Relax, minoxidil isn't aging you.

[JohnMPB]

As of right now I've been on fin 1.25 mg every day for about 5-6 years. However I just began adding 0.5mg dut everyday. While my hairloss isnt detectable, I'm slowly strengthening my regiment to what I consider a "functional" cure. After I'm going to add RU after I dut reaches a steady state and wait six months. The goal of this is to see how my hair reacts when ALL androgen stimuli are removed. After that point I will add 10% compounded minoxidil with 0.1 hydrocortisone. 10% once a day should technically be as good as 5% twice a day and the added hydrocortisone is to maximize the phenol sulfatransferase activity. I'm adding these one at a time so I can decide if one medication is really making the difference. Dut will take care of 98% type 2 in the dermal papilla, RU will prevent whats left from binding to the AR. This regime theoretically makes hairloss impossible, but some may disagree with me. Also this won't leave anything standing in minoxidil's way IF i'm a responder if nothing changes then I am absolutely not a minoxidil responder. My hairloss is rather "minor" due to jumping on fin at 20, however this is more of a test born from curiosity. I want to see how effective a combination this strong is. All my medications are purchased at legitimate US pharmacies.

Strong regimen. Are you adding the dut to your daily fin? I assume you're taking dut .5mg daily since you reference 98% 5ar inhibition, correct?

Let me know how your RU trial goes. What strength RU solution will you use? Ppg/ethanol vehicle or using stemox?

I've recently been looking at using murray Ave apothecary for compounded minox but they don't offer 10%. Who do you plan on using?

Ever thought about adding a sod like tricomin or folligen? What about niz? You would have pretty much all proven bases covered:
-internal 5ar inhibitor
-topical anti androgen
-growth stim
-sod
-anti inflammatory/antiandrogen shampoo

[dm90]

Yeah, I started adding 0.5 mg dut, haven't stopped taking fin, although its completely unnecessary to take both there is also no harm in it and I like consistency LOL. I believe that 98% inhibition is crucial for this regiment.

I am still debating on whether or not I will use 50mg or just maximize the dose to 100mg, I have all the materials I'll just take some further thought. Ill be using the ppg/ethanol vehicle

As for murrays I plan on using the 12.5 with the hydrocortison addition. 25mg extra topical minoxidil daily is just like adding 0.5ml more to your scalp, lots of people do this and some minoxidil never makes it through the scalp so I dont expect any problem with this.

There are a couple studies showing copper peptides to be quite effective at stimulating hair growth. Personally I think they work I just have zero experience with them. (a side note, i may be adding melatonin to the minoxidil, this would cover the oxidative stress aspect of hairloss)

Hopefully the hydrocortisone takes care of the inflammation and the dut/RU take care of the androgen aspect. However to be honest the only reason I dont use KETO shampoos like nizoral is because they are impossible to find in stores where i live :/

[dm90]

Oh and I nearly forgot, and I feel this is potentially pretty big news. Hellouser recorded Dr. Andy Goren giving his presentation on minixodil response test in women and theres some promising news in the presentation. This thread went more or less ignored because most people write minoxidil off as ineffective for them. However starting at around 10:25 he explains they discovered patients who did not respond to minxoidil had about 1/2 the necessary amount of sulfatransferase enzymatic activity. More importantly he then explains that doubling the dose would probably cause a non responder to respond.

well the site wont let me post the video but just google andy goren female minoxidil and start at 10:25. Theoretically if hydrocortisone really upregulates sulfatransferase as much as the study I found, you wont even need to up the dose.

[JohnMPB]

Is hydrocortisone safe for daily use for potentially decades as a topical?

Also if you're in the states any big chain pharmacy or big box store should habe niz. Or order online?

[dm90]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21771098 at 1% twice daily no dermal atrophy was observed however the study was only conducted for 4 weeks. The compounded minoxidil only uses 0.1%. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8077298 apparently 20nM, or nano moles, achieves the greatest increase of sulfatransferase upregulation. 0.1% has 1mg which is about 2700000 nano moles. So technically this should exceed the dose for maximum upregulation by 135,000x while being only 1/20th of the dose shown NOT to show dermal atrophy.

[Alk]

Personally, I do believe minox aged my skin and gave me dark circle for the eight months I used it. Maybe i was very sensitive but wrinkles on my forehead were much more noticable at the peak of treatment and then became much less noticable after discontinuation. To be honest i'm now more concerned about heart issues related to minox then skin aging. It is concerning how many people have reported this effect of skin aging.

[dm90]

Its a positive feedback loop through group paranoia. Skin is just sensitive to diet, sleep schedule, water intake and a whole mess of other things. One day my skin will look absolutely terrible, especially with flash, but the next day it looks youthful. When people are reporting sides involving skin aging they are making two assumptions. The first one is that minoxidil is actually inhibiting the lysyl hydroxylase enzyme and that its diffusing well enough that its inducing this effect on facial skin. We know that minoxidil has a very poor rate of diffusion and only 1-4% of the total dosage even goes systematic. The study I posted demonstrated that the collagen content was the same in both the control and treatment group. A histological assay was done on the area where the minoxidil was directly applied and no inhibitory effect was observed. The whole reason that scientists even took notice of the invitro inhibitory effect was that it showed promise of being used as an antifibrotic. They were not concerened with whether or not rogaine was aging someone. The in-vitro studies did not support the in-vitro studies. I realize there will be more and more reports of "well minoxidil aged my skin" but I have presented verifiable evidence that this does not occur. Everyone is entitled to their own belief about this compound, but rest assure there is evidence supporting that you're going to be ok. This thread is mainly for the individuals who are benefiting from minoxidil but perhaps are affraid to continue the treatment.

[PatientlyWaiting]

Its a positive feedback loop through group paranoia. Skin is just sensitive to diet, sleep schedule, water intake and a whole mess of other things. One day my skin will look absolutely terrible, especially with flash, but the next day it looks youthful. When people are reporting sides involving skin aging they are making two assumptions. The first one is that minoxidil is actually inhibiting the lysyl hydroxylase enzyme and that its diffusing well enough that its inducing this effect on facial skin. We know that minoxidil has a very poor rate of diffusion and only 1-4% of the total dosage even goes systematic. The study I posted demonstrated that the collagen content was the same in both the control and treatment group. A histological assay was done on the area where the minoxidil was directly applied and no inhibitory effect was observed. The whole reason that scientists even took notice of the invitro inhibitory effect was that it showed promise of being used as an antifibrotic. They were not concerened with whether or not rogaine was aging someone. The in-vitro studies did not support the in-vitro studies. I realize there will be more and more reports of "well minoxidil aged my skin" but I have presented verifiable evidence that this does not occur. Everyone is entitled to their own belief about this compound, but rest assure there is evidence supporting that you're going to be ok. This thread is mainly for the individuals who are benefiting from minoxidil but perhaps are affraid to continue the treatment.

That's just wrong. One day it looks it's aging and the next day it's gone, who said that?

Why can't you just like minoxidil and also admit that some people may get sides?

I use minoxidil and it gives me these aging sides and dark circles, I can admit that and still admit it's a good drug hair loss.

[dm90]

That's just wrong. One day it looks it's aging and the next day it's gone, who said that?

Why can't you just like minoxidil and also admit that some people may get sides?

I use minoxidil and it gives me these aging sides and dark circles, I can admit that and still admit it's a good drug hair loss.

I'm saying that depending on the lighting or current physical condition the appearance of skin can drastically change.

Because thats asking me to accept anecdotal reports over multiple scientific studies. Given the choice to believe internet forums or histological data I will choose the later. The reports of dark cirlces can be credible in my opinion. Angiogenisis was observed in the treatment group. Due to minoxidils poor diffusion rate this can be avoided by careful application.

[Alk]

Although the study is clear; this isnt the most concrete evidence that minox doesnt age ur skin. It may not have stopped the healing process but these mice were only given minox once a day for 21 days. There are many studies in vitro and the study even states to reject its possible effects as an antifibrotic agent, more objective animal models should be developed and studied. Minox definetly goes systematic if 2% minox can effect left ventricle mass as explained in this study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1386573/.

Some ppl get sides some dont.

[dm90]

Yes good catch, these studies were done over a short period of time. However, minoxidils inhibiting effects have been observed to occur almost immediately. I will admit the acromegally does raise some questions however. Its basically the only case study of REALLY serious side effects of minoxidil, and it occured over a period of 10 years. The theory that a form of "selection" occured allowing the resistant fibroblasts to multiply unchecked is definitely unnerving. However skin aging is usually something reported after only a few months or years of topical use. The study you posted is a good addition to this conversation. Minoxidils effects on ventricals is well documented and quite scary.

[michel sapin]

hey dm , so you are sure that minoxidil can't age your skin ? Ive been paranoid about this effect since ive started . Moreover i'm way worse than baseline after 5 month , do you think i will recover?

[dm90]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9326711

"Minoxidil did not demonstrate significant inhibition of wound contraction rates"
"These observations do not support the proposed use of minoxidil as an "antifibrotic" agent."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3985251/

"Main histological findings regarding minoxidil topical usage showed that collagen content and tensile strength of burned area did not differ between groups."
"Although minoxidil improved the process of wound-healing, our results did not support the proposed idea of its usage as an antifibrotic agent. However, to reject its possible effects as an antifibrotic agent, more objective animal models should be developed and studied."

Its important to understand the difference between in-vitro and in-vivo. Minoxidil applied directly to cultured fibroblasts shows a significant inhibitory effect on collagen formation. However, In-vitro is not a good model for understanding the actual mechanism of a compound. Orgasms are extremely complex with untold number of molecular interactions. Isolating one cell and applying a compound to it isn't representative of the biological model. Minoxidil showed nearly complete inhibition of lysyl hydroxylase, the enzyme responsible for collagen formation, at 2nM and cytotoxcitiy at 4nM. These are approximately 1/100th the dose of 2% minoxidil. 5% showed no effect on collagen content in any in-vivo study. Think of it this way, if minoxidil could kill off nearly all collagen maturing enzyme the result would be horrific. The only serious skin complication reported from minoxidil was actually deposition of too much collagen, this guy was taking an extremely high dose of 50mg daily for 10 years. Even this extreme case of pseudoacromegally reversed itself over time.



To sum up, there are a lot of anecdotal reports of minoxidil aging skin, however the science doesn't appear to support this phenomena. Everyone is entitled to believe what they do, but I personally do not believe 5% topical minoxidil exhibits any aging effects on skin.

Are you using fin or dut? If so how long have you paired it with minoxidil? The thing about minoxidil is consistence is so important. If you decide to treat your hairloss with these drugs you need to be diligent.

Disclaimer
I'm just a person with a scientific education not a doctor (not that anyone thought that lol)

[Never2bald]

Hi
Im new to this forum..been using 5% minox for about 5 months..hair has thickened to the point where my hairdresser commented on its density. Only thing is the dark eye circles. How can i carefully apply the solution to avoid this?
I only apply less than 1ml at night with a dropper

[Never2bald]

Can somebody help me on this please