Demulen 35 for hair

[cathleen]

In your book "It's Your Hormones", you mention that Demulen USED to be the pill of choice for hair and skin problems. What changed? I was on Demulen for about 12 years and unknowingly went through menopause last year. I lost A ALOT of hair before switching to HRT. It is now growing back after about 5 months of HRT. (still some shedding but not as bad) I was also very sick in the spring with high fever which my derm thinks could have been TE. Any insights?
Thank you for your supportive and informative book!

[Geoffrey Redmond, MD, FACE]

In your book "It's Your Hormones", you mention that Demulen USED to be the pill of choice for hair and skin problems. What changed? I was on Demulen for about 12 years and unknowingly went through menopause last year. I lost A ALOT of hair before switching to HRT. It is now growing back after about 5 months of HRT. (still some shedding but not as bad) I was also very sick in the spring with high fever which my derm thinks could have been TE. Any insights?
Thank you for your supportive and informative book!

Since testosterone has an adverse effect on hair in both women and men, it is important for women with alopecia to avoid birth control pills with testosterone-like activity. For many years Demulen was the best pill in this regard. (It is now called Zovia). It is still probably a reasonable choice but newer pills have even less testosterone activity so are generally the first choice. These include OrthoCyclen (Sprintec and Mononessa) and TriCyclen, (on which I did research for the manufacturer to prove it to be effective against acne), Desogen (Apri), Mircette (Kariva), and Yasmin (Ocella) and Yaz.

Demulen has given good results as part of the treatment for female hair loss in the past and there is no reason to think it makes hair loss worse. However, like all OCs it is generally not adequate treatment by itself.