an answer to the question, can you get sides from topical finasteride if it does not go systemic?

[scientist_0005]

anecdotal reports have emerged recently of people using topical finasteride instead of oral in order to reduce their risk of sexual side effects. as is common in the field of hair loss resesrch, scientists seem to be rather incompentent to come to a fundamental consistent conclusion on this matter.

so the end result is, that some studies support the idea of topical finasteride inducing less sides, others do not. how can this be? is there any other industry where such contradictory results have been found and nobody even gives a sh*t to get to the bottom of it?

here are some of the studies

A randomized, double-blind controlled study of the efficacy and safety of topical solution of 0.25% finasteride admixed with 3% minoxidil vs. 3% minoxidil solution in the treatment of male androgenetic alopecia - PubMed

Treatment with topical solution of 0.25% finasteride admixed with 3% minoxidil was significantly superior to 3% minoxidil solution for promoting hair growth in male androgenetic alopecia, and well tolerated.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

this is truly fundamental-> only a 5% reduction in serum dht has occured at the same time clear improvements in hair count and quality have been found.
the dosage for this was 2.5%

DEFINE_ME

and this study suggets the exact opposite how can this even be the case? they made a topical solution that works as good but goes as systemic, congratulations, what a contribution.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09546639709160517

mazarella study: very low dose at 0.005% and no systemic impact.


the bottom line is this: with this kind of protocol you do not need to survey the patients whether they have sexual sides or not. you can just measure the dht and if it has not been impacted it is side free. now what i am wondering is why are those values so different?

why is there no common consensus? it makes no sense? like, its not even that the duration was too short because in the first and 3rd study it was 6 months, a time fram in which finasteride would have certainly accumulated in the body? so what is it? the vehicle? there must be some biological explanation for it

 

[jake_b]

It does go systemic over time because of the half life.

the main way you can theoretically have fewer sides is to use a much much lower dose in the topical since it is directly applied to the scalp. If an extremely low dose works for you, then you can avoid building up a high serum concentration. For some guys who get sides, that lower concentration is enough to avoid the sides.

It always goes systemic though. The key is potential efficacy at a much lower dose.

 

[scientist_0005]

It does go systemic over time because of the half life.

the main way you can theoretically have fewer sides is to use a much much lower dose in the topical since it is directly applied to the scalp. If an extremely low dose works for you, then you can avoid building up a high serum concentration. For some guys who get sides, that lower concentration is enough to avoid the sides.

It always goes systemic though. The key is potential efficacy at a much lower dose.

this sgould be evident. there is a big difference between reducing your serum dht by 70% vs 25%. the idea of topical finasteride is not to completely avoid systemic absorption but to reduce the systemic dht reduction to a minimum while having enough scalp dht reduction to arrest the process

 

[jan_miezda]

If application of any pharmaceutical molecule does not go systemic … you will not get any therapeutic effect . That’s a basic kinetic principle
I’m interested to know what the tx range of oral finasteride is . I think there is poor data on this because most people don’t monitor their serum finasteride levels

 

[scientist_0005]

You have to use very low dose to achieve this.

Like 1mg for 60ml of solution, even less

bullshit lol

 

[scientist_0005]

the demonizing of finasteride is truly hilarious. 1mg in 60ml with a 15% absorption rate, lol if you find any traces in your blod with that regimen, traces not dht reduction, you might as well apply crack on your head

 

[scientist_0005]

some people just love to rape the scientific method

 

[scientist_0005]

0.05mg of finasteride is almost as strong as 1mg in term of dht reduction. Thats the problem.

we talking 0.0025 here, undetectable

 

[scientist_0005]

A guy had sides on topical finasteride on this forum, on 0.05% solution

so? why would i give a sh*t? some guy in china just got fucked in the *** by his gf. thats just about as scientific

 

[scientist_0005]

so? why would i give a sh*t? some guy in china just got fucked in the *** by his gf. thats just about as scientific

and btw we are talking 1/10th of that dosage, 0.005 was used in the mozarella study

 

[Yagel]

1mg in 60ml would be 0,0016mg per ML. Around 10% goes systemic. So we are talking about 0,00016mg.
We already know, that 0,01mg do not decrease systemic Dht.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10495375/

 

[scientist_0005]

1mg in 60ml would be 0,0016mg per ML. Around 10% goes systemic. So we are talking about 0,00016mg.
We already know, that 0,01mg do not decrease systemic Dht.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10495375/

exactly. this is fear mongering on another level

 

[coolio]

I've surfed baldness forums for probably 15 years. Seen this topic getting hashed out countless times.

Playing with dosages won't give you a free lunch. If you find a dosage that cuts your side effects in half, then it's cutting your hair protection in half too. You might not notice the difference in 8 weeks but you will after 8 months.

Some people get more side effects than others. There's a lot of individual variation there. But whatever your own personal ratio of sides-to-hair is . . . . there's no getting around it.

 

[scientist_0005]

I've surfed baldness forums for probably 15 years. Seen this topic getting hashed out countless times.

Playing with dosages won't give you a free lunch. If you find a dosage that cuts your side effects in half, then it's cutting your hair protection in half too. You might not notice the difference in 8 weeks but you will after 8 months.

Some people get more side effects than others. There's a lot of individual variation there. But whatever your own personal ratio of sides-to-hair is . . . . there's no getting around it.

except the fact that topical finasteride has been shown to reduce scalp dht as much as orwl while having less serum dht reduftion. it goes systemic at thwt dose no question but the reality is on an individual level there is a difference between a 70% dht reduction and 30%, some may get away eith the latter and not the former. i dont see how this can be controversial.

 

[Johnson40]

I sometimes wonder why alternative administrations of traditional drugs and therapy are not tried by legit practician.
Clinics trying dutasteride mesotherapy, selling topical finasteride/dutasteride with such and such vehicles are pretty rare, at least in my country where probably 75% of dermatologists are completely ignorant about hair loss.

I mean it's bad enough that only two drugs were ever approved in most country since the 80s, but the fact that other type of administrations weren't much researched outside of hair loss forum is just cherry on the cake.

 

[Micky_007]

I've surfed baldness forums for probably 15 years. Seen this topic getting hashed out countless times.

Playing with dosages won't give you a free lunch. If you find a dosage that cuts your side effects in half, then it's cutting your hair protection in half too. You might not notice the difference in 8 weeks but you will after 8 months.

Some people get more side effects than others. There's a lot of individual variation there. But whatever your own personal ratio of sides-to-hair is . . . . there's no getting around it.

I agree with this. By trying to reduce Finasteride the side effects (hopefully) of Finasteride by reducing the dosage to a very small amount, the efficacy of Finasteride having any significant positive effect on hairloss is also greatly reduced.

We've seen many many many people take Oral Finasteride at lower doses and they have had almost no positive results from Finasteride.

Same with taking Topical of a much lower dose; Just because you hypothetically may not get sides or not get as many sides, doesn't make it a positive when it's barely having any significant positive impact on hairloss.

 

[scientist_0005]

I agree with this. By trying to reduce Finasteride the side effects (hopefully) of Finasteride by reducing the dosage to a very small amount, the efficacy of Finasteride having any significant positive effect on hairloss is also greatly reduced.

We've seen many many many people take Oral Finasteride at lower doses and they have had almost no positive results from Finasteride.

Same with taking Topical of a much lower dose; Just because you hypothetically may not get sides or not get as many sides, doesn't make it a positive when it's barely having any significant positive impact on hairloss.

conveniently ignoring the fact that you can still reduce scalp dht and that therapeutic effects have been shown by mozwrella. but i get it, people here are so opposed to finasteride its not even worth debating anything related to it. whatever

 

[Johnson40]

I agree with this. By trying to reduce Finasteride the side effects (hopefully) of Finasteride by reducing the dosage to a very small amount, the efficacy of Finasteride having any significant positive effect on hairloss is also greatly reduced.

We've seen many many many people take Oral Finasteride at lower doses and they have had almost no positive results from Finasteride.

Same with taking Topical of a much lower dose; Just because you hypothetically may not get sides or not get as many sides, doesn't make it a positive when it's barely having any significant positive impact on hairloss.

Topicals and orals are not the same thing at all.
If what you were saying made any sense, no topical medications would make any sense.

 

[scientist_0005]

I agree with this. By trying to reduce Finasteride the side effects (hopefully) of Finasteride by reducing the dosage to a very small amount, the efficacy of Finasteride having any significant positive effect on hairloss is also greatly reduced.

We've seen many many many people take Oral Finasteride at lower doses and they have had almost no positive results from Finasteride.

Same with taking Topical of a much lower dose; Just because you hypothetically may not get sides or not get as many sides, doesn't make it a positive when it's barely having any significant positive impact on hairloss.

also kind of sad and ridiculous how you only see wgat you want to, strong confirmation bias going on

 

[coolio]

Suit yourselves, guys. Whatever floats your boat.

But you can find these same conversations, practically highlight-n-copy, on baldness forums from 10 and 20 years ago. Those guys weren't any stupider than the current crop. They just got tired of fighting a losing battle and moved on with their lives after a while.

It's pretty depressing to see this stuff cycling every several years. There is periodically a new crop of young baldies who think they are the first ones again. It's always the same stuff getting rehashed. "The better treatment is only ___ years away." "Finasteride had very little side effect problem until net forums exaggerated everything." "We're trying harder than people ever did in the past to come up with solutions." "This new transplant Doctor can finally fix us all." Etc.