Frontloading Dutas (2.5 frontload, then 0.5 mg daily) ?

[Bryan]

Gotcha. What other androgens are at play besides testosterone?

I wouldn't want to speculate about the role of other, weaker androgens than testosterone. I feel that just the testosterone alone is sufficient.

I know that plain old test is, but doesn't DHT have 30 times the affinity for the androgen receptor that test does? So when you're knocking 99% out, and even if all the remaining gets converted to test, it seems pretty meaningless.

I think that "30 times" figure is a bit of an exaggeration! I've seen other estimates that were considerably lower than that.

BTW, Rittmaster himself said in a review article on finasteride and BPH a few years ago that the significant increase of testosterone in the prostate when taking finasteride "blunts" the effect of the sharp decline in DHT. I have no reason to think that it wouldn't also have a similar "blunting" effect in hair follicles.

I hear your age-related decline theory and have thought about it, but if that's all it is, and it's not related to genetics and DHT, then why do some guys without male pattern baldness just get their mature Norwood-2 hairline and never go further than that?

My theory (and remember, that's all it is...just my little pet theory! ) would answer that by saying that virtually EVERYBODY would experience _some_ age-related decline in haircounts, but it may be quite subtle in some people; keep in mind the general rule-of-thumb that we have to lose about half of our hair density before thinning even becomes obvious. Furthermore, there are probably going to be the rare exceptions: individuals who will seem to advance into old-age with little or no apparent thinning at all....much like those individuals we hear about on the news who live to be 115 years old, despite the odds against reaching that age.

Damn, I'd give ANYTHING to see them do a study on normal, non-balding men where they measure their haircounts over a 5-year period (like in the long-term Propecia trial) with the same high-precision computer-assisted technology. We would FINALLY get some solid evidence about the presence (or absence) of this putative age-related haircount decline.

Basically, what I'm saying to you is this age-related thinning that we've discussed is actually male pattern baldness in most cases, although milder than the typical male pattern baldness that we see on here. That whole stat about how 40% of men in their forties show signs of male pattern baldness, 50% of men in their fifties, and 80% of men in their eighties, etc. Anything beyond the slight recession of the temples that creates the mature hairline is technically male pattern baldness, so it's not just age-related thinning.

No, it's not just age-related thinning, but (according to my theory) neither is it just male pattern baldness! :wink:

I should mention here that Kligman did a fascinating study a few years ago in which he very thoroughly and exhaustively compared and contrasted male pattern baldness with "senescent" thinning. And I'm talking about examining scalp biopsies of both under a microscope in great detail! He found a striking similarity between the two, which really makes you wonder if there really even IS a fundamental difference between the two phenomena...

Bryan

 

[Guest]

I think that "30 times" figure is a bit of an exaggeration! I've seen other estimates that were considerably lower than that.

BTW, Rittmaster himself said in a review article on finasteride and BPH a few years ago that the significant increase of testosterone in the prostate when taking finasteride "blunts" the effect of the sharp decline in DHT. I have no reason to think that it wouldn't also have a similar "blunting" effect in hair follicles.

Yes but did he say how much it blunts it? I don't think there's any doubt that it does but still, it could be a very small blunting effect.

 

[Bryan]

I don't think he gave any specific figures as to how much it was blunted, but he may have given some hints about it. I doubt that he would have mentioned it if it wasn't at least somewhat significant. I need to go back and read it again, since it was a long time ago.

Bryan

 

[Webster]

Yeah, the obvious question here is why would anyone WANT to do a loading dose at the start and rapidly achieve steady-state? One would think that caution would be the order of the day when starting any new drug regimen. If you take a loading dose and then immediately start experiencing side-effects, it's probably gonna be quite a while before those side-effects go away, even if you discontinue the drug immediately! :wink:

It would appear to be more prudent to start taking dutasteride in the recommended way (one capsule per day), and see how you do. If it doesn't agree with you, you can always stop taking it before the levels have built-up too much in your bloodstream.

Bryan

Exactly! I started taking 1mg Avodart a day for a week and wham I felt sick. Don't punish yourself or your body, just find out slow what you can handle.