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That's what I thought too - and why I discontinued daily finasteride use after 3+ months on dutasteride. But it does seem like my shedding has gotten worse since then.
Started Dutasteride 11/5/18 - Pictures & Updates
- Thread starter melky1
- Start date
That's what I thought too - and why I discontinued daily finasteride use after 3+ months on dutasteride. But it does seem like my shedding has gotten worse since then.
I'm guessing it's a temporary shed. I've heard that this is typical for a few months. It should slow down I'd say.
Judging by your pics it doesn't look like you had much hair loss to begin with. Any sides from the medications?
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Gonna assume you meant "hair loss" =]
No sides, knock wood. Finasteride user for over a decade, when I added dutasteride I had a slight nut-ache that went away after approximately three weeks.
@frank1980 , I hope you're right. Shedding has been persistent but more pronounced in the last few weeks.
Was you on 1mg or 1.25mg finasteride daily? Did you use generic or name brand? And did it completely stop your hair falling out? Thanks.
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1.25mg generic finasteride daily. I started very early and experienced no significant loss for about 10 years. Whether this was due to finasteride or genetics, I'm not sure. But about two years ago shedding and loss became more aggressive. So either finasteride lost effectiveness, my genes caught up with me, both, or something else...
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I dont see any signs of major hair loss. Your hairline looks receded, yes, but that doesnt mean you have androgenetic alopecia; it looks a mature hairline to me. If you indeed had it, your hairline wouldnt held 10 intact years and your hair wouldnt be so thick. I mean, 11 years and not even signs of miniaturized hairs.
You mentioned you started to lose hair some time after having a drast diet. Thats not Androgenetic Alopecia, thats likely to be Telogen Effluvium triggered by your traumatic weight loss. But hey, if you it helps your mental and makes you feel better, go ahead, just dont obsess much over it because its not worthy
You mentioned you started to lose hair some time after having a drast diet. Thats not Androgenetic Alopecia, thats likely to be Telogen Effluvium triggered by your traumatic weight loss. But hey, if you it helps your mental and makes you feel better, go ahead, just dont obsess much over it because its not worthy
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I definitely appreciate the sentiment in your post. It's true that my loss has not been dramatic. Perhaps it is just maturation. I'm lucky that my hair still has texture and some density, but.. and you gotta take my word for it, I have lost a lot of hair in the last two years.
What do you look for in signs of miniaturized hair? Because I lose hairs every day that look like ancient mummy ghost hairs. Tiny, colorless, wispy things.
I hoped for months that I was suffering from telogen effluvium, but the loss never stopped. So unless I triggered permanent effluvium or the effluvium triggered androgenetic alopecia, I dunno.
By way of update the last three weeks have been very sheddy. I'm paranoid that I shouldn't have switched to EOD finasteride in conjunction with dutasteride and may go back to taking finasteride every day. I am also f&#&&*ing sick of minoxidil that makes my scalp feel like it has psoriasis and has seemingly offered no benefit during the 16 months I've been using it.
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Had similar story as yours. I think you expect too much from dutasteride and you’re not even taking the full dose as I can read.
Drop finasteride, its useless at this point. If you’re worried just go to the lab and check your DHT levels.
I’ve been on finasteride for 7 years, add dutasteride 0.5mg/day, minoxidil, dermarolling, keto shampoo, hydrocortisone and all other stuff and my temples are shittier but the top of my scalp is just a little better. That’s it.
Drop finasteride, its useless at this point. If you’re worried just go to the lab and check your DHT levels.
I’ve been on finasteride for 7 years, add dutasteride 0.5mg/day, minoxidil, dermarolling, keto shampoo, hydrocortisone and all other stuff and my temples are shittier but the top of my scalp is just a little better. That’s it.
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Update? Hope you have reversed your shedding
Prognosis:
Starvation induced Telogen Effluvium.
You didn't give yourself long enough to heal considering you starved yourself for months on end.
You threw gasoline on the fire with minoxidil and gave yourself chronic Telogen Effluvium (which appears mild given your hair looks fine)
and you've been f*****g around with a lot of meds you don't need and worsened the problem,
plus you are body dysmorphic and your perception of everything is skewed.
You shouldn't go on any new meds, live a happy and healthy life, forget this bullshit and your problems will eventually disappear without you even noticing.
Starvation induced Telogen Effluvium.
You didn't give yourself long enough to heal considering you starved yourself for months on end.
You threw gasoline on the fire with minoxidil and gave yourself chronic Telogen Effluvium (which appears mild given your hair looks fine)
and you've been f*****g around with a lot of meds you don't need and worsened the problem,
plus you are body dysmorphic and your perception of everything is skewed.
You shouldn't go on any new meds, live a happy and healthy life, forget this bullshit and your problems will eventually disappear without you even noticing.
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Hello everybody, catching up on this post.
I stopped using minoxidil around May. Almost a year and a half of hassle and discomfort with seemingly no benefit, I felt done.
So, I stopped. Continued with my dutasteride regimen. I actually upped my dose of duta from EOD to 4x/week (Sun, Mon, Weds, Fri). I still take finasteride every day.. yes, yes, it's of no use, but I was paranoid to stop, and if it can't hurt anything (except my wallet), why not?
Well, the last six weeks I've experienced the worst hair loss of my life. I feel silly about any other time I complained about shedding. I'm losing hundreds and hundreds of hairs per day. Scared to touch my hair, scared to shower, have lost the ability to style my hair to look how I want. It's visibly noticeable now, to the point where I "came clean" to my fiancee about my behind-the-scenes obsession with hair loss and my fight against it. Considering buzzing just so that I don't have to think about it.
Shedding seems to be frontal, where I had been applying minoxidil, so perhaps it was doing something after all. Crown seems fine. I will post pictures on my next post.
I'm not sure what to do now and am open to suggestions. Here are the scenarios I'm considering:
• Get back on minoxidil immediately. Even though I was only using 1x/day and continued to lose hair throughout the 17 months I was on it, it was doing something and I'm now paying the price for dropping it
• Do not get back on minoxidil, ride out the shed, and let dutasteride do its thing. Maybe getting on minoxidil was a mistake in the first place. Perhaps it synchronized my hair cycle as its supposed to do, and now all the hairs that it synched are falling out. I could hold out, let this shed run its course, and see if I get back on a natural cycle with dutasteride backing me up as an anti-androgen
The above post really resonated with me (even if the guy has since been banned). I do have some degree of dysmorphia. I have always hated my hair and been concerned about baldness. And then I always look back at pictures from those times and think "Man, I looked fine. It's way worse now.." Perhaps I overreacted when I jumped on minoxidil, and perhaps I overreacted further when I got on dutas. But what is happening now is undeniable and extremely distressing.
Thanks for reading and for any advice you might have.
I stopped using minoxidil around May. Almost a year and a half of hassle and discomfort with seemingly no benefit, I felt done.
So, I stopped. Continued with my dutasteride regimen. I actually upped my dose of duta from EOD to 4x/week (Sun, Mon, Weds, Fri). I still take finasteride every day.. yes, yes, it's of no use, but I was paranoid to stop, and if it can't hurt anything (except my wallet), why not?
Well, the last six weeks I've experienced the worst hair loss of my life. I feel silly about any other time I complained about shedding. I'm losing hundreds and hundreds of hairs per day. Scared to touch my hair, scared to shower, have lost the ability to style my hair to look how I want. It's visibly noticeable now, to the point where I "came clean" to my fiancee about my behind-the-scenes obsession with hair loss and my fight against it. Considering buzzing just so that I don't have to think about it.
Shedding seems to be frontal, where I had been applying minoxidil, so perhaps it was doing something after all. Crown seems fine. I will post pictures on my next post.
I'm not sure what to do now and am open to suggestions. Here are the scenarios I'm considering:
• Get back on minoxidil immediately. Even though I was only using 1x/day and continued to lose hair throughout the 17 months I was on it, it was doing something and I'm now paying the price for dropping it
• Do not get back on minoxidil, ride out the shed, and let dutasteride do its thing. Maybe getting on minoxidil was a mistake in the first place. Perhaps it synchronized my hair cycle as its supposed to do, and now all the hairs that it synched are falling out. I could hold out, let this shed run its course, and see if I get back on a natural cycle with dutasteride backing me up as an anti-androgen
The above post really resonated with me (even if the guy has since been banned). I do have some degree of dysmorphia. I have always hated my hair and been concerned about baldness. And then I always look back at pictures from those times and think "Man, I looked fine. It's way worse now.." Perhaps I overreacted when I jumped on minoxidil, and perhaps I overreacted further when I got on dutas. But what is happening now is undeniable and extremely distressing.
Thanks for reading and for any advice you might have.
phalanx6013
New Member
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- 1
Read your entire thread. As someone who has also been on Finasteride for the last 7 years I recently switched to Dutasteride in hopes for maintaining what I have left. Hoping things comes around for you.
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@phalanx6013 thanks for reading and for the support. Best of luck to you too.
Shedding has continued the last few days - depressing and helpless situation.
I remind myself that male pattern baldness doesn't just happen all at once, that many of these hairs will grow back, etc., but the intensity of this loss is like nothing I've experienced before.
I'm still debating whether to hop back on minoxidil. I've tentatively applied 1x per day the last three days, but wonder if it's a good idea. If minoxidil synched my growth cycle while I used it for a year and a half, maybe now that I've stopped I need to accept that hairs that were going to go in the telogen phase during that period need to shed, wait it out, and try to stay confident that they will eventually grow back. Is starting up again just going to confuse things even more?
What would you do if you were me?
Pic below is result of gently running my hand through my hair while writing this post. This is after a shower in which I shed at least a couple hundred hairs. =[
Shedding has continued the last few days - depressing and helpless situation.
I remind myself that male pattern baldness doesn't just happen all at once, that many of these hairs will grow back, etc., but the intensity of this loss is like nothing I've experienced before.
I'm still debating whether to hop back on minoxidil. I've tentatively applied 1x per day the last three days, but wonder if it's a good idea. If minoxidil synched my growth cycle while I used it for a year and a half, maybe now that I've stopped I need to accept that hairs that were going to go in the telogen phase during that period need to shed, wait it out, and try to stay confident that they will eventually grow back. Is starting up again just going to confuse things even more?
What would you do if you were me?
Pic below is result of gently running my hand through my hair while writing this post. This is after a shower in which I shed at least a couple hundred hairs. =[
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Did you just stop minoxidil? I mean without scaling the dose.
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Yep. Was only using 1x daily and felt like I saw no results after a year and a half, so cut it and didn’t think much of it.
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Usually if you want to drop minoxidil you scale the dose: for example you start with minoxidil ED, then EOD, then three times a week etc. Usually you talk to your Doctor before drop minoxidil. It takes time to drop minoxidil.
The shedding you are experiencing is due to the sudden drop of minoxidil. They will grow back anyway.
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Fingers crossed they will grow back! And I understand your thinking about tapering.. maybe that would have been a good idea.
If you were in my position would you get back on minoxidil at this point?
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Well you are using Duta, so if u didn't see any improvement with minoxidil I wouldn't get back on it. Duta should prevent the miniaturitation of the hair lost due to minoxidil, so afterall they should grow back and, fingers crossed, you shuold mantain your situation. Best of luck! 