How To Counter Up-regulation When Taking finasteride/dutasteride?

[Wisemiller]

So back two years ago when I began taking finasteride, it seems the hair fall stopped immediately, for a few weeks, then the shedding ramped back up again to its normal rate and continued, leaving me visibly worse off 2 years later. I thought at the time it was a coincidence, and that probably finasteride never worked.

Then about a month ago, i began on dutasteride, which again, seemed to stop hair fall immediately, like I was losing less than 10 hair in the shower (and I only shower every 2 days). But sure enough, a few weeks and I'm right back to my regular hair fall.

I been seeing lots of posts on reddit of guys who started, then got a "shed that never ended". What if it only works during the initial period before your body has a chance to upregulate? Is there methods available to counteract it?

 

[Ollie]

AR regulation if actually happening is marginal at best . They’ve done studies on rats via castration that has demonstrated this.

As for the immediate halting of shedding some people claim, that may just be pure coincidence. Hairs that are currently shedding and falling from the scalp have been in telogen for 1-3 months and haven’t grown in that period but instead wait to be pushed out by new anagen hairs (generally speaking) . I would argue that a stopping of shedding immediately is impossible (<2-3 months) . Most people, myself included experienced a heavy 3 month shed before stabilising to a more ‘normal’ shedding amount.

It could just be that you’re a non responder.