finasteride destroyed my hair basically. I didn't get a dht test before starting the drug but I believe I am low dht and didn't start until age 44 and I think that is part of the reason that finasteride backfired on me in every single way. 9 months in on 1.25 mg I had a completely different head of hair than I started with. Huge loss of density and I started balding hard in places I had no prior problems, like midscalp, crown, even in the safe zones. Also the hair diameter was rapidly miniaturizing everywhere. After 16 months I slowly reduced dose to .5 mg and was stable for six months, hair even seemed to get slightly better.
I decided to slowly go down to .25 mg and after one week on that dose I lossed 60%+ of my hair everywhere, my nape area about four inches up basically vaporized, strangely the hardest hit areas were on the sides around my ears. These areas look like the hair of a 70 yo and this all happened in a matter of days.
Since finasteride doesn't completely eliminate all dht, I believe those losing hair on with dht, the follicles are still getting some androgenic stimulation so the follicle doesn't adjust for the lower dht levels ( AR up-regulation). Those with low dht need to be careful because the standard dose will reduce dht too much and your follicles will take notice and go into starvation mode, as I put it, and change receptor sensitivity so much that the follicles are making much more efficient use of even the lower anount of dht, so much so that it can even greatly accelerate the hair loss process and even turn non male pattern baldness hairs into male pattern baldness hair. That is exactly what it did to me. I would strongly recommend using only .25 mg. Not everyone needs the 1 mg dose amd when it backfires, like it did with me, the changes are most likely permanent. If I were to quot the drug I would be bald everywhere effectively in weeks. I have many posts and pics to show this if you search my post history.
Also wanted to add that after that last disaster the hair that didnt fall out became very fine, and again, this all happened in a couple days. My whole scalp is numb now too. It feels dead and kind of looks like scar tissue, idk, fibrosis? I experienced what was like ten years of hairloss and miniaturization basically overnight.
One more thing, this happened two years ago and nothing has grown back and my hair has gotten steadily worse but way slower. I also am still taking .5 mg a day and using min x2 daily.
