.25mg finasteride journey

Diffused_confidence

Diffused_confidence

Senior Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
647
I got my bloodwork back and I'm going to take the plunge and start at .25mg of finasteride a day.

I attached some low quality photos as I never use my phone camera so idk. I took my first dose and hopefully things go well. I take 1mg and cut the doses twice with my pill cutter. I looked into my bloodwork and my dht levels were relatively high but so were estradiol. So I think I'm going to try to get exercise and reduce body fat and hopefully boost T. First photo is how my hair is typically styled, second is a picture from above. I have some thinning there. The 2 pictures are the temples. The right temple (the 4th pic, mirror image) looks OK but the left one has more damage. I have an ok hairline but there is some thinning further back and I'd like to control or reverse that.

I'm going to try to avoid hair loss forums for the time being as people advised this. I will post updates when they come.

20210512_095937.jpg
20210512_095856.jpg
20210512_095847.jpg
20210512_095832.jpg
 
Diffused_confidence

Diffused_confidence

Senior Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
647
Update after 3 weeks.

So far no serious side effects that I'm aware of. Some days I get a little paranoid but once I relax everything is OK. After 1 week at .25mg I upped the dose to .5mg and I'll probably stop there. My long term plan is to pray I get regrowth at the left temple (pic 3) and once I get that drop back down to .25mg and see if I maintain.

I think the worst part is this feeling of being a slave to medication. Some days I think I'm getting gyno, some days I wonder if I'm destroying myself, some days I wonder if I'll even respond to finasteride. But in the end I just have to remind myself that millions take this at 2x the dose and are fine.

I think I need more structure in my life. I have a job and everything but I have such a poor and lonely personal life. I think I will get therapy soon.
 
J

jazz1

Senior Member
Reaction score
280
My advice take the mediation and think positive, the more you stress and worry the less likely you will grow hair due to worry and stress…
 
Diffused_confidence

Diffused_confidence

Senior Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
647
Update after about 6 weeks.

Not much has really changed. I am shedding a little daily. I also noticed these tiny white hairs in the thinning parts of my hairline so maybe this is a good sign. I don't really see them in my photos but they are very small. Like, 1/16th of an inch.

Been still using 1mg a day. One day I did .25 mg on Father's day because I was getting some brain fog and thought a lower dose for a day where I'm with my family should be ok.

No ED or anything, though I do feel like libido is about 70%. So I think if after a year or so if I get sufficient regrowth I will try cutting my dose to see if my gains are maintained.

I still use a fade cut to kinda mask the recession and when I wash my hair it has the appearance of more volume like in my pictures and hides it pretty well. During a sunny day I feel like sh*t because the hairline looks worse. At night it looks a lot better.

I think the worst problem is the depression. The paranoia that this won't work and I'll end up bald. This has completely consumed me. I have looked into hair transplants but I know I have to be patient first but I'm just not.
 
Catagen

Catagen

Experienced Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
315
Aight dude. Time to give my opinion to your situation since I like you.
You appear to have a thinned out hairline(completely normal) with small recession, you are like NW1.25 on your left temple.
If you continue taking finasteride as you are now, most likely you wont have to think about a transplant for the next 10 years, if you did nothing, In my personal opinion you would have no visible hair loss to other people for a good few years or even more.
Looking at your crown and the midscalp there seems to be absolutely zero indications of any sort of loss there.
It would help if you posted some photos of few years ago to see if you really are balding aggressively like you say you are.


Diffused_confidence said:
Not much has really changed. I am shedding a little daily. I also noticed these tiny white hairs in the thinning parts of my hairline so maybe this is a good sign. I don't really see them in my photos but they are very small. Like, 1/16th of an inch.
Click to expand...
This is a very good sign, maintaining what you have is almost a certainty and a good possibility of regrowth.

Most importantly
You are not avoiding the forums, which you should be.
 
Diffused_confidence

Diffused_confidence

Senior Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
647
Catagen said:
Aight dude. Time to give my opinion to your situation since I like you.
You appear to have a thinned out hairline(completely normal) with small recession, you are like NW1.25 on your left temple.
If you continue taking finasteride as you are now, most likely you wont have to think about a transplant for the next 10 years, if you did nothing, In my personal opinion you would have no visible hair loss to other people for a good few years or even more.
Looking at your crown and the midscalp there seems to be absolutely zero indications of any sort of loss there.
It would help if you posted some photos of few years ago to see if you really are balding aggressively like you say you are.



This is a very good sign, maintaining what you have is almost a certainty and a good possibility of regrowth.

Most importantly
You are not avoiding the forums, which you should be.
Click to expand...
I dont have a lot of photos of myself, I never took photos ever. Norwood 1.25 is super generous though. See this black line? That's my Norwood 1 hairline I had as a kid. That whole area of bald alone puts me at a norwood 2 at the very least. The hair at that hairline left side is thinning (and I shedded more of it after 50 days of finasteride) and that side is at norwood 2.75. The right side (pic not included), is much better and if I get to that point on the left side I would be happy. Right side is like a norwood 2.25.
Averages out to 2.5.

EDIT: the reason why I don't think it is aggressive is that I had hairline recession for the last 5 years I've had those corners similar to the right temple but on both sides. I also waited a year to do something about it because I was afraid of finasteride and thankfully very little changed during that time. My dad is norwood 7 by 45. It took him 20 or so years to get there and my moms family has super good hair genes as everyone dies with all their hair.
 

Attachments

  • 20210512_095847.jpg
    20210512_095847.jpg
    76.3 KB · Views: 267
Last edited:
Catagen

Catagen

Experienced Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
315
You are largely overestimating your norwood my man, NW3 is when your temple recession goes back to the ears, you are nowhere close to that. Road from NW1 to NW2 is not that fast, especially to NW3. You would get a better picture if you took your shot from a distance using a hair band like you did in the pic where you are holding the phone with both hands, going up close can distort your picture and extreme distortion can make NW1s look like NW3. Also that is the distance people are usually seeing you.
 
Diffused_confidence

Diffused_confidence

Senior Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
647
Catagen said:
You are largely overestimating your norwood my man, NW3 is when your temple recession goes back to the ears, you are nowhere close to that. Road from NW1 to NW2 is not that fast, especially to NW3. You would get a better picture if you took your shot from a distance using a hair band like you did in the pic where you are holding the phone with both hands, going up close can distort your picture and extreme distortion can make NW1s look like NW3. Also that is the distance people are usually seeing you.
Click to expand...
Unrelated question... Are you actually Kevin Mann?
 
Diffused_confidence

Diffused_confidence

Senior Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
647
Catagen said:
No, probably should change the picture, just found it funny when he renamed his channel to haircafe and put this as his pfp, didnt know he was gonna come back so fast.
Click to expand...
I'm not. The reason why he left didn't seem reasonable. How is not posting videos on YouTube going to protect him from harassment? If anything, him leaving led to more harassment because making the video about his issue and making a long reddit post only drew more attention to it. Also, he built a following and could be getting some ad revenue from his YouTube views. Wouldn't you want to have some extra spare cash from that?
 
Catagen

Catagen

Experienced Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
315
Diffused_confidence said:
I'm not. The reason why he left didn't seem reasonable. How is not posting videos on YouTube going to protect him from harassment? If anything, him leaving led to more harassment because making the video about his issue and making a long reddit post only drew more attention to it. Also, he built a following and could be getting some ad revenue from his YouTube views. Wouldn't you want to have some extra spare cash from that?
Click to expand...
His viewership is very small, he makes change from his channel at best. The channel is his hobby, he has a life outside youtube.
 
Diffused_confidence

Diffused_confidence

Senior Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
647
I'm just about at the 2 month mark. Been shedding a lot in the last month and basically the thinning areas on my hairline are very thin now.

I still have a few months but if things continue like this I'm going to look into dutasteride.
 
J

jamesbooker1975

Senior Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
1,027
Diffused_confidence said:
Update after 3 weeks.

So far no serious side effects that I'm aware of. Some days I get a little paranoid but once I relax everything is OK. After 1 week at .25mg I upped the dose to .5mg and I'll probably stop there. My long term plan is to pray I get regrowth at the left temple (pic 3) and once I get that drop back down to .25mg and see if I maintain.

I think the worst part is this feeling of being a slave to medication. Some days I think I'm getting gyno, some days I wonder if I'm destroying myself, some days I wonder if I'll even respond to finasteride. But in the end I just have to remind myself that millions take this at 2x the dose and are fine.

I think I need more structure in my life. I have a job and everything but I have such a poor and lonely personal life. I think I will get therapy soon.
Click to expand...
There is not really difference between taking 0.25mg or take 1mg . You will lower almost the same amount of systemic DHT, so it will cause the same sides.
 
Catagen

Catagen

Experienced Member
My Regimen
Reaction score
315
jamesbooker1975 said:
There is not really difference between taking 0.25mg or take 1mg . You will lower almost the same amount of systemic DHT, so it will cause the same sides.
Click to expand...
And possibly not lower intrafollicular dht enough. Even scalp DHT is not a good indicator you need it at the level of the follicle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Community platform by XenForo® © 2010-2023 XenForo Ltd.
Top