Blood test (DHT) with finasteride every other day.

[MackJames]

As anyone tried taking fin daily until your dht levels are lowered and then switching to an every other day routine?

[JulioGP]

It is my friend, only frequent blood tests can confirm is that something or not. Studies with independent doctors and unknown, to me, are very vague.

[Dan26]

Julio I think your on to something brother....My bloood test results on 0.25mg fin every day do not at all go in line with the published studies out there.

Imagine if everyone had tests done, who knows what the results would tell

[Dan26]

just got mine back I took the dht test 6 weeks after already starting fin. My result is

2932 pmol/l

WTF is that on the ng/dl scale? I am trying to find a converter. In December of 2011 my levels were 4128 pmol/l so it is significantly lower in my opinion

bro i find this very interesting you took 1.25mg fin for 6 weeks daily right? And it only reduced your DHT by about 30%. Like me you had very high DHT levels to start, and in my case 0.25mg for 2 months only reduced 10%..seems like fin is dose dependent for us or a higher dose is needed for those with high DHT...because studies show it should cut by a significantly larger % in that time frame

[burtandernie]

SP might work on the receptors and not DHT itself. Also is taking a liquid gel cap absorbed and used in the same way as powder in a capsule? Could be differences there in if its effective or not although I think its safe to say SP is nowhere near as strong as any real drug like fin if it works at all.

[UK_]

About Saw Pametto, what I meant was that it increased my DHT rather than decrease. I agree with you that using EOD may bring some benefit to those who have follicles with low sensitivity to DHT. Even if the DHT remains low for a few hours only, is better than nothing and can but bring some improvement. If a person uses the method EOD, at 1 year of use it will have reduced its DHT for 6 months and it can certainly bring some benefit is 50% of the year with DHT reduced.

When I said that using EOD does not reduce DHT I mean that does not reduce for several consecutive days as it is written in some sites. Anyway, maybe I rather keep using 0.5 mg daily and certainly will carry out further tests, as do blood tests almost every 2 months. If I can further reduce DHT using 0.5 mg, maybe I'll make an attempt to 1mg EOD to see if it works at least to keep the level down. I will updating here on the forum for those interested in following.

Your body may have responded to the decrease in 5AR activity by producing more of the enzyme, you really need to spend 6 months on Saw Palmetto to see the true effect it has on DHT, which is minimal at best (a few percent difference from baseline).

[JulioGP]

About Saw Pametto, what I meant was that it increased my DHT rather than decrease. I agree with you that using EOD may bring some benefit to those who have follicles with low sensitivity to DHT. Even if the DHT remains low for a few hours only, is better than nothing and can but bring some improvement. If a person uses the method EOD, at 1 year of use it will have reduced its DHT for 6 months and it can certainly bring some benefit is 50% of the year with DHT reduced.

When I said that using EOD does not reduce DHT I mean that does not reduce for several consecutive days as it is written in some sites. Anyway, maybe I rather keep using 0.5 mg daily and certainly will carry out further tests, as do blood tests almost every 2 months. If I can further reduce DHT using 0.5 mg, maybe I'll make an attempt to 1mg EOD to see if it works at least to keep the level down. I will updating here on the forum for those interested in following.

[yan]

Anyway I want to thank you for sharing your results with us! I was a bit too rude in my last posts.

What I want to say is the following: The main reason people use EOD doses is to reduce side-effects. Maybe your blood test is the key why people dont have that much side effects like on ED doses... Who knows.
Another thing is, nobody is doing blood tests because it doesnt tell you much. If you see 10% or 50% reduction, you still dont know if thats enough for your body. Everyone is different. Its trial and error. For a lot of people, EOD is enough to maintain and even thicken up their hair.
Lets assume your results are correct, there is still a 24-hour dht-suppressed timeframe within 48 hours, which might be enough for some people.

Much better than blood results is just to test it out by yourself. Choose a dose and a frequenzy, take before-pictures of your hair, take it for at least 6 months and then reassess your hair.

This text is just about fin. If we talk about keratene and other stuff, it is for sure important to have blood tests done in order to assess if it works or not.


Btw. Julio, it would be interesting to see your dht levels on 1mg / eod ON DAYS... There should big a big difference between on and off days according to your theory...

[yan]

You just have to google and you will find so so many people who report "it worked for me" with EOD or even MWF. There are people who take it this way since over 10 years and didn`t lose any hairs at all.

But ok until there are no other persons posting blood results with EOD, I don`t mind to discuss any more about this. EOD works, thats fact.

Maybe you can say it only blocks 24 hours out of 48 hours, ok believe it, but I dont care if it still works. Even more powerful than your blood results are experience reports of long-time users. And I believe in their results, proven with various hair-pictures.

[yan]

I'll still need to keep a few more days with such use in order to accomplish my baseline that was corrupted by Saw Palmetto, something that was thought to reduce the DHT which proved to me that is totally myth.

How do you explain that Saw Palmetto corrupted your baseline? So you say because of SP, your baseline is lower than normal? Makes no sense, because you said SP doesn`t work in reducing DHT.

Well there are hundreds who take it EOD or even twice a week and got good results. Let`s assume your blood results are accurate, it would still show that its enough to block DHT every other day.

I bet with you you could take 1mg every other day and not lose hair. Just do it, take it for some months and report back your results. I dont know what you try to do. Your blood results dont tell you if you will lose hair or not. You said 1mg EOD is useless, your quote: "Use 1mg every other day, not work to reduce DHT."

THIS IS SO WRONG. Even if it blocks just for 24 hours, it is enough to keep your hair. Proven by hundreds.

[JulioGP]

Yan,

Not to be rude, but the only thing I can do is wish you good luck in their beliefs, after all, some people will believe in words and others will believe in results.

I would love to see other people who did blood tests, but I see that it is extremely rare here.

The same comical fact, occurred with Kératene with more than 100 pages and almost 1,000 posts here in the forum discussions, only 2 participants did blood tests and found that the product did not reduce DHT even so many people continue to believe in product. LOL Lucky manufacturer.

There are several studies similar to this that you posted, but it's pretty obvious I believe my own blood tests than any one study published in the internet, sorry.

Note that curious. The study you posted says: "Doses below 0.5 mg/day do not produce much suppression of DHT levels, and doses above 5 mg/day have little additional benefit. "

And in another study(http://s21.postimg.org/7xwy6cfuv/32210168_DHT_1.gif) there is already information that 5mg per day could decrease DHT by almost 70%. A study says that does not diminish either, another study says that reduced by 70%, who to believe? Each of these supposed study says one thing, you have to throw a coin in the air and the only way to know which one to believe.

Well, the results are there for those who want to believe or not.

[yan]

The study from page 1 is from 1991.

A study from 1996 confirmed that DHT stays suppressed for several dose after a single fin dose:

"A single dose of finasteride suppresses serum DHT levels for up to 4 days, longer than would be expected from the serum terminal elimination half-life (t1/2z) of the drug: this is probably due to the high affinity that finasteride has for the 5 alpha-reductase enzyme"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8846625

Certainly, blood results are more important for us than random studies, but as long as there is only one person reporting otherwise than several official studies, its more than doubtful.

@Julio

Another idea would be to get a second blood work done from a different lab..maybe these guys have faulty devices! It does happen.

P.S. In approximately 3% of population finasteride doesn't work due to some type of genetic mutation. so there is a small possibility you may be in that group (although I really hope not brother) and most probably is unlikely.

I think best would be if another person who is on 0.5mg or 1mg EOD would do a blood test on an off day. Precondition is of course a DHT baseline.

[yan]

0.5mg daily is still 10% above baseline. I can`t take your results serious. Im sorry. But thanks for your efforts.

As long as I dont see other people confirm your results, I dont believe it.

This medication is out since 15 years or something, so it should be possible that more than just julio post his blood results. I can`t believe no one else ever considered making blood tests on off days...

[Dan26]

Julio if side effects are a problem you should do 0.05 or 0.2mg every day

[JulioGP]

For me this last blood test showed 3 things.

Saw Palmetto does not function to reduce DHT.
Kératene not work to reduce DHT.
Use 1mg every other day, not work to reduce DHT. Maybe 5mg works, not sure.

Probably I continue to use 0.5 mg daily to see if there are no side effects with such use has proved to be efficient.