Please Explain these Propecia effects

[SE19]

can someone please explain then how ive been on propecia for 10 months, noticed a lot less hair fall, but now have randomly (in the past month) thinned out massiveley in the hairline ESPECIALLY my right hand side. All the hairs are pretty much still there, in the sense that it hasnt receded, but just so thin that i can see the scalp through it.

was the propecia not working all along?

is this a shedding phase?

PLEASE HELP

[ohlife]

The follicles are probably just miniturising, but not yet falling out.. Not sure exactly how it works, but I'd say the hairline is starting to recede more, slowly perhaps.. but yeah, perhaps propecia is starting to lose some of its effectiveness in the hairline region.

[gmonasco]

Propecia primarily works to preserve hair in the crown; its effectiveness in stopping recession at the hairline and temples is rather limited. What you're seeing is the normal hair loss you would have experienced even if you hadn't started taking propecia.

[SE19]

do you think i could see more positive results on dutasteride? As my hairline is still there just really thin. Do you think if ive failed on propecia im likely to fail on that stuff too?

Many Thanks

[ohlife]

Well don't think of the drug itself, but its effects. The only thing Dutasteride would possibly do is further lower your DHT levels... Maybe you should get your levels checked (though im not sure how accurate these tests are) and evaluate whether lowering them further may be beneficial. Not really sure why lowering DHT works less on the temples, but might simply be that hair at the temple is more vulnerable to DHT. Would be interesting to see how propecia helped the retention of temple hair of someone who started taking it at 16, before hairloss even started to show (although this is nearly impossible and a mere counter-hypothesis).