JayMan said:
socks, hair looks great. i am a diffuser like you so i may consider adding 100 mg a day of spironolactone along with dutasteride 0.5 mg per day. what do you think this could do for me? any more than dutasteride alone? i have mild-moderate diffusion behind the hairline. would 100 mg a day be a good dose since i am taking the dutasteride with it?
Hey bro,
First, thank you
int:
As far as spironolactone and dutasteride what a can of worms one opens to answer that question LoL
Ok, to put things into context:
Both Finasteride and Dutasteride causes a spike (or upregulation) of Testosterone. The latter (Dutasteride), more so then the former. Now Testosterone is an androgen just like DHT, just not as potent. Posters such as Bryan feel that Testosterone may indeed also play a role in Androgenetic Alopecia. This is one reason why some guys report that Dutasteride causes frontal recession... Yes, the DHT levels are lower but in the androgen sensitive areas like the front hairline and temples the increase in testosterone may, for some men, cause further recession in these areas. Now, I'm not advocating that dutasteride does this for everyone (or even the majority) but that is
one of my pet-peeves with Dutasteride.
Now, Spironolactone in addition to being an androgen receptor blocker also reduces testosterone output... The later being possibly
good to counter-act dutasteride's increase in Testosterone but because dutasteride inhibits so much DHT it very well may be too much for most men with almost a guaranteed set of sexual side-effects developing (in the case of dutasteride you would be inhibiting more then 60% or so of your overall DHT levels and with the Spironolactone you would be cutting your Testosterone output in half or more, and ontop of that your ARs would be less 'receptive' to the little remaining androgens!!!!).
In general, if Dutasteride is working for one then I say stick with dutasteride. It's potent and the results on paper seem to be better then standard doses of Finasteride (likely due though to the more complete inhibition of the Type II 5ar not the reduction in the Type I)... But if you feel after 6 - 12 months one is losing ground a safer and arguably more potent combo would be:
5mg - 10mg of Finasteride daily with 50mg - 200mg of Spironolactone daily.
Finasteride is generally non-toxic with very high doses being administered with no ill-effect (I dont even think there is an LD50 on Finasteride). In theory, enough Finasteride can inhibit just as much Type II 5ar as Dutasteride (according to one of Bryan's theories) with the Spironolactone addressing the ARs and testosterone angle. Since you would still have a decent level of benign DHT (as produced by the type I 5ar) it should reduce your chances of getting side-effects that are unacceptable.
But to answer your question more directly I think that you could experiment with 50mg of spironolactone w/ dutasteride but I wouldnt go over 50mg... 100mg would certainly be tops... anything over that and I cant see how one wouldnt more or less effectively 'nuter' themselves... Not good for a young guy at the prime of his life (and looks) IMO
