best Topical finasteride ?

[HARM1]

Hi, whats the best topical finasteride, and do you think it's effective ?

 

[CCS]

from the graphs i looked at, which did not have very good detail for one day, it looked like finasteride takes about 1-3 hours to fully complex with 5ar2. That means for best results, you need your topical to deliver it for at least 2 hours.

The type of topical you use depends on your motive. If your using topicals to avoid internal side effects, then you don't want to leave the topical on your head more than 3 hours and don't want to use too much.

For slower absorption, you can use PPG or oleic acid or some oils, instead of ethanol/water. You can add the oleic acid to your minoxidil. Also, octyl salicate will increase absorption of finasteride by 10x. Old Baldy posted a link for where to buy it. Do a search.

While these suggestions may help, I don't know the actual absorption rates since I don't have any studies. When you use this, you could get too much and get side effects, or you could get not enough and find out that you lose your hair 6 months from now.

Men who don't get side effects but are just irrationally afraid of finasteride will have no way to know how much they are getting. But men who get side effects and just don't want them can use their side effects to know if they are getting finasteride in their body. If they are getting the effects, they are probably getting a therapudic dose for their hair as well, and a higher one at the site. They just need to tinker a bit and make sure somehow that they are getting a continuous dose for at least 2 hours and not more than 4, and that a slightly lower dose does give side effects.

There have been studies that show finasteride only has systemic effects, but the vehicle is very critical. If it dumps the finasteride in all at once, or for two long, then of course the same effects will be seen everywhere. I'd like to hear more details of the study before I would take it as law.

There is a good chance that we will not find the right topical method. I encourage people to use green tea extract instead, which only has a local effect, and appears to be very effective.

 

[CCS]

i just pasted this and some more onto my site.

 

[josephmhl]

Hey there CCS,
Im pretty detetmined to find out whether topical finasteride can be effective as i can't use oral finasteride.

1. "there is no reason for it to not leak out into the blood."

Thats true, and for this reason i think that it is best to dump all the finasteride into the follicles at once. The only thing that can stop the finasteride from leaking out (or rather slow it down) is a concentration gradient. When you take finasteride orally there is always a higher concentration of finasteride in your blood plasma than in cells, and this is why finasteride is "injected" into the follicles where the concentration is always lower. If you apply finasteride topically using an agent that delivers it slowly then most of it will slowly leak out of the follicle. If you dump all of it in at once,surely some of it will leak out quickly at the beginning, but when concentration differences will start to even out you'll have a decent dose in there with minimal possible leakage. This in my opinion is the way to make sure as much finasteride stays for the longest possible period of time in the follicles when applied topically. I must say though that either way there will be systematic absorption (probably more if apllied slowly). Any person who is prone to side effects will probably experience those even with topical finasteride, maybe to a lesser degree though.


2. Now i believe theres another issue here in choosing the agent. finasteride is an organic substance and as far as i can tell is miscible in PPG. Now with so many PPG molecules and so little finasteride, PPG molecules are bound to make it very hard for the finasteride that doesnt leak out to reach any 5AR, as PPG molecules will be wrapped around the finasteride, strongly connected with hydrogen bonds. On the other hand finasteride isn't miscible in water, so there should be minimal interference there.

So basically what im saying is that using water is the best way to go here.

It has been a while since i last opened a chemistry book but the Finasteride molecule looks to have two Nitrogen atoms in it with two covalent bonds in each, where in order to be stable they need three. Doesnt that mean that finasteride could react with one of the (OH) groups in PPG?

 

[Bryan]

1. "there is no reason for it to not leak out into the blood."

Thats true, and for this reason i think that it is best to dump all the finasteride into the follicles at once. The only thing that can stop the finasteride from leaking out (or rather slow it down) is a concentration gradient. When you take finasteride orally there is always a higher concentration of finasteride in your blood plasma than in cells, and this is why finasteride is "injected" into the follicles where the concentration is always lower.

I don't like the word "injected" in this context. Finasteride simply diffuses in and out of cells.

If you apply finasteride topically using an agent that delivers it slowly then most of it will slowly leak out of the follicle. If you dump all of it in at once,surely some of it will leak out quickly at the beginning, but when concentration differences will start to even out you'll have a decent dose in there with minimal possible leakage. This in my opinion is the way to make sure as much finasteride stays for the longest possible period of time in the follicles when applied topically.

I don't see any logic to that. I think the only way to find out if it's better to apply finasteride to the hair follicle slowly or rapidly is by experimentation.

I must say though that either way there will be systematic absorption (probably more if apllied slowly).

I don't know that there would be more if applied slowly. I don't think it's obvious, either way. It would be something to be carefully tested.

2. Now i believe theres another issue here in choosing the agent. finasteride is an organic substance and as far as i can tell is miscible in PPG. Now with so many PPG molecules and so little finasteride, PPG molecules are bound to make it very hard for the finasteride that doesnt leak out to reach any 5AR, as PPG molecules will be wrapped around the finasteride, strongly connected with hydrogen bonds. On the other hand finasteride isn't miscible in water, so there should be minimal interference there.

I know of at least one study claiming to be successful in which topical finasteride was applied in a standard vehicle of alcohol, PPG, and water.

So basically what im saying is that using water is the best way to go here.

What do you think will happen if you apply a suspension of finasteride in water to your scalp? The water will dry-out after a while, leaving powdered finasteride sitting on your scalp. Do you think THAT would be particularly effective? I suspect only a tiny tiny percentage of it will actually be absorbed.

Bryan

 

[Guest]

Well what about just dropping a tablet or two into a 60mL minoxidil and mix it up? Just for a little extra boost.

 

[josephmhl]

I don't see any logic to that. I think the only way to find out if it's better to apply finasteride to the hair follicle slowly or rapidly is by experimentation.

I agree that experimentation is necessary here, didn't say that it wasn't.

Since the bigger concentration difference will be the one of the water, and since finasteride is not miscible in water, the water diffusion is likely to occur first and delay the finasteride diffusion giving it more time to react with 5AR which is your no.1 goal here.

What do you think will happen if you apply a suspension of finasteride in water to your scalp? The water will dry-out after a while, leaving powdered finasteride sitting on your scalp. Do you think THAT would be particularly effective? I suspect only a tiny tiny percentage of it will actually be absorbed.

not if you apply it when the skin porousness are wide open as they are after you wash your hair for example (because of the hot water/steam).

Well what about just dropping a tablet or two into a 60mL minoxidil and mix it up? Just for a little extra boost.

As i stated before the lack of a third bond in the nitrogen atoms in finasteride makes it prone to chemical reactions. All the ingredients in the minoxidil solution will have to be checked to see if they don't cause and undesirable reaction.


oh and Bryan would you please post a link of any information about that study you were referring to.

 

[Bryan]

oh and Bryan would you please post a link of any information about that study you were referring to.

I just now posted something about it over in the "Experimental" forum!

Bryan

 

[Bryan]

I don't see any logic to that. I think the only way to find out if it's better to apply finasteride to the hair follicle slowly or rapidly is by experimentation.

Since the bigger concentration difference will be the one of the water, and since finasteride is not miscible in water, the water diffusion is likely to occur first and delay the finasteride diffusion giving it more time to react with 5AR which is your no.1 goal here.

I don't understand what you're saying. Since finasteride isn't soluble in water, what makes you think that water is going to carry the finasteride into hair follicle cells in the first place??

Bryan

 

[josephmhl]

if you apply it when scalp pores are open you shouldnt have a porblem

 

[Dave001]

Hey there CCS,
Im pretty detetmined to find out whether topical finasteride can be effective as i can't use oral finasteride.

1. "there is no reason for it to not leak out into the blood."

Thats true, and for this reason i think that it is best to dump all the finasteride into the follicles at once. The only thing that can stop the finasteride from leaking out (or rather slow it down) is a concentration gradient. When you take finasteride orally there is always a higher concentration of finasteride in your blood plasma than in cells, and this is why finasteride is "injected" into the follicles where the concentration is always lower. If you apply finasteride topically using an agent that delivers it slowly then most of it will slowly leak out of the follicle. If you dump all of it in at once,surely some of it will leak out quickly at the beginning, but when concentration differences will start to even out you'll have a decent dose in there with minimal possible leakage. This in my opinion is the way to make sure as much finasteride stays for the longest possible period of time in the follicles when applied topically. I must say though that either way there will be systematic absorption (probably more if apllied slowly). Any person who is prone to side effects will probably experience those even with topical finasteride, maybe to a lesser degree though.

This is utter nonense.