minoxidil foam is ineffective? (my experience and thoughts)

[speccy]

Hi All,

I'd like share my experience of using minoxidil foam and possibly get your opinions.
I was successfully using liquid for about 5 years along with Fluridil (2.5 years), it helped me to maintain existing hairs apart from hairline, the hairline was very slowly receding all those years. Now I switched from minoxidil liquid 5% to foam about 2.5 months ago. The result: for these 2.5 months I had no shed whatsoever, no signs of regrowth. Few days ago I noticed that my hair started to shed on all the area affected by hairloss, and the shed is progressing quite quickly. Some will say that is good sign, it means that foam is working. But I'm not so sure about that, so I've made a search in order to find what is the average time of shed start after quiting minoxidil. Eventually I found quite representative graph showing exactly that:

As you can see shed peaktime is at about 12-18 weeks mark, which is exactly the time elapsed since I stopped using liquid and switched to foam. So my guess is that the shed I'm going through isn't the result of the foam effectiveness, but in contrary of its ineffectiveness, it is the result of stopping liquid minoxidil that was working for me, and the foam actually at the very least is not as good as liquid or worse - it is not effective at all (here I'm talking about my particular case only of course)

I'd be keen to hear anyone's opinions, please comment.
Max

PS
you may see the graph on the following address:
http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/quitting-minoxidil.htm

 

[AquaNet]

I have been curious about that, 65 days ago, I started treatement, for the first 20 days I was on minoxidil 5% liquid and then 45 days now on foam and I am having a shed all over..

 

[justin]

i shed a lot of hairs in the temple hairline after starting foam, but it was my first step into treatment. i've never used the liquid version. so, as i've yet to recover completely from the shed, it was most certainly the result of some effect it had on me and not a lack thereof.

 

[Pondle]

I'm worried about the foam too. I've been on it for a few weeks, just applying it at the hairline/temples and it seems to be reducing my frontal density. I know there's a shedding phase, and maybe that's not over yet- but hey, I thought that this stuff was supposed to stimulate hair growth?

 

[CD79]

I was on finasteride for about nine months then started the liquid. Was only on that for a couple of weeks then changed to foam due to ease of use.

Been shedding quite heavily of late and i'm sure it's because of the foam as I was not on the liquid long enough for any effects to be evident.

 

[jcinzano]

you said shed peak time is 12-18 weeks

you switched 2.5 months ago. but 2.5 months = 10 weeks.

so what makes you think you should be out of the woods w/r/t shedding?

 

[barcafan]

So are those graphs basically saying that minoxidil is USELESS after 96 weeks? sh*t.

 

[Pondle]

So are those graphs basically saying that minoxidil is USELESS after 96 weeks? $#iT.

There's a vertical line at 96 weeks which marks cessation of treatment. So the tail-off in performance is due to the absence of minoxidil.

 

[beaner]

So are those graphs basically saying that minoxidil is USELESS after 96 weeks? $#iT.

Nope. I've been using it for about 250 weeks now and it's still working.

 

[speccy]

My shed is getting really bad. If this is caused by foam then that would mean foam has substantially greater effectiveness than liquid. I personally doubt it - foam is still the same minoxidil 5%. I really doubt that new delivery method achieves such a superior effectiveness.
Bottom line - I'll go for the safe option - I'm switching back to liquid.

 

[Snoogans]

you shouldnt post a graph like that without the whole study......it looks scary

these studies are on hairlosstalk.com and are explained well.

how can people not research this stuff before treatment?

 

[Aplunk1]

 

[speccy]

Snoogans,
I'm not sure why you call it scary? This graph is just a quantified representation of the well known fact - quitting minoxidil is causing shed.

 

[Jojje]

if you got a bitt of hair.. make sure you get the foam on the scalp and not just coting youre hair.. that can be a problem for some.. and maibe it is just a normal shed.. or maibe you dont respond as well to the foam as the liquid... its hard to say. but its up to you if you go back to the same treatment that worked before. GL