20/21 starting fin/minox/niz

[huawei]

My hair loss seems to be cycling still....some days there will be barely any hair in the shower and other times there will be a fair bit. I'll give 0.5mg EOD of fin another month and if it doesn't continue to slow I'll try and get proscar and eye each one into 8ths and see how that goes.

I think I may have deleted my photos from prior to beginning treatment...which is a shame as I believe that my crown has gained a hell of a lot of density when I compare it to what I remember but with that said my hair is shorter these days. If I can find the photos and if there is a real difference I'll post them up.

My hairline is continuing to grow hair as well but I also feel that its still losing ground slowly, I guess we'll see in a few months.

[cichlidfort]

So its been almost three months on treatment. I've noticed a lot of hair growth on the temples but can't really speak for my crown. The hairs are semi pigmented and do seem to be growing weekly but the density is moderately weak. Recession continues but in the last few days the number of hairs in the shower has dropped by two thirds.

All in all I think I've been responding great to the big three, more so than I did last year when I used minox and nizoral for half year by them selves. Its starting to become noticeable from a short distance (5 - 6 feet away) but its nothing to be posting pictures on the internet about yet. Do you think if I'm showing strong results now that they will continue into the future?

However, I can't not contain my regret for not starting fin sooner. If I had of started fin this time last year my position would be three times greater than it is now. I can't believe I was scared away from treatment after reading a few horror stories, neglecting to look into dosing (I currently take 0.5mg EOD) et al. I guess the only thing that's worked in my favour genetics wise is having a dense donor of black hair of thick calibre for when the eventual HT occurs.

If there are any young males out there who are losing their hair please give fin a shot after doing some researching into the dosing or you'll be left like me grasping at straws on the edge of having to your buzz hair at the age of 21.

There a lot of unknowns with using fin long term. DHT is the king of androgens and suppressing DHT long term can lead to all sorts of complications. People have used fin for 3-4 years successfully and then all of a sudden started noting intense brain fog, serious libido issues, weight gain etc...fin is a poison. Use with caution.

[huawei]

There a lot of unknowns with using fin long term. DHT is the king of androgens and suppressing DHT long term can lead to all sorts of complications. People have used fin for 3-4 years successfully and then all of a sudden started noting intense brain fog, serious libido issues, weight gain etc...fin is a poison. Use with caution.

You're not wrong hence my statement about researching the dosing before giving it a go.

Anyhow, it has been around a week and a half since my hair loss has more or less crawled to a halt. I think for the most part it's done . At times I can pull my hands through my hair and nothing will come out and at other times maybe only one or two and in the shower I can run my hands through my hairs and end up with under four hairs every time. In comparison before starting my treatment pulling my hands through my hair would result in plus five hairs coming out every time and running my hands through my hair in the shower could see me at times end up pushing 10 - 15 hairs.

However, my hairline does not seem to be responding as well as the rest of my head in that it is noticeably worse than when I started and the hair is no where as nearly well anchored as the rest of my head. This combined with the quoted post below has spurred me into upping my dosing to 0.5mg everyday. This quoted post may be helpful to others.

I'm going to start off by stating that plasma DHT levels are a very inconsistent measure for the battle against hair loss, for several reasons. The quantities of DHT found in the blood are more or less pointless, since they are leftovers that have leaked from autocrine reduction on target tissue. What this means is, plasma DHT levels are a byproduct of either too few androgen receptors near the local site in which they are produced, or a high 5-AR activity that has caused over-saturation of androgen receptors and thus excess quantities are released in the bloodstream. This is why serum DHT levels do not really mean anything, they are a proxy measure for the enzyme inhibition of finasteride at best.

Finasteride is not only an inhibitor of 5-ar II enzymes, it's a suicide inhibitor. Meaning that once finasteride binds to a 5-ar enzyme, BOOM, it's gone. It forms an irreversible bond forever. So even though the half life of finasteride is only 6 hours, it takes up to a week for serum DHT levels to get to baseline after a single dose. The reason for that is, the half life turnover rate of the 5-αr II enzyme is somewhere between 15 to 30 days. Generally, the amount of finasteride you take and the frequency in which you take it is generally irrelevant on a broad scale, seeing as it can be effective from doses as low as 0.12mg, and it takes probably at least 72 hours to have any appreciable change on serum DHT.

But there's a catch, I've already mentioned that serum DHT levels means little for hair loss. Over 75% of serum DHT levels are originated from the prostate, since it's responsible for about 60% of total DHT levels in the body alone. So if anything, the serum DHT levels would a proxy measure for amount of DHT bounded by androgen receptors on prostate tissue. But if you are not medicating finasteride to relieve benign prostatic hyperplasia, then that is highly irrelevant. Most of us are more interested in it's mechanism for slowing down hair loss.

Finasteride is not that effective in inhibiting scalp homogenate 5-alpha-reductase activity using micro doses. The general consensus on the efficacy of finasteride comes from the fact that it fights against MPB by blocking DHT conversion inside the hair follicle. That is the whole essence of 5-AR inhibitors, and the reason why they work. The bigger factor at work here is potency with respect to the scalp. Since the scalp has lower blood circulation and fewer concentrations of 5-AR enzymes than the prostate, it would naturally take a much higher concentration to give the same effects as it would for the prostate. Having said that, the IC50 of finasteride for prostate and scalp homogenates was reported to be 5.9 and 310 nM, respectively on average, consistent with other numerous attempts of measure. With this in mind, it was estimated that a concentration of 94 nM finasteride would inhibit prostate homogenate 5-AR activity by 85%, but would inhibit scalp homogenate 5-AR activity by 25%. An early MERCK study showed that value closer to 32% if I recall correctly. So by extrapolation, in order to achieve a level of inhibition in scalp tissue that was comparable to that in the prostate, the concentration of finasteride in plasma would have to be around 1 uM, which would be obtained following a single oral 50 mg dose of finasteride. So again, if you want maximal DHT inhibition inside follicular tissue, you would need doses in excess of 15 mg everyday. But seeing as reductions as little as 25% was enough to stop androgenic tissue expression for hair miniaturization, that would be unnecessary.

Again, consistent with these findings, hair counts seem to improve by increasing daily doses of finasteride.

The conclusion I have reached at reaching the best possible dose-result ratio schedule would be somewhere around 0.5mg to 1.0mg everyday.

[huawei]

Well it looks like I must have deleted my old photos by accident which is a shame. Here's one of the crown taken today with flash on and not that you would know but compared to half a year ago the difference is huge. It was almost impossible to hide the thinning (as it was hitting the whole back of my head) however now cosmetically at least there is solid coverage for the most part. I will add a photo every couple of months from here out and update if any shedding, sides or solid regrowth starts to occur around my hair line.

[cichlidfort]

Well it looks like I must have deleted my old photos by accident which is a shame. Here's one of the crown taken today with flash on and not that you would know but compared to half a year ago the difference is huge. It was almost impossible to hide the thinning (as it was hitting the whole back of my head) however now cosmetically at least there is solid coverage for the most part. I will add a photo every couple of months from here out and update if any shedding, sides or solid regrowth starts to occur around my hair line.

Nice job, keep it up man. Hang in there until there's a better solution.

[huawei]

The time has come to cut it all off.

Shedding resumed again after approx a week and a bit of taking 0.5mg every day and has held no prisoners since. I trust it will slow down and stop again but the reality is that I look 6 months worse than I did 6 months ago. I look 5 months too far gone and it is quite noticeable. I would give pretty much anything to appear as I did back then.

I'm not sure if the minox is helping or hurting either as the hairs on my hair line are all so eager to come out even when the shedding had stopped opposed to most other hairs which were well rooted.

Ultimately I am not giving up the fight but I understand from here on out with my hair the way it is I will stand out as someone trying to hold onto something they don't have much off so I'll be cutting it real short a fortnight from now and until it either regrows or finds it self some new hairs from the back of my head a few years from now. I will be maintaining my treatment of fin, minox & keto in the mean time.

I don't think I'll look terrible with it real short but christ has mpb waged a war on my hairline.

[huawei]

Just a quick update as a point of reference for the future,

Three weeks ago I moved from 0.5mg every day to 1mg everyday...this went on for a week or so and then I jumped to 1.25mg everyday via the generic Finasteride 5 by Pharmacor.

I had some slight sides to begin with when it came jumping from .5mg to 1mg in regards to libido but these are subsiding which is good.

As for the shedding..it has been pretty terrible particularly around my crown but otherwise diffuse all through the top. It looks nowhere near as dense as it does in the picture from a few months ago. The shedding has been intense over what has been nearly 8 weeks however I think it might be starting to slow down substantially now and if my initial response is anything to go by it will stop around two months from now. I believe moving from 0.5mg eod to every day kicked a tonne of hairs into shedding which is good. If my broscience is anything to go by I would believe the fact that the hair clubs are larger in diameter than the sledded hair to be a good thing whereas in the past before treatment they were always the same size or smaller.

My hairline is looking a bit thicker as well though its nothing to write home about, cutting my hair very short was also a great move as I am pretty comfortable with how I look now save for my crown.

[huawei]

Dropping minox as of today. I am convinced it is only making my hair loss worse and after reading around some people who have aggressive hairloss such as mine saw no benefit using the big three but upon dropping minox it somewhat stopped.

It has been eight months now of shedding cyclically between what it has always has been and by a hyper amount. Today by tugging my hair about 50 came out with most of them being terminal.

I have also decided that at my next hair cut I'll be having my hair buzzed off. There is no point living with this insecurity as it is holding me back a bit.

I'll be sure to report back with a before and after photo in a few weeks.

[cichlidfort]

Dropping minox as of today. I am convinced it is only making my hair loss worse and after reading around some people who have aggressive hairloss such as mine saw no benefit using the big three but upon dropping minox it somewhat stopped.

It has been eight months now of shedding cyclically between what it has always has been and by a hyper amount. Today by tugging my hair about 50 came out with most of them being terminal.

I have also decided that at my next hair cut I'll be having my hair buzzed off. There is no point living with this insecurity as it is holding me back a bit.

I'll be sure to report back with a before and after photo in a few weeks.

Good luck man! Minox hasn't done crap for me either. How is fin helping you though?

[huawei]

Good luck man! Minox hasn't done crap for me either. How is fin helping you though?

Thanks,

I think the fin helped to begin with as there was a period after the first four months where the hair loss stopped completely until I commenced a higher dose. It would not surprise me if I were affected by either "reflex hyperandrogenicity" or a dud prescription of generic fin upon upping my dose. Even my scalp itch seems to be returning whereas when I was taking 0.25mg eod it had dissipated completely weeks after commencing treatment. I guess the next point of investigation is whether or not lowering the dose could counteract this somehow.

Ultimately though the fin has been very well tolerated...any minor sides encountered have gone away in time.