Okay so this is just horrible. After being a good responder to finasteride and stable for three years on 1.25mg Proscar, I decided to add 0.5mg of Avodart once a week to my regimen. Why, because I waited to do anything about my hairloss at first and in the time I waited I lost a little patch up front that I never did grow back on finasteride. I wondered if maybe one capsule of dutasteride a week could help me out with that. And, if nothing else, maybe it could act as a little bit of insurance for the long run. A little extra DHT suppression. I also read the Australian study about the man who added one capsule a week of Avodart to his regimen and had great results. I'm sure many are familiar with it. I added one 0.5mg capsule of Avodart a week for 7 weeks. I took 1.25mg of Proscar everyday during this time period, including the days I took the Avodart. I started shedding right away, and it became noticeable at week three. I decided to tough it out. Then it began to dawn on me it wasn't realistic to grow all the hair I'm losing back. This isn't hair being pushed into a growth phase. There is no way a shed this serious is a precursor to growth. I've simply lost too much hair for that. This is crazy. When that point was reached I decided my Avodart experiment was a failed one and I stopped taking it. I am beginning my second week off the medicine this week. So after taking the medicine for 7 weeks, one pidly Avodart capsule a week, I have now ceased for a week and a half now. But I shed badly up front. And unfortunately I am still thinning even after being off the medicine. I did a ton of research on Avodart before I started. Read both success and horror stories. Thought about it a lot. And decided to try a low-dose thinking if my experiment went awry it was such a low-dose it wouldn't be a big deal. Well amazingly even a low-dose of Avodart can be this devastating. I have attached a picture I took today. I have a bald spot at the front of my head. It used to be a little patch that had been maintained for the past three years. Now it is about a centimeter wider and goes back about two inches farther. It really sucks. I can't hide my hairloss anymore :
( If anyone has any thoughts for me I'd appreciate them. If anyone wants to tell me I'm an idiot feel free I deserve it and maybe some other twit under the spell of hair greed will read it and be deterred fro doing what I did. If anyone has any hope for me I'd like to hear it. I've read about people growing back Avodart sheds, and I've read about people not growing them back. I don't know what will happen. I've been trying to calculate the half-life of 1 capsule of Avodart a week so I can get an idea when the drug should be mostly out of my system and my situation should stabilize. If anyone has any ideas I'd like to hear them. At such a low dose I figure it should be for the most part out of my system in couple weeks. Well here is the horror. I think it's obvious which one is the Avodart terror. The other one is the small patch I was trying to fill in. Talk about GREED. I hate myself. I would add though that that second picture was taken three years ago. It's just the best one I have. My small patch had gotten a -bit- larger in that time span so take that into consideration, but hardly by much. It was stable in every sense of the word. The shed as I said made my spot widen by a centimeter or more and go back a couple inches. And thin brutally. Nice big happy thick brown hairs I don't understand why.
***1 MONTH UPDATE*** It's been a little over one month but I took this picture exactly at one month. (It's the third picture on the far right.) I hadn't cut my hair so it's a little longer in this new pic but all I can say is the shedding definitely stopped. I took like 50 pics to make sure I wasn't kidding myself but for some reason this picture does look better than the one a month ago. I'm not sure why because it's not long enough of a span of time for any hair to regrow but it seems like possibly some that were suffocating and wilting away got some of their natural life and health back. But I don't know for sure about that. All I can say is that 1 month in the shedding has stopped. I'll update again in about two weeks for the 2 month update.
***2 MONTH UPDATE*** Added anther picture ate two months after I got a haircut. Not a lot better I don't think but def. not getting worse at least. I was hoping for some quick regrowth which meant the hair wasn't too terribly damaged by dutasteride. I guess that may not be happening though. My hope is that maybe it is somewhat a case of Telogen Effluvium and some of the hair just went into a coma and may come back at month 4 or so. We'll see.
***3 Month UPDATE*** Well it hasn't gotten exponentially better, but I think I can say after 3 months that my hair has gotten a little better each month. This month is not massively better and it's hard to get a good consistent picture because I have differing waves and cowlicks in my hair depending on my hair length so it changes from picture to picture but I think my situation is a little better. I can tell a small fragment of hairs have un-miniaturized. I just hope my hair is stable from this point on. That the aggressive lost is all knocked out and it should slow down from here. I've only been on propecia 3 years 3 months.
***4 Month UPDATE*** Man it looks good. Month 4 was magic. I noticed all month it was easier to style. I could cut it short and not be scared the wind would blow. Something just seemed thicker. And when it was time to take the 4 month update picture I was pleasantly surprised it looks pretty good. I think all hair look thinner when you part it in half then take a flash photograph over the bathroom sink, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the density is somewhat close to average. It definitely looks better and I'm not quite here I was when I experimented with Avodart but I'm pretty happy. Also 2 weeks ago or so I started on 1.66mg of finasteride. Proscar cut into thirds. No side effects except for a really mild nut ache that lasts a couple seconds ever 4 or 5 days. I don't know if going from 1.25 to 1.66 will do anything but someone who posted on this board once said that they took a blood test and going up from 1.25 to 1.66 did in fact lower their dht levels. I figured it can't hurt.
