Has dutasteride Stopped Itching for Anyone?

[VT27]

Ok, I write way too much out of desperation and the hope that somebody might be able to help. But the short version is here, read more below if you want. My hair is fucked, my scalp is so painful, and the rest of my body feels like crap too. dutasteride is the only thing I haven't tried yet. Has anyone with bad scalp itch due to hairloss had dutasteride help it? If so did you try finasteride first and did that make a difference? My scalp pain is obviously due to inflammation related to my hairloss. finasteride didn't help but maybe dutasteride will. If it's helped people with itching maybe it will help my problem.



Edited...

 

[balu123]

yep.
I tried finasteride for 9 months and had fuc**** itching + hairloss in the last 2 months

I've been taking dutas for 5 days, yet
aaaand the itching stopped yesterday!
a great sign!

I hope the hair loss will stop soon...
I'll post the results here!

 

[Follically Challenged]

Bump

 

[VT27]

Ok, well I started taking real avodary 0.5 mg/day one week ago. So far:

Ache in my chest like I did too many pushups. This happened when I last tried finasteride over 1 year ago too. I stopped the finasteride not because of that but because of another problem that freaked me out which I'm not even gonna mention because I now know its not due to finasteride...might be due to my hormones or whatever being f*cked up in general but its not finasteride. When I had this feeling on finasteride it didn't really worry me. There was no tenderness or anything and it seemed to go away after 7-10 days. On dutasteride I had it for about 3 days but it seems to be gone now.

Skin always looks better the first few days after finasteride and the same seems to be true of dutasteride. Its not just that it clears up a bit, something just looks different, color or something. Seems to go away after a few days. I'll have to see how it affects me over the long term.

Itchiness and scalp pain. Yesterday and the day before (day 5 and day 6) I seemed to feel less itchy all over than I have for quite awhile. Also less of that dirty, greasy feeling all over. Scalp felt almost normal...if I can still remember what that's supposed to feel like. Today and especially this evening that's not the case, ichyiness and pain are bothering me again.

I don't know if I'll be able to comment on sexual side effects because I've been almost totally disinterested for a long time now. Doctors say its because I'm depressed when not on antidepressants and they say its because of the antidepressants when I am on them. I don't 2know if that's true. I think my body is just majorly screwed up. Anyway dutasteride hasn't made anything worse at this point.

Regrowth and hairline. I've taken pre-dutasteride pics the day I started. I really want to be able to have identical pics to compare over time but its hard to take decent shots of yourself with a digital camera. Considering the idea of a DV cam and tripod so I can sit in front of it and turn around on the chair to get all the angles needed. That should enable me to pull stills from the footage that are as close to identical as possible. Both the camera and I will be level, always the same distance and zoom, same lighting and light placement, etc. Downside is I have to look at not only pics of my head but video. Oh and I'd have to buy a DV cam lol. So this may or may not happen but this is how it should be done.

I've been using 5% spironolactone and have some concern that it might be negatively affecting my hairline. Why I don't know. But I'm going to stick with it for now. My recession is pretty bad so dutasteride will either help it or I'm gonna be looking really terrible.

My loss is diffuse so I'll be able to talk about how dutasteride affects that. My hair is stiff, thin and seems to be a mix of hair darker than my previous med brown and others that are white or colorless. Plus there's the almost invisbile vellus hairs mixed in. I'll see if color and texture improve at all. The loss is greater on top and at the crown but I don't have a totally bald spot there. So I can't say anthing about effects in that case.

Also using 15% minoxidil 2x a day but will sometimes use 5% instead since I use the non-PPG kind and will go with that if i need it to dry fast. And Folligen but will probably switch to Tricomin after this bottle is up - too much green.

 

[MPBWarrior]

how can spironolactone be bad for male pattern baldness????

 

[Trash]

Well i took finasteride ---> (maybe minoxidil added up to the itch) scalp itched like crazy... sometimes it even was so bad that i itched my scalp till it bleeded.. no joke..

well then i switched to avodart and seriously the itching became ALOT better... dont know why but it certainly changed when i switched to avodart..

Well just my 2 cents

 

[VT27]

Well its Day 11 and my scalp f*cking HURTS!!! Hairline, crown and rear, and around the top at the edges of where my most diffuse loss is are the worst points. The usual feeling of a mild sun burn and itching and when I touch my hair it feels like stiff needles poking into my scalp.

My hair which used to be a bit wavy has become totally straight and dull since my hair problems started. I attributed the fact that my hair felt sharp and wiry in my scalp when I touched it to some problem with the hair forming properly. Thinking that whatever hairs did manage to grow during the pain and inflammation were not normal. Well dutasteride gave me about two days of somewhat normal feeling hair. That eliminates the idea of the texture of the hair itself contributing to the pain - it couldn't have gotten better and then worse again in that period of time.

Unless the feeling better was all due to hopefullness that dutasteride would work, something happened to make things better during those two days. But I don't know what. DHT drop and T rise that didn't give me the inflammation right away? Total worthless conjecture.

I'm trying to be positive about this because I know stress will just make it worse. But I can feel the pain along the hairline and running back at the edges in points...places where I'm gonna lose hair. And I can tell I've lost a bit from the front already. Yes, I can tell. My hair is about 1/8" long and very sparese so I can tell a difference in the front, especially when I'm paying attention because it hurts so much.

PLEASE guys tell me some more about what it was like for you starting dutasteride. Especially if you had pain or itching that dutasteride relieved.

I'm not even at 2 weeks yet so there's no way I can stop. I just pray pleeeeeeaaaassssse let this be the thing that helps. I've never grown back any of what I've lost so this has got to help me and please don't make me lose any more from the front!

Thought dutasteride had helped with my random all over itchiness too but its bugging me now. It does seem to have cleared up the oiliness of my skin, which was worse than when I was a teenager.

Another thing I noticed Thur, Fri, and Sat (Days 7-9) was that I had to urinate alot. No real frequently, but more then usual. And when I went it was alot. Seems to have subsided now though.

No typical dutasteride sides that I can tell.

I see my derm on Nov 8. I might even try to move the appt up a bit.

I'm really wondering about this whole high estrogen leads to high DHT which leads to hairloss idea. Somethings out of whack with me and its not T and I don't think its just DHT...

 

[abcdefg]

Same deal with me. Saw palmetto helped my itch but I got ed so I quit. I have been thinking about finasteride only to see if the itch goes away.

 

[bubka]

i had similar feelings and senses as you described pre propecia, every once in a while i will still get an itch, but not like before, and none of the pains like before when i was shedding pre propecia

goodluck man!

 

[VT27]

bubka: you had pain like I'm describing? how long on finasteride before it stopped?

finasteride never stopped it for me. Might have helped me maintain more overall but I think it hurt my hairline. I've got the same feeling in the front now, where hairs on the edges feel irritated, well not the hair itself. I don't know how to describe it. Makes me want to pull them out, but I won't!

I'm gonna keep rambling on about this, though I probably should move it to the story section. I don't think what's going on with me is at all typical but I would prefer to see more stories on here with details. I think that can be more useful than the pseudoscience that gets throw around here, said the scientist. I'll throw in my share of conjecture too, mainly to get it out of my head, but that's all it is until I have proof, just conjecture. What's going on with me won't necessarily happen to you, but if you recognize some of the things I'm writing in yourself speak up.

So... Not as much overall pain today as last night. But my hair still feels stiff and sharp when I run my fingers through it (what's left). Like I said above I'm getting the really annoying feeling of irritation around individual hairs in the front. It might be stupid but it makes me think of the way a bird's skin (like a chicken) looks after its feathers have been plucked, with all those bumps on it. I don't see that, but that's what it feels like. Like there should be a miniscle little bump that at these irritated folicles. Why I think it feels like that I don't know. I get the feeling if I pull these hairs out the feeling will go away - and it does. But I can't do that and that's the worst part, knowing it will stop if i just pull the offending hair out. Yeah I have done it in the past and no its not in my head and I don't have a compulsion to pull my hair out. The other bad part is when I try to tell myself its new hair coming in not existing hair getting worse.

Scalp hurt a bit less today overall, but chest was bothering me again. I think I can see a bit of an increase there but its hard to tell. I need to lose weight and I'd better get to it now that I'm on this stuff. No tenderness or any real pain or anything though. My nipples have been a bit puffy since I was about 20 or so. Don't know if that is a sign of high estrogen or that I'm sensitive to it or what.

I moved up my appointment with my derm to this Thur. I'm gonna ask for blood tests for total and free testosterone, DHT, estridiol and estrogen. I had testosterone and a bunch of other things done by other doctors before I started dutasteride. But I never had DHT, estridiol, or estrogen tested and I probably should have. I had enough trouble getting other things tested due to my low libido, every Doctor wanted someone else to order the tests.

I feel hot today too. Used to have that on finasteride but I don't know if it was finasteride or just how bad my body was getting hit with this crap at the time.

I've had dark circles under my eyes since this all started 5+ years ago. At first it was like I had two black eyes it was so bad. Skin looked sunken too. This could be partly due to gaining weight in the face. That seems to be getting a bit better. The color is better but I do have some lines there now. I moved up to 0.1% Retin-A (on my face not for my hair) so that could have helped, but the lower strength never made a difference.

 

[bubka]

hard to say when it went away, it may have been 2-3 months, maybe more, though it could have been sooner, a long time ago so i cant remember exactly, i was using nizoral too

i had a scalp biopsy and total T and free T done prior to propecia, both were below normal actually...

 

[VT27]

1 Month Update

Still unsure about this stuff.

Positives:

My scalp feels much better! Not totally normal but better than it has in years. When I touch my hair I can feel a few hairs that give me the sharp sensation, but most feels OK.

My skins is also so much better. For the most part no more oiliness and itching all over. Acne is pretty much gone. Skin just looks and feels much better.

Negatives:

Frontal loss??? Its so hard to gauge the cause of this. My hairline is badly receded and its definitely gotten worse lately. But I noticed this before dutasteride. I find it very strange that significant recession seemed to correspond with starting to use 5% spironolactone. When I do still have some scalp pain on dutasteride it is more often in the front. Which makes me want to use something to protect from any remaining DHT and the increased T but I don't know that spironolactone is a good choice for me. Why not? I don't know but don't bother trying to tell me that doesn't make sense. I need to pick something else that is a receptor blocker.

Chest ache, puffy nipples. Chest aches but not specifically painful. My nipples have sorta been puffy since late puberty. I didn't like it when I first noticed it back then but I'd sorta forgotten about it until reading all this scary sh*t about gyno. The right can be really sensitive and bothers me sometimes like when I'm working out - note this is pre-dutasteride. I can tell my body is still adjusting to this stuff. I don't think I've had a day when both my scalp and my chest hurt; its one or the other. So when its working to help my scalp its sometimes causing other problems. And when the other probem isn't there I'm back to the old problem of a sore scalp. I've been poking and prodding myself since this started and I don't feel any discomfort. It worries me but I don't know what to do because going off it doesn't just mean hairloss for me, its back to the pain, itchiness, oily skin, etc. I'm gonna talk to my doctor in a week or so. I had T, DHT, E tested about a week or so into dutasteride (should have done it prior) and they were all normal. Will probably have them done again.

Other notes:

OK, here's an anecdote to think about... Worried about the chest ache I got some flaxseed oil capsules and zinc. Was taking 2x 1000 mg flax capsules between 2 and 3 times a day and 1x 50 mg zinc 2 times a day. I can't say the chest pain went away since I only did this for a few days and there have been periods where it didn't bother me for that long. What did happen: skin got worse - started to get big nasty pimples forming where they typically do on my face, pores looked larger, skin was oily and itchy again; and my scalp hurt like it always did before. I wonder if this really was successful in blocking the formation of E from T? If so could these symptoms been the sign of increased T working on my scalp, etc in place of DHT? There was a BIG change in my face from dutasteride alone to dutasteride + flax + zinc and then again back to dutasteride alone. I'm obviously not taking the zinc and flax now.

Other note, I have also been getting really pissed off lately!!! But that could be just due to my irritation that I FINALLY found something that makes me feel mostly normal and its giving me this chest ache which really freaks me out.

I know this also doesn't make sense since dutasteride should stay in my system longer, but when skipping a day to try to reduce the chest ache side I can feel some scalp irritation on the off day. Not totally back to the normal pain, but noticable. Like I skipped last night because I was out (got my refill now) and my hair bothers me more today than is typical now. This has happened other times when I've purposefully skipped a dose.

As for sexual side effects. I don't even have the energy to write much about that now, maybe in another post. I barely have a sex drive these days, just not much interest and I don't thin dutasteride affected that one way or the other. I have gotten an ache in my testicles some days - had that on finasteride for awhile too. Or I should say testicle...only happens on one side which I think is a depressing indication that as I thought before only one is workin these days. Size decrese on the one side sometime over the past few years (when all this hair and other sh*t was going on) and I've had CAT scans and utrasounds which don't show anything to worry about plus my T is "normal" but I'm just not feeling much of anything anymore.

Anyway, more in a few days. I need to research what else I can use in the front besides spironolactone, though I don't know yet if I'm gonna totally give that up but I really think its hurting instead of helping. Otherwise using rogaine foam and tricomin. Have been using 2% ketoconazole (stuff in nizoral) cream on the front lately but I don't know how much that is going to help.

 

[powersam]

yeah dutasteride stopped my itching, but so did finasteride.