's making me abit depressed tbh.

I'm Contemplating a Fue transplant. but I'm abit nervous to commit to it

I can't use Finasteride, Minoxidil or anything like them because they either do nothing or they just don't gel well with my body, creating systematic havok. My body hasn't been quite the same ever since i used finasteride and minoxidil a few years ago. i feel like I'm being punished for trying to alter my hormonal or body chemistry with these products.

So overall. No.