Inconclusive rant about finasteride, DHT reduction and ways to control it.
I have taken my first dose of finasteride the last friday. I took 0.3mg at night. The second dose, again of about 0.3mg, i took the next monday. By considering taking a third dose thursday I have noticed the following:
My light, yet constant acne disappeared instantly, as did my excess sebum. Before finasteride i would wash my face with plain water every 12 hours and every time i could feel my scalp and areas of my face oily to the touch before washing. After taking finasteride my skin has been dry and spotless even without washing.
At the same time my sleep has been ruined. Since the next day from the first dose even if i sleep properly all night, for 8-9 hours, i wake up with a bad feeling in my head and get assaulted by waves of sleepiness during the whole day, a pretty crippling condition. Apparently this is caused by inhibition of certain corticosteroids produced by the enzyme finasteride blocks. It seems it's interfering with my REM phases. Wednesday night has been much better, albeit a little of the bad effect remains. Has this happened to others? If so, has it gone away with prolonged usage?
I won't be taking another dose of finasteride for at least a week since the last one, since not even my hair, which currently surpasses my navel in length and thus covers my NW2, is worth feeling horrible all day.
My regimen idea was taken from this thread: http://www.propeciahelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1170
Since my excess sebum and hairloss at a young age (23) are clearly proof of excess DHT, which i presumably don't need, i would like to "trim" it just enough to have at the very least normal sebum levels, if not my hair.
According to the graphic on that thread a dose of 0.3 mg every third-fourth day or sixth day should keep my plasma DHT reduction at around 20% from the starting point... unfortunately this isn't supported by other research, from which i quote:
"Scalp skin DHT levels declined significantly by 13.0% with placebo and by 14.9%, 61.6%, 56. 5%, 64.1%, and 69.4% with 0.01, 0.05, 0.2, 1, and 5 mg doses of finasteride, respectively. Serum DHT levels declined significantly (P <.001) by 49.5%, 68.6%, 71.4%, and 72.2% in the 0.05, 0.2, 1, and 5 mg finasteride treatment groups, respectively."
We can see how this last research notes a fairly flat response curve even for doses as small as 0.01mg. I have found confirmation of this last data set from the finasteride FDA testing. It clearly contradicts the previous graph. If this is true we have practically no way to "control" the amount of DHT we reduce, just the time this reduction is effective for (if even that). From this simple point i believe many of the side effects could be prevented by a more contained DHT reduction finasteride clearly can't provide, but which could benefit a wider range of users and prevent the formation of side effects.
The golden point for finasteride seems instead to be the 0.05mg mark. Something obtainable only through dissolution of pills in ethanol, i believe. If the first graph has any validity then a dose close to 0.05 (0.04) would exhaust its efficacy after around 6 days compared to the higher lasting effect of higher doses. Since DHT accumulates around follicles over time, it wouldn't be necessarily a bad thing. Consider that despite the short time finasteride remains in the blood (a few hours) the inhibiting effect it exhibits lasts up to a week and more. Regardless of the graph's validity this can easily be confirmed through user experience. It means byproducts of the drug remain in the blood for that time, increasing their concentration in the blood with every dose (the previous doses' byproducts summed with the newly ingested ones). As far as i know the human endocrine system doesn't need a week to crank out appropriate quantities of a needed hormone, therefore if 1mg of the drug can remain in the bloostream for a week, then at the end of the first week your bloodstream will contain finasteride byproducts from 7 doses and remain constant at such level from then on.
The point of my argument is that dht blocking could indeed be a simple solution to hair loss and a few other excess DHT-induced issues like acne, if only we had a medication that allowed us to actually control DHT levels instead of bringing them down by almost 70% regardless of dosage administered. After all, many cases of MPB in young sufferers seem to me to derive from a relatively modest excess of DHT and not early follicular hypersensitivity to it.
In few words, we may actually benefit from a less potent inhibitor.
To this regard these studies are fairly popular: http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/25/7/1109.full
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2683253/
The simple conclusion is that elevated quantities of certain components of tea (mostly black tea apparently) have a fairly high DHT reduction effect, comparable with finasteride. If this is true, perhaps regulating the amount of black tea extract ingested could help us achieve better control with our DHT reduction and make this treatment method more effective... albeit such a solution seems too good to be true.
Other DHT blockers, such as saw palmetto, seem to show quite contradictory results in tests and are more likely to be just marketed "fads", in my opinion.
I hope someone experienced with DHT blocking in general can provide some input about the topic, especially if i am misled by my assumptions.
TL;DR:
-Finasteride inhibits overall DHT by a fairly "set" value: ~60-70%
-MPB in young men seems often (mostly?) caused by excess DHT (when coupled with acne, for instance)
-Young men could benefit from a more modest DHT inhibition compared to finasteride.
-Black tea extract or other DHT inhibitors could offer a healthier and more manageable DHT reduction, to bring DHT to "normal levels" in young men, thus producing less side effects and risks of endocrine system crash.
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Originally Posted by Aston
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