Minoxidil stopped working, what to do???

[Thomas575]

Hello, I am 29 years old man and I have been experiencing hairloss from my 23 years. We do have a hairloss in our family (father, brother). I have been using Rogaine (containing minoxidil 5%) for more than three years now (twice a day). At first the results were quite good, my hair became more thick and looked healthier. But later the effect of minoxidil started to be lower and lower and recently my hair started to fall down again (uniform thinning on the whole scalp). In last 10 weeks I have been using also Revivogen (2ml once daily before bed time) along with Rogaine but wthout significant results.
I use also Revivogen shampoo every morning.

I lost a lot of my hair during last 6-8 months, I am really sad about my situation. Any advice how to stop my hairloss? Should I try stronger minoxidil? Thanks a lot! Tom

 

[kc444]

Minoxidil grows a lot of hair, but it won't stop you from losing it. You'll need to go on Propecia for that. Revivogen is probably not effective.

 

[Thomas575]

minoxidil does not interfere with the fundamental cause of baldness. It provides an onset of growth for a period of time while DHT is still attacking your follicles. You need to be on finasteride to properly fight male pattern baldness.

The effectiveness of reviviogen is debatable. I used it for a year a before trying finasteride and it did nothing for me.

I understand but I have a respect from using finsteride because of potential side effects. Is there some safer alternative? Thanks.

 

[franky123]

For everyone thats scared about finasteride.. go on finasteride( 1mg not proscar) every other day for a few months, build your tolerance, and you'll realize that its really not that bad. You can also crush it into powder form into your minoxidil so you can go with a lower dosage if you like.

Just note that all the powder won't completely dissolve, so you gotta put a little more.
What you should stay away from is dutastaride. Have a fellow pharmacist who did .1mg( not even .5) into his minoxidil, and he said say goodbye to you sex life. HE stopped, but he did say that it was working.

Stay with finasteride, its safe, its tested. Also remember, there are people who were taking 5mg finasteride for their prostate well before everyone was taking it for hair loss. Without finasteride, minoxidil will lose ALL of its effective within a few years. With finasteride, it should stabalize and you should keep your gains for a while. You might have slight recession as you get older, but trust me, its better than none.

 

[Thomas575]

For everyone thats scared about finasteride.. go on finasteride( 1mg not proscar) every other day for a few months, build your tolerance, and you'll realize that its really not that bad. You can also crush it into powder form into your minoxidil so you can go with a lower dosage if you like.

Just note that all the powder won't completely dissolve, so you gotta put a little more.
What you should stay away from is dutastaride. Have a fellow pharmacist who did .1mg( not even .5) into his minoxidil, and he said say goodbye to you sex life. HE stopped, but he did say that it was working.

Stay with finasteride, its safe, its tested. Also remember, there are people who were taking 5mg finasteride for their prostate well before everyone was taking it for hair loss. Without finasteride, minoxidil will lose ALL of its effective within a few years. With finasteride, it should stabalize and you should keep your gains for a while. You might have slight recession as you get older, but trust me, its better than none.

Hi Franky, thanks a lot for your comment. I believe finasteride is very effective but I am not sure, it is so safe. I have read some really sad stories about people who had been taking finasteride for some time and do have irreversible sides now. Some interesting info is here: http://www.propeciahelp.com/
I do not want to scare anybody, but I think everybody who is taking finasteride should be aware of that. I have really big respect from finasteride.

My hairloss is not so strong, so I believe anything else that finasteride could help me.
What about Nizoral? Does anybody have a success with Nizoral? Or any other suggestions? Thanks a lot!

 

[WarLord]

Without finasteride, minoxidil will lose ALL of its effective within a few years. ... minoxidil does not interfere with the fundamental cause of baldness. It provides an onset of growth for a period of time while DHT is still attacking your follicles. You need to be on finasteride to properly fight male pattern baldness.

I have been on minoxidil for more than 15 years (still unchanged Norwood 2.5) and reading this crap in the internet made me really paranoid.

 

[Dudels]

minoxidil does not interfere with the fundamental cause of baldness. It provides an onset of growth for a period of time while DHT is still attacking your follicles. You need to be on finasteride to properly fight male pattern baldness.

The effectiveness of reviviogen is debatable. I used it for a year a before trying finasteride and it did nothing for me.

I understand but I have a respect from using finsteride because of potential side effects. Is there some safer alternative? Thanks.

You got 3 alternatives: (1) add S5 cream to you're regimen. As Ben mentioned above, Spironolactone will block the DHT from hearting your follicles. Though Spironolactone considered weak compare to other DHT blockers
(2) add nizoral shampoo
(3) the best alternative: use ru or cb 03-01 ( it's very expansive and hard to get)
Both ru and cb are in phase 2 of the FDA approval (for acne). they are considered extremely effective and quite safe although no one tested them for the long run