0.25mg finasteride + ru?

[Illusion]

I know this is not really the subforum to ask for proper regimes, but I'm really curious as to what I should do and you guys know the answers to questions like these like no other people...

Due to sides I'm probably going to have to settle for 0.25mg finasteride a day instead of 1mg a day. However, I don't veel very comfortable with only taking 0.25mg propecia as it might not be enough to preserve my hair. I don't even need regrowth, Í need stabilisation of my hair loss (complete halt would obviously be best but this is unrealistic, so I'm aiming for a noticably slower rate of loss)

Should I add RU in the mix? The thing I'm affraid of is that 0.25mg fin might be enough to just maintain, but it could be not enough as well. I've just started fin treatment so I won't be able to figure this out untill 6 months - a year. If 0.25mg proves to be insufficient, I lost ground while I could have done more against it. However, if 0.25mg does prove to be sufficient, I'm wasting my money and time on RU. I'll also be using my emergency plan ("plan B") already, but this ofc is minor as it's all about keeping what I have right now. I'm not waiting for new treatments. I'm sure they'll come but by the time they are up for use, it might be too late.

Do you guys see where I'm coming from? What would you guys do? Or do you guys think it's better to take the 0.25mg fin with something else then RU? And if you do think I should start using RU aside, should my dosage be lower because I also use fin?

Thanks in advance!

[lilpauly]

U need growth Stims in your regimen . Fin and RU stop the balding process but Minox grows the hair the most

[Illusion]

I know I don't have growth stimulators in my regimen but i don't need them. I just need to maintain what I have now. Do you think it would be necessary to add RU to my 0.25mg fin or would it be overkill?

Some background information, I'm 17 with a family history of pretty aggressive MPB. Hair has receded only a little bit up to today but I've been shedding a lot for 5-6 months now and my crown and frontal regions are getting thinner.


EDIT: Forgot to say this in my original post, but I also use 2% ketoconazol. It's probably doing close to zero, but it's something.

[lilpauly]

I know I don't have growth stimulators in my regimen but i don't need them. I just need to maintain what I have now. Do you think it would be necessary to add RU to my 0.25mg fin or would it be overkill?

Some background information, I'm 17 with a family history of pretty aggressive MPB. Hair has receded only a little bit up to today but I've been shedding a lot for 5-6 months now and my crown and frontal regions are getting thinner.


EDIT: Forgot to say this in my original post, but I also use 2% ketoconazol. It's probably doing close to zero, but it's something.

no Man U cannot go on fin or RU . U are to young . U must get on Minox . U can restore your hair . Then in 2 years jump on fin

[Illusion]

no Man U cannot go on fin or RU . U are to young . U must get on Minox . U can restore your hair . Then in 2 years jump on fin

I'm already on fin. It's prescribed by a dermatologist. In fact, he wanted to prescribe dut to me first.

Look, I get what you're saying but I really don't want to turn this thread into a discussion wether or not I should take fin. As long as I'm tolerating the sides, I'm taking fin and that is that. My question remains the same: Do you think it would be necessary to add RU to my 0.25mg fin or would it be overkill?

[lilpauly]

I'm already on fin. It's prescribed by a dermatologist. In fact, he wanted to prescribe dut to me first.

Look, I get what you're saying but I really don't want to turn this thread into a discussion wether or not I should take fin. As long as I'm tolerating the sides, I'm taking fin and that is that. My question remains the same: Do you think it would be necessary to add RU to my 0.25mg fin or would it be overkill?

I would start with fin and Minox .

[burtandernie]

The more crap you add the less you have any idea what is working. Do you want to use RU for life without knowing if it even does anything? I guess if you have money to waste go ahead. I dont see the point in using anything beyond fin for fighting the androgens

[blondetooth]

If you want to use fin but want something stronger, take Dut .5 every few days, no need for everyday with Dut. Dut stays in your system longer and is 100x more powerful than fin in some of the chemicals and properties.

Dut is also fairly safe, and tested. The liquid gels are easy to mix with some water/ everclear and apply to scalp.

Check out my thread where I mix Dut, caffiene powder, vit c powder, everclear, and castor oil.

[Pate]

Ultimately it's up to you.

The cons: RU is not even proven conclusively to work to the same degree as fin, and since there is no legit commercial supplier you're buying it grey market with all the risks that entails in terms of quality control etc.

It also may have systemic effects, though these seem to be minor.

It's also expensive, more of a pain to mix up and most evidence suggests you need to keep it in the freezer and mix it up as you need it, usually weekly. I personally found it was not stable even in KB solution. I could tell it was losing effectiveness after about 4-5 weeks because my scalp started to get oily again.

The pros: I did find it effective though not really noticeably better than 1mg fin alone, except with the oily scalp thing. RU absolutely nuked the oil for the first few weeks so I knew it was having a strong AA effect. But I didn't notice any real regrowth in the six months I used it.

I would suggest if you're seriously concerned about it, try it out and see how you go in terms of cost, time and convenience and whether you are happy to keep using it. You could even then ditch the fin altogether if you find it's really effective for you.

Alternatively, you could try fin at whatever dose you can tolerate, and keep a really strong watch with monthly photos of your scalp. If you notice you're losing ground, start the RU then. You should notice long before anybody else does.

Unfortunately MPB is one of those conditions where you won't know how well the medication is working - you'll only know if it doesn't work because you'll lose hair, and once you know your regime isn't strong enough, it's generally too late unless you're really on the ball.

[Illusion]

The more crap you add the less you have any idea what is working. Do you want to use RU for life without knowing if it even does anything? I guess if you have money to waste go ahead. I dont see the point in using anything beyond fin for fighting the androgens

That's true...

If you want to use fin but want something stronger, take Dut .5 every few days, no need for everyday with Dut. Dut stays in your system longer and is 100x more powerful than fin in some of the chemicals and properties.

Dut is also fairly safe, and tested. The liquid gels are easy to mix with some water/ everclear and apply to scalp.

Check out my thread where I mix Dut, caffiene powder, vit c powder, everclear, and castor oil.

Will check it out, thanks mate.

Ultimately it's up to you.

The cons: RU is not even proven conclusively to work to the same degree as fin, and since there is no legit commercial supplier you're buying it grey market with all the risks that entails in terms of quality control etc.

It also may have systemic effects, though these seem to be minor.

It's also expensive, more of a pain to mix up and most evidence suggests you need to keep it in the freezer and mix it up as you need it, usually weekly. I personally found it was not stable even in KB solution. I could tell it was losing effectiveness after about 4-5 weeks because my scalp started to get oily again.

The pros: I did find it effective though not really noticeably better than 1mg fin alone, except with the oily scalp thing. RU absolutely nuked the oil for the first few weeks so I knew it was having a strong AA effect. But I didn't notice any real regrowth in the six months I used it.

I would suggest if you're seriously concerned about it, try it out and see how you go in terms of cost, time and convenience and whether you are happy to keep using it. You could even then ditch the fin altogether if you find it's really effective for you.

Alternatively, you could try fin at whatever dose you can tolerate, and keep a really strong watch with monthly photos of your scalp. If you notice you're losing ground, start the RU then. You should notice long before anybody else does.

Unfortunately MPB is one of those conditions where you won't know how well the medication is working - you'll only know if it doesn't work because you'll lose hair, and once you know your regime isn't strong enough, it's generally too late unless you're really on the ball.

A lot of truth spoken in your post, Pate. By the way, with the bolded part in your post, do you mean that you kept your RU outside the fridge in KB solution to see for how long it remained effective (and the results were, at least for you, that it lost effectiveness after 4-5 weeks)?

Now, as to all three poster above me, I think I must elaborate myself a bit more. Apparently I'm extremely gyno-prone. I took 1mg fin for 8-9 days and I already started to develop a lump under my right nipple. I got off fin for a while, waited until those weird sensations in my chest were gone and waited a few extra days just to be sure. The lump didn't disappear but that didn't really surprise me as gyno is usually permanent.

I then wanted to build my dose up to see what my body could tolerate. I started with 0.25mg. That was 4 days ago. After day 1 the weird chest sensations returned and by day 4 (today) I noticed that a) the lump under my right nipple had grown a bit bigger and b) I developped another lump, this time under my left nipple.

So apparently even 0.25 mg is too much for my body to handle and taking less fin is not very likely to have great effect on hair loss.


Anyway, to get to the point: blondetooth, taking dut will be a horrible idea if I can't even tolerate the sides of 0.25mg fin ED. I can only imagine how bad my gyno will become when taking dut, as I believe that the half life of dut is like a couple of weeks.

Pate, I'm starting to realize that RU is my only option right now. I know that there will be better products on the market in the near future, but that will probably still be 5 years at least. Even when things will go very smooth, we're probably looking at 3 years minimum. I can't afford to wait for a treatment that long. So yeah, like you made clear in your post, fin is preferrable over RU but I guess I don't have a choice.

Or get gyno surgery every month though that is probably a bit more expensive

[Pate]

That's correct. I kept it at room temperature and noticed a two month supply would lose effectiveness sometime during the second half of the bottle. The original patent for KB claims it increases the stability of RU in KB to last months. I heard claims of up to 6 months thrown around.

Whether my supplier, which was mpbtreatments, was actually using true KB solution I don't know but given the RU seemed to be genuine I don't see why they'd skimp on the KB.

By the time the next bottle arrived, my scalp was as oily as if I wasn't using RU at all. Then I'd start the new bottle and bam, next day scalp oil was down by about half. Within 3 days I was waking up with a dry scalp which never happens, even on fin.

Then after maybe 4 weeks it would slowly start getting oilier again until by the end it was back to baseline.

This is my gauge for RU's effectiveness. It's not scientifically rigorous of course and I haven't had anybody else confirm or deny it, but given what we know about anti-androgens' effect on sebum production in acne it makes perfect sense. Given the cost of RU, this apparent failure to remain stable was enough to make me go back to fin even though I'm not really happy with it. I would like to start using RU (or CB) again and ditch fin altogether but I need a trusted supply of RU in the freezer. It's on my to-do list to come up with this but fin is working fine in the meantime when combined with minox, I'm retaining and have full regrowth in the crown.

Anyway, long story short - I don't recommend buying premixed RU, although again I stress my experience needs verification by others. Next time I will buy powdered RU and store it in the freezer and make it up perhaps every 2-3 weeks. This requires a fine resolution scale too to measure the RU perfectly.

As for your updated information re gyno - if what you say is truly gyno symptoms it sounds like RU is your only real choice. You can't really dilute fin much more and expect it to have an effect. I don't honestly think you would see breast growth in a few days on fin no matter how sensitive, it would take weeks, but if RU is going to be just as effective but give you better peace of mind, it might be worth trying.

[Swooping]

Well mpbtreatments isn't really known as a legit supplier. You probably had shit RU to start with or not freshly mixed or something.

@OP I think you are way to young to use RU to be honest. If you were older I would say switch and try RU but definitely don't go combining both if you are already prone to side effects.

[Illusion]

That's correct. I kept it at room temperature and noticed a two month supply would lose effectiveness sometime during the second half of the bottle. The original patent for KB claims it increases the stability of RU in KB to last months. I heard claims of up to 6 months thrown around.

Whether my supplier, which was mpbtreatments, was actually using true KB solution I don't know but given the RU seemed to be genuine I don't see why they'd skimp on the KB.

By the time the next bottle arrived, my scalp was as oily as if I wasn't using RU at all. Then I'd start the new bottle and bam, next day scalp oil was down by about half. Within 3 days I was waking up with a dry scalp which never happens, even on fin.

Then after maybe 4 weeks it would slowly start getting oilier again until by the end it was back to baseline.

This is my gauge for RU's effectiveness. It's not scientifically rigorous of course and I haven't had anybody else confirm or deny it, but given what we know about anti-androgens' effect on sebum production in acne it makes perfect sense. Given the cost of RU, this apparent failure to remain stable was enough to make me go back to fin even though I'm not really happy with it. I would like to start using RU (or CB) again and ditch fin altogether but I need a trusted supply of RU in the freezer. It's on my to-do list to come up with this but fin is working fine in the meantime when combined with minox, I'm retaining and have full regrowth in the crown.

Anyway, long story short - I don't recommend buying premixed RU, although again I stress my experience needs verification by others. Next time I will buy powdered RU and store it in the freezer and make it up perhaps every 2-3 weeks. This requires a fine resolution scale too to measure the RU perfectly.

As for your updated information re gyno - if what you say is truly gyno symptoms it sounds like RU is your only real choice. You can't really dilute fin much more and expect it to have an effect. I don't honestly think you would see breast growth in a few days on fin no matter how sensitive, it would take weeks, but if RU is going to be just as effective but give you better peace of mind, it might be worth trying.

Thanks for responding. It's always useful to listen to other experiences with RU as it's an experimental treatment after all and we usually have to go by our own instincts / experience of others / our own bro-science. Regarding gyno, I too thought it wouldn't grow this quickly. But, it's not really visible yet (a bit puffier, that's all). It's mainly the weird, sensitive hard lump under my nipple that points heavily towards gyno.

I have this theory - which is complete bro-science (god I love that word) by the way - that my fin induced gyno developped this quickly because it's just a hormonal imbalance which will resolve itself when continuing finasteride use. The hormonal imbalance is also worsened by me being a teenager, as this is a pretty swingy time considering hormones fluctuate a lot. This all would mean that I should just bite the bullet and take fin for at least a month.

However, I'm scared I'll do too much 'harm' to my chest if it actually is gyno (which is pretty likely) and it won't be reversible by itself anymore or something like that. I read that gyno only becomes permanent after a year or more years of being there but still, experimenting with this is pretty scary as it could be that there's no way back.

@OP I think you are way to young to use RU to be honest. If you were older I would say switch and try RU but definitely don't go combining both if you are already prone to side effects.

I'm also way too young to be balding. I don't like my options either but I don't really have a choice. Besides, a derm prescribed me fin, an AA. RU is an AA too (although applied topically ofc with different MOA) so why would I be too young for RU while a derm thought I was clearly ready for fin?



Meh, I used to not want to take fin because I would be 'messing with my body' but I'd really like to be able to take it right now (without serious sides ofc, like the 99%).