I know shedding is expected, but how much hair or how far into excessive shedding would you start to think that your body is just not responding well to the drug at all? Are there symptoms? The only common traits i've noted in posts where people said their hairloss accelerated on finasteride was a persistent burning/itching sensation in their scalp and shedding hundreds of hairs most days. If you were months into finasteride, were shedding alot of hair and noticed that you had less coverage than when you began would that be cause for alarm?
At What Point On finasteride Should You Worry About Hyperandrogenicity?
- Thread starter JJ2017
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I experienced accelerated hairloss on finasteride and I never experienced any of the 'reflex' symptoms. I never experienced a shed until a massive one that never grew back all over my head at nine months. I noticed a shed hair in the sink a few months on the drug and it was very thick at one end and thinner at the other. I thought this was a sign that finasteride was working until I picked it up and noticed that the root end was thinner. This was not the case before finasteride. I would examine some shed hairs to see if this is going on.
A lot of people report shedding in the first few months of finasteride and then it all grows back.
It's too early to be concerned.
A lot of people report shedding in the first few months of finasteride and then it all grows back.
It's too early to be concerned.
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I would say yes..I had the same problems on finasteride, along with hair loss on my lower legs along with itchy,dry skin.i would get on dutasteride. Take every day for a week then cut down to every other day..it's working for me.
How long you been on dutasteride? Is it working for you?
Did you drop finasteride? Whats your regimen now, and are you continuing to lose hair?
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Yea it's working for me. Was on finasteride for a year before switching..glad I did. A lot less shedding and fewer irritating sides.
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I tried to get of finasteride eight months ago. I tapered down from .5 mg to .25 mg and after 7 days on .25 mg I lost years worth of hair overnight and all of my hair significantly miniaturized within days. Chunks of hair just vanished from the nape area. It was absolute destruction. If it didn't happen to me I wouldn't believe it. For people that experience accelerated hairloss on finasteride can be completely screwed by this drug. It seems logical that a hairloss drug that speeds up hairloss should be discontinued, right? Not necessarily so with finasteride because it can super sensitize hair follicles to DHT so when someone quits the drug hairloss goes into overdrive. The hairloss/miniaturization that I experienced in days is way beyond anything I could have ever imagined. .25 mg is supposed to still inhibit a significant amount of DHT, so even the tiniest amount of DHT was able to cause this, which obviously proves that finasteride can change the way one's hair follicles respond to DHT.
Are you certain your male pattern baldness wasn't just too aggressive, so tappering off actually increased DHT levels therefore increasing hair loss. I also am continuing to lose hair on finasteride and have had most of my hair loss while on the drug, but right before I got on I was starting to lose hair super fast. I still looked like I had a full head of hair at the time, but I had miniaturized hairs appearing all over especially on my hairline. 4 months into finasteride those miniaturized hairs all fell out and never grew back. I have continued to lose hair but it seems to have slowed down slightly. I still don't have a bald spot on my crown so it may be doing something. Was a NW2 with great density when starting. Am a NW3 with pretty bad diffuse thinning now 3 years later.
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1) if you have increased itching, burning, crawling, etc... on finasteride, then it's not f*****g working. basic logic. NO drug that's supposed to STOP hair loss should inflame the scalp.
2) if after 6-9 months your hair is noticeably thinner, then it's not working. "shedding phase" my ***.
I watched my crown / midscalp get almost completely obliterated throughout my 12 months on finasteride. it's over a year after quitting the garbage and none of it has grown back. FINALLY, after about a year, the crawling / tingling, pulsing heart beat in my scalp is slowing, but who the hell knows.
People need to REALLY REALLY consider that the "studies" on Propecia may not be as accurate as we assume. The drug is complete f*****g garbage for A LOT of people. just read through all the threads.
2) if after 6-9 months your hair is noticeably thinner, then it's not working. "shedding phase" my ***.
I watched my crown / midscalp get almost completely obliterated throughout my 12 months on finasteride. it's over a year after quitting the garbage and none of it has grown back. FINALLY, after about a year, the crawling / tingling, pulsing heart beat in my scalp is slowing, but who the hell knows.
People need to REALLY REALLY consider that the "studies" on Propecia may not be as accurate as we assume. The drug is complete f*****g garbage for A LOT of people. just read through all the threads.
The studies will never list increased hair loss as a side effect of finasteride. Pharmaceutical companies will just claim "hair loss took it's natural course". This explanation is generally accepted as people who enroll in these studies are already balding anyway. However, there are also people like me who never had any hair loss to begin with but rapidly lost hair on finasteride. In order to determine the percentage of population affected by hyperandrogenicity, they should study non-balding men who take finasteride for other reasons.
Another classic symptom of hyperandrogenicity is extreme increase in scalp oiliness and increased acne.
I think it is safe to say that there are two types of finasteride responders:
Type 1- Hair loss will either slow down or stay the same. No change in the sensitivity or number of androgen receptors.
Type 2 - Hair loss will accelerate greatly. Androgen receptors will become more sensitive and their numbers may also potential go up. There will
probably be increase in scalp oiliness, itching and inflammation. Previously non-balding people may start to go bald.
finasteride is great for people with Type 1 response. However, if you happen to have the type 2 response there is really no option left apart from mix.
Type 1- Hair loss will either slow down or stay the same. No change in the sensitivity or number of androgen receptors.
Type 2 - Hair loss will accelerate greatly. Androgen receptors will become more sensitive and their numbers may also potential go up. There will
probably be increase in scalp oiliness, itching and inflammation. Previously non-balding people may start to go bald.
finasteride is great for people with Type 1 response. However, if you happen to have the type 2 response there is really no option left apart from mix.
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My hairloss only became aggressive after taking finasteride. finasteride fried my hair, period. I had been slowly thinning and receding in the frontal third for a couple of years before starting finasteride. My crown and mid scalp had great density still. I had an above average head of hair with thick hair strands and an insanely thick donor area. Nine months on finasteride completely transformed my hair for the worse. I lost a ton of density and started balding in the areas that were fine, including on the sides and in the donor area. I was shedding these shredded looking white hairs that were almost invisible. Never shed hair that looked like that nefore finasteride.
It really pisses me off that going on twenty years with this drug that people deny that it can accelerate hairloss. And that useless a**h** Dr. Rassman? I spent hours looking at old posts from people trying to figure out why their hair got way worse on finasteride. He never once admitted the possibility. Just bizarre. He posts regularly on tressless (a forum no one should visit) still denying this. It's not like it's hard to understand. The mechanism is clearly understood. (AR upregulation is probbably just one of several ways finasteride can accelerate hairloss. Buckthorn, for example, had chronic Telogen Effluvium but his hair strands remained thick. My adverse reaction was different)
I think accelerated hairloss from finasteride happens quite a bit. Who knows what the percentage is, but it is definitely high enough to acknowledge as a side effect.
finasteride for me was nothing but a baldness pill. No studies ever showed anyone worse off for taking it, which clearly is not the case. Propecia would have been DOA if they had said "Yeah, and, uh, one last thing, this awesome new hairloss drug, uh, speeds up hairloss in some men, but we don't know who will have that reaction". Never would have made it to market.
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Sadly, I may be in the same boat as you. My hair loss wasn't too bad when I started. Hairline was receding and I was starting to shed hair pretty fast, but my overall density was insane. I have lost an insane amount of density since starting finasteride and my hairline is completely fucked now. Also losing hair in the donor areas, which I had insanely thick hair there before. What happens if you go off finasteride after reflex symptoms? Do you lose even more hair because your follicles are now more sensistive to DHT? It sucks cause I have no way of knowing if I had that or if my hair loss is just too aggressive. I did experience awful itchy red bumps on my scalp 3 months into treatment, but I assumed it was minoxidil related. Those have subsided now after 3 years on finasteride, but still losing hair. Also never had any of the side effects people talk about, and my libido actually temporarily increased while on finasteride. Probably should have known something was up.
I visited Dr. Rassman once. He denied that finasteride can possibly trigger my hair loss. Yeah right. For the first 26.5 years of my life I never experienced hair loss. I had insanely thick NW1 dry and healthy hair. Within a week of starting finasteride, I started to lose over 500 hair a day, my hair suddenly turned extremely oily and scalp pimple formed. My hairline went from dense NW1 to NW2 in matter of 3 months. As soon as I stop finasteride, the shedding sopped and hair loss slowed down considerably. And he still claimed finasteride can't possibly cause it. It's as if he wasn't even listening to what I was saying.
I quit finasteride after I suffered hyperandrogenicity. My hair loss slowed down considerably once I quit. However, I only took it for 3-4 months. You have taken it for far longer than I so I am not sure how your body will react to it.
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Yeah. I really hate that guy.
I get the impression that the owner of this forum denies it too based on my brief interaction with him.
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Well, let me show you just a bit of what happened to me after one week going from .5 mg to .25 mg. I hate posting this photo because I have to relive the trauma. This happened overnight all over my head....whoops. The order is wrong. Don't want anyone to think I grew a bunch of hair overnight!
Well sh*t...so I should just stick with it at this point? I was thinking of upping to dutasteride, but seems pretty risky. Also could just result in a massive shed.
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What's your dose? I was on 1.25 mg for 15 months or so and tapered down to .5 mg and didn't notice anything really, seems like things got slightly better but I'm not really sure. I was on .5 mg for six months before this disaster happened.
I would say that I represent a pretty extreme example of increased sensitivity to DHT from finasteride but even I was doing ok on .5 mg.
I would say that I represent a pretty extreme example of increased sensitivity to DHT from finasteride but even I was doing ok on .5 mg.