- Reaction score
- 375
So I've finally decided to write my story since it might be the time to let it go.
(I used the account @WangMQ so you can also check my posts under that)
The finasteride Journey
I'm 24 yo male. Have aggressive male pattern baldness genes. I used finasteride for 7 years. Started in 2008 as a teenager and had good maintenance until 2016. I've always used minoxidil too. I was on 1mg ED, but there were times I played with 1mg EOD or 2x1mg within 3 days, without any problems. During these 7 years, finasteride was able to keep most of my hairs, but I noticed that I was very slowly losing ground. The shedding was slowly increasing, density went down a bit (but not noticeable to anyone else), hairline thinned slightly but was basically a Norwood 0.5. I also noticed that my sebum production was increasing slowly too. Back in 2008 I could wash my hair every three days without any problem but in 2016 I have to wash it EOD. Despite all these, all my friends thought I have thick, top notch hair.
I actually stayed out of all hair loss forums for the major part of these years and was just enjoying my life, focusing on school, making friends, building relationships, fighting to get admitted by an Ivy League, etc.
By the end of 2015 I was getting upset and started to search on the internet again. The reasons: 1. My hair was losing ground noticeably and I was no longer able to deny that like I tried to in the past. 2. I started to connect the dots and realized that finasteride caused way more than lowered libido to me. When I first started finasteride I never was told of the mental sides and profound influence it could do to your body.
Throughout my college years I had mostly bad sleeps. My energy level was going down by the year. Sometimes I'd have to take sleeping pills to gain strength for the next day but by 2016 I found that even that's not helping as much as before (take a pill, slept for 8 hours, and still woke up exhausted). I attributed all these to my pressure (My college major is literally grinding and keeps you away from every component of healthy lifestyles in the most time). I FINALLY noticed the link when I was taking 2mg finasteride ED in the hope of halting my loss again, and got obviously heavier fatigue. I paused finasteride for less than a week and noticed significant rebound of energy and sleep quality. After just a few searches I was scared as hell by the truth of the dark side of finasteride and PFS horror stories. I literally wanted to kick myself for staying on it for so long.
Life After finasteride
No surprise, I decided to lower my dosage. At 0.5 mg EOD I was still getting nasty sides. I read about the microdosing approach and went all the way down to 0.1 mg EOD, which wasn't really doing anything to my hair, but still gave me noticeable sides. Considering these, I decided to taper finasteride off. In the meantime, ever since I went down from 1mg ED in March 2016, my scalp itch, sebum, inflammation have gone into overdrive. In May my shedding started to increase. I was shedding less than 40 hairs per day before, now I shed the double or more. I lost 1cm of my hairline in the past two months. I'm now Norwood 2 and still losing rapidly.
Another thing that I noticed is that I'm losing my hair all over my head. Don't get me wrong, the hairline and crown are still the most heavily shedding area. But I'd get obviously abnormal shedding from my sides, mid scalp, and even my back! The hairs are visible tapering at the root with a loss of pigmentation. At this point the loss in density is already noticeable. It's like using finasteride for 7 years and quit switched my hairloss pattern from the classic male pattern baldness to a male pattern baldness+diffuse pattern!
In search of answers I came across the theory of Reflex Hyperandrogenicity and Androgen Receptor Upregulation. That totally explains my finasteride journey: staying on finasteride for a prolonged time with sides caused a compensation of body to make itself more sensitive to androgen. It might normalize or may not after quitting finasteride. But the horror stories of permanent Hyperandrogenicity are many. This is obviously adding to my despair.
Experimentals And my Side Effects Profile
Needless to say, what annoys me the most, is the fact that I never got any more sides other than slightly lowered libido in the first several years on finasteride; but after 7 years I seem to have collected all its sides except gyno.
finasteride changed my system profoundly. This is pure speculation, but I believe it made me hypersensitive to any hormonal drugs (itself included).
After microdosing failed, I tried several experimentals. Here are my experiences:
Topical Finasteride- Homemade from crushed pills and minoxidil. Somehow reduced itch. Caused IMMEDIATE headache followed by moderate fatigue.
RU-58841- From a source in China. Great at reducing sebum/itch. Caused headache/fatigue/brain fog/chest pain. The sides are almost IMMEDIATE and somehow alleviated after 2 or 3 hours. However they build up over time. Stopped after 10 days.
CB-03-01- From WHP and Kane (tried both). Somehow reduced itch. Caused IMMEDIATE headache/fatigue. Stopped after 2 days.
Setipiprant-From Kane. Amazingly great at reducing itch/sebum. Caused IMMEDIATE headache, somnolence within 1 hour, followed by heavy fatigue that lasts into the next day (I used 36 mg topically). Also gave my bad sleep. The sides from seti are even stronger than RU (why? why? why?...)Dropped after the first application.
...WTF??
I wonder how many people share a similar hypersensitivity as mine. CB and Seti are the safest we have, yet they still failed on me. It's so annoying and depressing at the same time since I'm pretty much sure almost every one of these drugs is able to help my hair. The effects are noticeable even from initial applications. But I simply can't use them.
Sometimes I'd imagine if I never used finasteride in the first place I probably never would have become so sensitive to these drugs. When I first started finasteride I literally got nothing but temporary watery semen. Maybe finasteride disrupted my hormonal balance permanently. Maybe it somehow weakened my blood brain barrier. I simply don't know. My liver and kidney are checked to be healthy and my T and E levels are in normal ranges for what it's worth.
Current Situation and Thoughts
So, I'm basically without any treatment now, except minoxidil, which I don't really have an option to quit.
I realize that my body is yet to recover from the finasteride havoc and might take a long time to be even close to clean again. My energy level normalized but was still not close to what it was. Can always get and maintain erection but almost zero libido with occasional morning wood (might have something to do with my hair loss depression too). Using any more hormonal drugs will likely further disrupt my body. I have no choice but to stay away from anything hormonal.
The past several months have been hell and ridiculously ironic. I got admitted to my dream school, successfully graduated from college, managed to establish a long term relationship, achieved several of my goals and was about to start a new episode of life. These all happened while the hair loss curse just lol at me again. On the surface I was envied by all my friends. But my hair and health going to sh*t was eating me inside.
I'm starting to get sick of all this. In the past six months I completely changed to a different version of me. I was ambitious, charismatic, popular and shined among peers. But now I run away from all my friends, spent my whole vacation reading studies, purchasing research chemicals, and doing trials on myself. I don't even invest time to bettering myself or think about my future anymore. But still, NOTHING works.
I don't want to keep at this anymore since obviously health comes first. Besides, for the aforementioned reasons I would need a clean system to restart even if I want to pick anything up again. The question is will I have any hair left then? I'm not going to lie. It's gonna be tough. Already cut my long mane goodbye and might have to shave/buzz my head soon just to keep my mind off it and move on. And the itch is so debilitating and distracting... Ugh, but what else can I do? I can't just trade my life over for my damned beloved hair.
I might stack some non-hormonal treatments like stemoxydine, copper peptide, zix, etc into my minoxidil only regimen in future but considering the rate at which I'm losing I'm not optmistic. The only thing that keeps me doing sth for my hair still is what we MAY have in the upcoming five years. If Brotzu's comes out, I'd gladly try it. If Histogen and Replicel get released I'd jump on it. And Tsuji would be the last saving grace supposed that I still have any hair left when it POSSIBLY comes out in 2020.
Until then, move on.
(I used the account @WangMQ so you can also check my posts under that)
The finasteride Journey
I'm 24 yo male. Have aggressive male pattern baldness genes. I used finasteride for 7 years. Started in 2008 as a teenager and had good maintenance until 2016. I've always used minoxidil too. I was on 1mg ED, but there were times I played with 1mg EOD or 2x1mg within 3 days, without any problems. During these 7 years, finasteride was able to keep most of my hairs, but I noticed that I was very slowly losing ground. The shedding was slowly increasing, density went down a bit (but not noticeable to anyone else), hairline thinned slightly but was basically a Norwood 0.5. I also noticed that my sebum production was increasing slowly too. Back in 2008 I could wash my hair every three days without any problem but in 2016 I have to wash it EOD. Despite all these, all my friends thought I have thick, top notch hair.
I actually stayed out of all hair loss forums for the major part of these years and was just enjoying my life, focusing on school, making friends, building relationships, fighting to get admitted by an Ivy League, etc.
By the end of 2015 I was getting upset and started to search on the internet again. The reasons: 1. My hair was losing ground noticeably and I was no longer able to deny that like I tried to in the past. 2. I started to connect the dots and realized that finasteride caused way more than lowered libido to me. When I first started finasteride I never was told of the mental sides and profound influence it could do to your body.
Throughout my college years I had mostly bad sleeps. My energy level was going down by the year. Sometimes I'd have to take sleeping pills to gain strength for the next day but by 2016 I found that even that's not helping as much as before (take a pill, slept for 8 hours, and still woke up exhausted). I attributed all these to my pressure (My college major is literally grinding and keeps you away from every component of healthy lifestyles in the most time). I FINALLY noticed the link when I was taking 2mg finasteride ED in the hope of halting my loss again, and got obviously heavier fatigue. I paused finasteride for less than a week and noticed significant rebound of energy and sleep quality. After just a few searches I was scared as hell by the truth of the dark side of finasteride and PFS horror stories. I literally wanted to kick myself for staying on it for so long.
Life After finasteride
No surprise, I decided to lower my dosage. At 0.5 mg EOD I was still getting nasty sides. I read about the microdosing approach and went all the way down to 0.1 mg EOD, which wasn't really doing anything to my hair, but still gave me noticeable sides. Considering these, I decided to taper finasteride off. In the meantime, ever since I went down from 1mg ED in March 2016, my scalp itch, sebum, inflammation have gone into overdrive. In May my shedding started to increase. I was shedding less than 40 hairs per day before, now I shed the double or more. I lost 1cm of my hairline in the past two months. I'm now Norwood 2 and still losing rapidly.
Another thing that I noticed is that I'm losing my hair all over my head. Don't get me wrong, the hairline and crown are still the most heavily shedding area. But I'd get obviously abnormal shedding from my sides, mid scalp, and even my back! The hairs are visible tapering at the root with a loss of pigmentation. At this point the loss in density is already noticeable. It's like using finasteride for 7 years and quit switched my hairloss pattern from the classic male pattern baldness to a male pattern baldness+diffuse pattern!
In search of answers I came across the theory of Reflex Hyperandrogenicity and Androgen Receptor Upregulation. That totally explains my finasteride journey: staying on finasteride for a prolonged time with sides caused a compensation of body to make itself more sensitive to androgen. It might normalize or may not after quitting finasteride. But the horror stories of permanent Hyperandrogenicity are many. This is obviously adding to my despair.
Experimentals And my Side Effects Profile
Needless to say, what annoys me the most, is the fact that I never got any more sides other than slightly lowered libido in the first several years on finasteride; but after 7 years I seem to have collected all its sides except gyno.
finasteride changed my system profoundly. This is pure speculation, but I believe it made me hypersensitive to any hormonal drugs (itself included).
After microdosing failed, I tried several experimentals. Here are my experiences:
Topical Finasteride- Homemade from crushed pills and minoxidil. Somehow reduced itch. Caused IMMEDIATE headache followed by moderate fatigue.
RU-58841- From a source in China. Great at reducing sebum/itch. Caused headache/fatigue/brain fog/chest pain. The sides are almost IMMEDIATE and somehow alleviated after 2 or 3 hours. However they build up over time. Stopped after 10 days.
CB-03-01- From WHP and Kane (tried both). Somehow reduced itch. Caused IMMEDIATE headache/fatigue. Stopped after 2 days.
Setipiprant-From Kane. Amazingly great at reducing itch/sebum. Caused IMMEDIATE headache, somnolence within 1 hour, followed by heavy fatigue that lasts into the next day (I used 36 mg topically). Also gave my bad sleep. The sides from seti are even stronger than RU (why? why? why?...)Dropped after the first application.
...WTF??
I wonder how many people share a similar hypersensitivity as mine. CB and Seti are the safest we have, yet they still failed on me. It's so annoying and depressing at the same time since I'm pretty much sure almost every one of these drugs is able to help my hair. The effects are noticeable even from initial applications. But I simply can't use them.
Sometimes I'd imagine if I never used finasteride in the first place I probably never would have become so sensitive to these drugs. When I first started finasteride I literally got nothing but temporary watery semen. Maybe finasteride disrupted my hormonal balance permanently. Maybe it somehow weakened my blood brain barrier. I simply don't know. My liver and kidney are checked to be healthy and my T and E levels are in normal ranges for what it's worth.
Current Situation and Thoughts
So, I'm basically without any treatment now, except minoxidil, which I don't really have an option to quit.
I realize that my body is yet to recover from the finasteride havoc and might take a long time to be even close to clean again. My energy level normalized but was still not close to what it was. Can always get and maintain erection but almost zero libido with occasional morning wood (might have something to do with my hair loss depression too). Using any more hormonal drugs will likely further disrupt my body. I have no choice but to stay away from anything hormonal.
The past several months have been hell and ridiculously ironic. I got admitted to my dream school, successfully graduated from college, managed to establish a long term relationship, achieved several of my goals and was about to start a new episode of life. These all happened while the hair loss curse just lol at me again. On the surface I was envied by all my friends. But my hair and health going to sh*t was eating me inside.
I'm starting to get sick of all this. In the past six months I completely changed to a different version of me. I was ambitious, charismatic, popular and shined among peers. But now I run away from all my friends, spent my whole vacation reading studies, purchasing research chemicals, and doing trials on myself. I don't even invest time to bettering myself or think about my future anymore. But still, NOTHING works.
I don't want to keep at this anymore since obviously health comes first. Besides, for the aforementioned reasons I would need a clean system to restart even if I want to pick anything up again. The question is will I have any hair left then? I'm not going to lie. It's gonna be tough. Already cut my long mane goodbye and might have to shave/buzz my head soon just to keep my mind off it and move on. And the itch is so debilitating and distracting... Ugh, but what else can I do? I can't just trade my life over for my damned beloved hair.
I might stack some non-hormonal treatments like stemoxydine, copper peptide, zix, etc into my minoxidil only regimen in future but considering the rate at which I'm losing I'm not optmistic. The only thing that keeps me doing sth for my hair still is what we MAY have in the upcoming five years. If Brotzu's comes out, I'd gladly try it. If Histogen and Replicel get released I'd jump on it. And Tsuji would be the last saving grace supposed that I still have any hair left when it POSSIBLY comes out in 2020.
Until then, move on.
