Cycling : good or bad?

[grote_smurf]

All :

As I wrote in my topic http://www.hairlosstalk.com/discussions ... php?t=5098, I've been working hard to keep my hair over the last 6 years, successfully up till now. Now, I seem to stop responding to my regimen (proscar/minoxidil/retin-a/spironolactone/nizoral).

A couple of posters recommended me to start "cycling", ie. once a year, stop using some products for a couple of weeks, so that your body doesn't develop tolerance.

Who can give me some advice on this?
Would this work for topicals (minoxidil/spironolactone) as well as for internals (proscar)??

thanks in advance

 

[Guest]

A couple of posters recommended me to start "cycling", ie. once a year, stop using some products for a couple of weeks, so that your body doesn't develop tolerance.

Who can give me some advice on this?
Would this work for topicals (minoxidil/spironolactone) as well as for internals (proscar)??

Some of the worst advice ive ever heard.

I tell you what it will do, in the case of anything that has been working for you, it will make your hair shed badly. Anything that works for you, your hair becomes dependent on to a certain extent, particularly minoxidil. I would not stop using any topical or propecia now for more than a couple of days maximium.

 

[Guest]

zimmy darling, your wrong!


go read 'how the human endocrine feedback system works' book 1

when you say ..."Some of the worst advice ive ever heard."... you cannot seriously follow it with..."I tell you what it will do"... without at least giving a vauge reason why you think this.

ty

 

[Redbone]

yes you are wrong. It states in literature that after you have used minoxidil and or Sprio for a said period of time that you can go several days to weeks without using it and maintain the same benefits. With spironolactone you can even cut down to 3x a week as opposed to the nominal 7x.

 

[Hairybush1]

im not sure how healthy it would be to cycle a drug like finasteride? Could it really be good to have your DHT go up and down like a yo yo?

 

[Guest]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm............okay spironolactone is a totally diffirent issue, because it doesent do much to start with. :laugh:

your hair becomes dependent on minoxidil. Even non male pattern baldness hair close to areas of the scalp where you apply minoxidil CAN become dependent on minoxidil. If you stop minoxidil for say a month you will shed. So whats the point of that? You might nt shed in that initial month but you will lose some ground even when you continue back with minoxidil. This is why minoxidil is like crack for hair. If you ever stop full stop with minoxidil your going to shed terrriblly. Ive seen photos of guys hair when they stop minoxidil.....teriblle, teriblle shedding.

You guys should ask Byran about this. All i know is I would not stop minoxidil for more than 5 or so days any longer than that then you are risking shedding. Its dose dependent!!!! It makes your hair dependent on it. This is why so many guys dont want to use minoxidil.

go read 'how the human endocrine feedback system works' book 1

Sounds like a fun read sweetiepie! minoxidil is not creatine or any other supplement like that that works best from cycleing. A few days off yes, not a few weeks. but go ahead and cycle to your hearts content, exercise is good for you anyhoo.

 

[Bryan]

Heh. I can't resist a few comments of my own on all this...

I dislike the terms "tolerance", "minoxidil dependent", and especially "shedding", because they all can have slightly different meanings, depending on the context.

As I've indicated a number of times on several hairloss sites, I personally don't know of any evidence that topical minoxidil eventually loses its effectiveness (i.e., you develop "tolerance"), although I suppose it remains a possibility until it's conclusively proven otherwise. My favorite way of describing the effect of minoxidil is that it provides an offset of extra growth, despite any continuation of the balding process itself that may be happening at the same time. If minoxidil _appears_ to ultimately lose its effectiveness (you have less hair after a few years), it's not because the minoxidil per se is no longer working, it's because the balding process has overtaken the extra growth that's being provided by the minoxidil. Without having used the minoxidil all those years, you'd be even WORSE than you are now.

So the bottom line is that I have no reason to think that anyone develops "tolerance" to topical minoxidil. Until proven otherwise, I think it continues to work as long as you use it. However, if anyone feels better about discontinuing its use for a relatively short period of time every once in a great while just IN CASE there's such a thing as "tolerance", by all means go ahead and do it! I personally wouldn't expect any benefit from doing that, but it probably won't hurt too much if you keep it to just a brief period of time.

Bryan

 

[grote_smurf]

thanks for input. I'll give it a try though, because I remember having had a period of very bad thinning before, a bit more than a year ago. It happened to be when I was on holiday and the beginning of the last week, I ran out of minoxidil (& spironolactone) + I didn't use nizoral at all for 3 weeks. When I came back from holiday I restarted everything at full force and my hair recovered very well after a couple of weeks.

It my have been coincidence (cycles of regrowth and thinning), but I'll give it a try.

I'll do 10 days without minoxidil, two weeks everything, then followed by two weeks without spironolactone and two weeks without nizoral.

I'll keep you posted on this thread.

 

[Guest]

See i knew Bryan would have something intelligent to say on this issue! If you really, really want to do the cycle thing then i wouldnt go ANY longer than a week without minoxidil and nooooooooooooooooooot very often. Maybe twice a year max. :rockon:

 

[Guest]

im not sure how healthy it would be to cycle a drug like finasteride? Could it really be good to have your DHT go up and down like a yo yo?

Dude, we agree on something!! :laugh:

 

[Hairybush1]

im not sure how healthy it would be to cycle a drug like finasteride? Could it really be good to have your DHT go up and down like a yo yo?

Dude, we agree on something!! :laugh:

Awww, damn....

:laugh: