tech professor,
you are not a fool for trying xandrox, except for the money you may have parted with. maybe it was worth finding out if it works.
you will not be worse off switching back to generic minoxidil from xandrox than you would have been just staying on minoxidil from the beginning. you might loose hairs, but they would only be hairs that you never would have had on the 5% stuff, and i'm not convinced xandrox is better than a lot of 5%.
it is better to buy copper peptides and SOD's than an overpriced minoxidil from a business man. his plan minoxidil is $20/month.
I think everyone on this site, maybe bryan included, has a big misconception about hair loss. You see, hair loss is a progressive condition, and no one fully understands what causes it. we know minoxidil and SODs and copper peptides and other stuff help fight it from different angles after it starts, and we know that DHT plays a big role in starting it and that reducing it helps a lot, but we don't know much more than that.
But whatever the causes are, they are progressive whether you protect your hair or not. Hair loss is like being stuck in a room with a 400 degree oven and fan blowing hot air at you and your family, and propecia and other treatments are like an AC unit blowing normal cool air at you. The stronger the AC unit blows, the longer you live. But because of genetics and time and even the attack of DHT, your hairs become more vulnerable to attack, which is like turning that oven up over time, and the longer it has been on, the weaker you feel and more vulnerable you are to the heat. Not all hairs are as strong as others, and perhaps some of your kids would be the first to give into the heat. If the air conditioner blows really hard, your kids my perk up a bit and live fine for a while. But if the oven keeps getting hotter and the AC does not improve, eventually some will not be able to handle it, which is why propecia users and all people lose hair as they get older. If you turned the AC off when the oven was not that hot, everyone would get worse so slowly you might not notice it right away. But if you have that AC going so strong that even the kids with heat stroke all perk up, then those kids are now "dependent" on the AC, and if the oven is hot enough, you will see a bit shed when you turn off the AC. That is what happens when you get off rogaine or propecia for a while after use. But you know that if you had not had the AC on at all the whole time, the kid who was killed in minutes by the oven would have died a long time ago. So if you get off Xandrox, you won't loose any hairs that you would have had on minoxidil 5%. In fact, if you do loose them, they will just fall out and you can grow them back by getting back on Xandrox.
http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/430/2006 ... _chart.gif
when those men switched from propecia to placebo after a year on propecia, and got back on, they caught back up with the people who were always on propecia. The people who started a year late never caught up, because once your weakest hair is dead, it is dead, whereas if you let the oven blow hot air at a healthy person for a minute, they may faint, but they don't die right away, and you can save them with the AC.
It is like this with all treatments. some cool the room by 30 degrees, others only 2. you just have to use your budget and get the best combination you can fit into your schedule. and if you switch and loose some hairs, you can grow them back if you get on it soon enough. if your genetics turn that oven up to 1000 degrees, it won't matter what treatment you use. I suspect that even if hairs are alive when you start treatment, the ones that were attacked the most are probably more sensitive to DHT than they would have been if you had protected them sooner. So everyone should get on minoxidil now and stop believing that they will become dependent.
And no treatment stops working. it just stays the same, and genetics gets stronger and overpowers it. spironolactone by itself is not strong, but it has a local effect and will reduce DHT's effect locally which is good when combined with propecia. It is like taking avodart for your scalp but subjecting your body to propecia. and it blocks testosterone as well, which avodart does not.