Avodart Losing Effectiveness

[Refuse2GoBald]

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum. Long story short..I unfortunately started the hair loss journey at the age of 18. I am an EXTREMELY satisfied patient of Dr. Hasson. Four years ago, Dr. Hasson started me on Avodart 0.5 MG after Propecia was completely ineffective for me. I have been taking if about 3 to 4 times a week for the past four years with amazing results. When I started taking it I noticed that my hair loss stopped and hair all over my head was generally beginning to thicken up.

P

Unfortunately, I'm seeing a lot more hair all over my bathroom these days and its getting me down. I have a couple of questions

1) Does Avodart lose its effectiveness over time?
2) Could it possibly help me to increase my dosage?
3) They say you lose 50 - 100 hairs a day. Wouldn't this number be significantly less for people who have progressed to a NW 5/6 ?
4) What other meds/products can I add to my line of defense?

[Paul McAndrews, MD]

Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum. Long story short..I unfortunately started the hair loss journey at the age of 18. I am an EXTREMELY satisfied patient of Dr. Hasson. Four years ago, Dr. Hasson started me on Avodart 0.5 MG after Propecia was completely ineffective for me. I have been taking if about 3 to 4 times a week for the past four years with amazing results. When I started taking it I noticed that my hair loss stopped and hair all over my head was generally beginning to thicken up.

P

Unfortunately, I'm seeing a lot more hair all over my bathroom these days and its getting me down. I have a couple of questions

1) Does Avodart lose its effectiveness over time?
2) Could it possibly help me to increase my dosage?
3) They say you lose 50 - 100 hairs a day. Wouldn't this number be significantly less for people who have progressed to a NW 5/6 ?
4) What other meds/products can I add to my line of defense?

1) Does Avodart lose its effectiveness over time? There has been no published long term hair count or hair weight studies on Avodart. However the long term studies on Propecia showed the hair counts start coming down at 1 year and the hair weight studies starting coming down at 3 years. However the hair counts and hair weight differences between the Propecia patients versus the placebo patients got progressively larger with each year of taking Propecia; therefore, even though patients started to thin, each year they continued to go farther and farther away from where they should have been if they were not taking the medication (i.e.- their genetic predisposition). I am sure Avodart would follow a similar pattern.

2) Could it possibly help me to increase my dosage? The answer is we do not know since there was no published dose ranging studies on Avodart for androgenetic alopecia. The studies done on Propecia showed that the 1 mg dose was as effective as the 5 mg dose.

3) They say you lose 50 - 100 hairs a day. Wouldn't this number be significantly less for people who have progressed to a NW 5/6 ? No it is actually more since there hair cycle is shorter with the miniaturizing hair; however the hairs they are shedding cannot be seen many times or less noticeable. Remember shedding is not a sign of androgenetic alopecia, miniaturization of the hair shaft is and eventually you cannot see the hairs that are being shed. Dogs and cats shed much more hair than humans but you never see a cat or a dog bald.

4) What other meds/products can I add to my line of defense? The only other medications that is FDA approved for androgenetic alopecia is “Minoxidil” which works on a different mechanism of action then Avodart and Propecia. We still do not know this mechanism of action, but minoxidil is an indiscriminate hypertrichotic agent; which means it will try to get any hair thicker. We have seen in studies the combination of Propecia and minoxidil is the works better than Propecia alone; it would makes sense that this would be the same for Avodart. Unfortunately there are many “scam” snake-oil hair care products.