If We Switch From dutasteride To finasteride, How Much Hair Can We Expect To Lose?
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Eren
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How much did you improve in those 5 months is the question that comes to my mind. If there wasn't any improvement at all, how would you lose anything? How can you lose the non-existent gain?
Furthermore, there are people who take dutasteride once a week and take finasteride for the remaining days. If I would go the dutasteride route, that's what I would do.
There is a paper as well with a sample size of one, that demonstrates that some people can have amazing gains when adding dutasteride. Obviously, dutasteride alone could give you gains over finasteride.
Furthermore, there are people who take dutasteride once a week and take finasteride for the remaining days. If I would go the dutasteride route, that's what I would do.
There is a paper as well with a sample size of one, that demonstrates that some people can have amazing gains when adding dutasteride. Obviously, dutasteride alone could give you gains over finasteride.
Why bother taking it only once a week though? surely it would easier and cheaper to just use daily instead of using both finasteride AND dutasteride at the same time?
Eren
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I am not sure but it had to do with 5ar3 inhibition where finasteride might be better at inhibiting that.
But to answer your question, Dutasteride is a drug that I would buy for 90 bucks to get 30 tablets as I expect to not be able to acquire a prescription. Finasteride is WAY cheaper, because insurance covers it for me.
dutasteride has a long half-life so once a week would be good enough I guess and that's what the patient in the research paper did as well.
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Both finasteride and dutasteride potently inhibit 5ar3 (with dutasteride being the more potent).
I've heard of that study where they added dutasteride once (or was it twice?) a week to finasteride. In my view, if you're going to start using dutasteride, it is best just to quit finasteride completely and take dutasteride once a day, or for a lower dosing scheme, once every second or every third day. Nobody knows how finasteride and dutasteride may interact or interfere with one another if taken together, so I think it is better just to use one of the two and not both.
You can get dutasteride inexpensively on AllDayChemist (assuming they ship to your country) if you find that dutasteride is not available or is too costly to get within your own country.
the study about 6 finasteride + 1 dutasteride was based on only 1 person I think....
there's another study with n=30 i think which examined non-responders to finasteride who swapped to dutasteride
i was losing hair before i swapped to dutasteride. im a NW2-ish. thick hair and until last summer I had well-defined temporal points. i have lost about 1 cm on my temple points now. but no one in my family keeps their temple points it seems. so i expected to lose them - just not so soon.. thought finasteride would be me more time.
i was on finasteride for 4 years. i think i was losing ground because finasteride has a +/- 20% variability. whereas dutasteride is +/- 2%
dutasteride is way more consistent and blocks more DHT
there's another study with n=30 i think which examined non-responders to finasteride who swapped to dutasteride
i was losing hair before i swapped to dutasteride. im a NW2-ish. thick hair and until last summer I had well-defined temporal points. i have lost about 1 cm on my temple points now. but no one in my family keeps their temple points it seems. so i expected to lose them - just not so soon.. thought finasteride would be me more time.
i was on finasteride for 4 years. i think i was losing ground because finasteride has a +/- 20% variability. whereas dutasteride is +/- 2%
dutasteride is way more consistent and blocks more DHT
Eren
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I have to admit that I have not done a lot of research on dutasteride. Somewhere I did read that dutasteride inhibits like 72% Scalp DHT and finasteride inhibits 69% Scalp DHT. How is that going to make a sigificant difference?
If it does, then scalp DHT is not the most important factor in hair loss and serum level DHT is (that's where the 90-99% DHT inhibition comes from).
i had pretty good results from finasteride for 20+ years. didnt stop hairloss but definitely slowed waaay down. Added dutasteride 9 months ago. started with 1dut+6fin for 4 months. Gnarly shed for 6weeks. Nothing else. still slowly lost i think.
Added 2 duts + 5fin for 4 months (8months total with dutasteride) Zero return. no shed but still think I am slowly losing
Just added a 3rd dutasteride + 4fin(almost a month). I do notice I dont get those crazy little itches.
i am just rolling until the wheels fall off at this point.
Added 2 duts + 5fin for 4 months (8months total with dutasteride) Zero return. no shed but still think I am slowly losing
Just added a 3rd dutasteride + 4fin(almost a month). I do notice I dont get those crazy little itches.
i am just rolling until the wheels fall off at this point.
Sailing123
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Tell us more about 20 plus years on finasteride. What age did you start finasteride? Norwood at start? Sheds? Crises of faith times? Dr prescribed duta?
I started 23yrs old. Coming up on 46.
I always had the high hairline/receding look. I would have been doomed by 30 IMO. My derm at the time specialized in hairloss in beverly Hills. he recently died and was out of practice for the last 4-5yrs.
When he prescribed propecia I never blinked an eye. Just started and never looked back. Never had any sides. Still receded but it wasnt something that bothered me and it was a really slow burn. My crown was always thick. I never missed a day taking a pill. A few years ago they upped me to 1.5mg a day but that was short lived when they said there was no difference.
In June I saw pic and realized I was losing at a quicker pace. Thought about stopping the fight but kept on finasteride. August is when i started down the road of dutasteride. Here we are. Nothing to show for it but we shall see.
He wanted me to up to 2 duts after a month but because of 6 week shed, being a little older I wanted to make sure sides didnt pop up. So i stayed on 1 dutasteride+ for 4 months.
i will stay on 3 duts, slowly weaning of finasteride for probably another month. evaluate if I want to up to EOD, but i have read that ED is overkill, and in fact my derm wont prescribe that routine.
We shall see.
Sailing123
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Thank you for your response.
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Hi ,
I saw your post on your dutasteride usage for hairloss.
By the way could you tell me how you get your prescription for duta, as it is not approved for hairloss in the US right? how do you buy them? and what about prescription? would be great if you could share some details
I saw your post on your dutasteride usage for hairloss.
By the way could you tell me how you get your prescription for duta, as it is not approved for hairloss in the US right? how do you buy them? and what about prescription? would be great if you could share some details
Its really hard to get a prescription from your derm,so you need to see a hair loss specialist.If everything goes wrong you can always order it online(inhouse pharmacy),many of us use it here...
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So
should you just skip finasteride and go to dutasteride right away if you already waited too long for finasteride?
I wouldn’t recommend starting with dutasteride because then you’re chained to it for life and we don’t know the long term effects of blocking 5ar1. That said, if after 4-6 months finasteride hasn’t stopped your loss or you think you’re about to pass a point that you can’t live with then yes start dutasteride.
It’s a very personal decision but remember when you start dutasteride you can’t switch back to finasteride because of up regulation. Many (inexperienced) people will tell you this doesn’t exist but I can tell you from first hand experience it does and the shed I had was devastating. I actually had a break down because of it and I’m a fairly rational guy...
It’s a very personal decision but remember when you start dutasteride you can’t switch back to finasteride because of up regulation. Many (inexperienced) people will tell you this doesn’t exist but I can tell you from first hand experience it does and the shed I had was devastating. I actually had a break down because of it and I’m a fairly rational guy...
How long were you on dutasteride?
Up-reg is probably true, but I can't imagine it being substantial enough if someone has only been on dutasteride for 6 months.
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if I lose hair on finasteride will dutasteride get it back if I switch fast? I’m really on a tight tight rope now where if I lose anymore it’s over forever
It sounds unlikely I know but I was only on it for 3/4 months, then switched back for 3- the shed I experienced was huge. Worth noting though that after 9 years Propecia had stopped holding my hair and things were going down hill extremely quickly anyway but switching back to finasteride definitely accelerated things exponentially
Ok in which case I think start dutasteride 1 capsule of 0.5 mg every day now then you’ll know you’ve done everything you could for your hair and there will be no regrets on that front. dutasteride gave me good regrowth at the back but didn’t even stop the loss at the front so certainly don’t expect regrowth. It’s better to think of it as just providing slightly stronger maintenance than finasteride. If daily dutasteride stops your hair loss after 6 months you could reduce your dose of dutasteride if taking it long term makes you feel nervous. Eg in six months reduce it to dutasteride mon, wed, fri, sun with finasteride on the other days. It works in the body much longer than finasteride. If you have success on every other day for six months you could further reduce it to 2 or 3 per week then wait 6 more months. Eventually you could end up just taking one dutasteride per week with finasteride the other days, many people do this. Make sure you closely monitor your hair shedding at all times when reducing dosage- if your shedding speeds up after lowering dutasteride dosage then return to your previous dosage. Everyone sheds differently but for me, when meds are working I can pull on a clump of hair and nothing comes out. When they stopped working I’d get anything from 1-5 hairs at a time when I pulled on a hand full.
If even daily dutasteride doesn’t stop your hair loss you have the option to add in CB or RU topically. I apply 50mg of either per day in 1ml of stemoxidine to the front. Keep hair short and rub in well. They seem to be similar in strength at this dosage
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