**EXPERIENCED finasteride USERS PLEASE!!!**

[youngguy_uk]

hey guys, this post concerns how hair can react to finasteride towards the latter part of 1 year of treatment and beyond

i REALLY need some help from fairly experienced finasteride users. please!! i would really appreciate your help!!

REGIMEN: finasteride (almost 9months), nizoral about 2x a week, im 18, been losing hair diffusely (only very little bit of recession) for over a year but only really noticeably in the last year.

in the 9 months, ive seen hair thickness go down (at around month 3 mainly), back up again, and maintain for a bit. unfortunately, for the last month and a half or so, its been just going down. im really scared, as its getting quite bad, my scalp is pretty visible from above even when styling to try and get maximum coverage.

WHAT I REALLY WANT TO KNOW IS THIS.. is there any chance my hair could go back up again? from month 9 onwards, or anything? could this be a shed? i am seeing a bit more hair on my hands in the shower i guess.

please please share your experiences of how your hair reacted or didnt react to finasteride towards the latter part of 1 year. anyone see sheds or regrowth hear? or does anyone know of anyone who did? i really would like to know!! thank you and good luck.

 

[Deaner]

Diddy's experience was that his hair went to sh*t around month 13-14, and then it bounced back up around month 15.

 

[Petchsky]

I noticed that at month 8 i suffered a bad shed which made my hair look bad again for a few weeks.... but this all grew back and i have not had any sheds as bad as this since... im now at month 17.

 

[youngguy_uk]

thanks guys, good to hear, anyone else got anything?

deaner - i was looking in the my story section but cant find diddy..how do you mean his hair went to sh*t? just thinned out generally, or specifically his crown or what, and how long did the shitty period last?

mine has been about a month so far i think.

petchsky - how long did your shedding period last, and how long did it take to grow back? could you tell when it was growing back or did you just realise after a few months etc?

thanks for the input, always appreciated, just trying to establish where i might stand at the moment and this is always helpful.

 

[Petchsky]

Young Guy UK says

petchsky - how long did your shedding period last, and how long did it take to grow back? could you tell when it was growing back or did you just realise after a few months etc?

It lasted about 3 weeks, got me down big time - it seemed all i had to do was move my head and hair would fall out. I noticed about 5 weeks later and just thought safe! my hair is looking good again and noticed that the hair was growing back thicker than before.

Hope this helps, Petchsky

 

[Slartibartfast]

Hey Youngguy, I took finasteride for 20 months and for most of the 1st year my hair just steadily worsened, getting more diffuse at the front and a larger bald spot on the crown. But, and thank God there was a but, after a few months of stability my crown started to fill in quite dramatically and by month 18 it looked good, not as thick as pre-male pattern baldness but a big improvement nonetheless. Sadly my frontal hair was still losing density - albeit at a vastly reduced rate - so I stepped up to dutasteride at month 20.

I know you're a diffuse thinner but which area is worrying you the most, the front, crown, temples, etc.

Slarti

 

[youngguy_uk]

petchsky - thanks for the comments. well im a bit concerned because my shedding has been longer than 3 weeks, i think about 7 weeks or something. and i dont generally notice hairs just all falling off my head. i think i might be shedding based on the fact that looking in the mirror my hair, in particular my crown, has thinned in these 7 weeks at a quick rate in a way they have not done in the last 8 months. its like a "disappearing hair shed", if you know what i mean, scary.

slartibartfast - thanks, your post gives me some hope at least!! im wondering, when did you hair start to stabilise and what sort of month did you start to see the crown fill in at? and how long did it fill in for? also, did it become better than baseline? finally, having stepped up to dutasteride, would you recommend someone should be on dutasteride as opposed to finasteride?

im diffuse thinning all over really, but more at the crown which is my biggest worry, followed by all the top of the head. temples are a minor concern to me right now, theyve been pretty steady over treatment anyway.

 

[Slartibartfast]

From what I recall (this was way back in late '02, you know) everywhere bar the front had stabilized by about the 11 to 12 month mark and I can remember thinking at month 14 that the baldish patch on my crown was filling in - oh the joy!! These areas were still steadily improving by month 20 when I switched to dutasteride which, as I said before, was because of frontal thinning.

Now this is subjective but I reckon that by the time I started on dutasteride my crown was almost as good as when I'd started treatment which, considering only the front was noticeably thinning at the beginning, was a cosmetically acceptable level - certainly enough to make styling far easier.

As for dutasteride v. finasteride - if it hadn't been for my frontal loss (which seems to require more DHT inhibition than elsewhere) I'd probably still be on finasteride as it was working well for me in exactly the sort of areas that are worrying you. So stick with the finasteride because 9 months is still too early to judge it, especially if you're a slow responder like me, and hopefully within a few months the hairs you've recently shed will be growing back in.

If it's still all going downhill at the 1 year point ask me again about dutasteride.

Slarti

 

[douggie]

Well, I have a bit of gnus to report. I monster shedded from months 10-12, which was the last couple of months. It has seemed to stop and I am losing 1/4 the hair I was losing 2 weeks ago. To me I can notice a slight increase in thinning, but if you are not standing 2 inches from my scalp with a flashlight, you won't. I am a diffuse thinner as well.

I still believe this is related to seasonal shedding periods, but I could be wrong.

 

[youngguy_uk]

thanks.

is good to hear, as mostly i hear stories about people shedding lots and their hair "coming back to life" around months 6-9 or something. so changes really can happen positively post month 9?

im thinking/hoping, what propecia often does for some people is sheds a lot of hair and regrows a bit over quite a few months, and then regrows to about their baseline level, and maintains a bit with shed there on. i.e. it maintains/improves your hair a bit, but not without a rollercoaster ride first.