I Feel Like I'm Losing Grounds On 1.5 Mg Dutasteride Daily

[Michael1986]

Add topical antiandrogen ( CB preferably, or RU ).

1.5mm is just slightly more powerful than 0.5mm/day ( ~ 5% lower DHT ).

Dutasteride works much better than finasteride, especially when you take aggregation of marginal gains into account. 20% more hair is a lot to me.

I haven't seen the case when finasteride would work better.

0.5mg and 1.5mg of dutasteride remove essentially the exact same amount of the DHT from 5ar type 2, which is virtually 100% of this DHT. It is this DHT that is primarily involved in hair loss. The only difference between these two dutasteride doses is that 1.5mg removes significantly more of the DHT from 5ar type 1. This DHT is believed to play little to no role in hair loss. I don't personally believe there is any difference between these two dutasteride doses in effectiveness. The difference would be negligible at most.

But you're right that dutasteride is definitely more effective than finasteride. This is why I headed straight for dutasteride when I started treating my hair loss. I didn't want to hang about with finasteride when dutasteride has been proven to grow more hair. I've been using dutasteride for over five years now, and I've had excellent results.

 

[SaitamaSensei]

Alright I'll drop it down to 1mg and see where it goes from there. Will try it for at least 6 months.

 

[wemustchange]

0.5mg and 1.5mg of dutasteride remove essentially the exact same amount of the DHT from 5ar type 2, which is virtually 100% of this DHT. It is this DHT that is primarily involved in hair loss. The only difference between these two dutasteride doses is that 1.5mg removes significantly more of the DHT from 5ar type 1. This DHT is believed to play little to no role in hair loss. I don't personally believe there is any difference between these two dutasteride doses in effectiveness. The difference would be negligible at most.

But you're right that dutasteride is definitely more effective than finasteride. This is why I headed straight for dutasteride when I started treating my hair loss. I didn't want to hang about with finasteride when dutasteride has been proven to grow more hair. I've been using dutasteride for over five years now, and I've had excellent results.

Hair count on dutasteride improves as dosage increases. Did you read the studies? Men are taking higher dosages of dutasteride for other issue. 2.5mg dutasteride = good for me.

 

[Father_of_Shiseido]

3 years back when I realized that dutasteride 0.5 mg was failing miserably, I upped my dose to 2.5 mg. Increasing my dose to 2.5 mg significantly improved my hair condition. However, after 1.5 years, 2.5 mg also began to fail. That is when I started taking spironolactone. My question is if I scale down my dutasteride dose from 2.5 mg to 0.5 mg, will it hurt my hair?

 

[Michael1986]

Hair count on dutasteride improves as dosage increases. Did you read the studies? Men are taking higher dosages of dutasteride for other issue. 2.5mg dutasteride = good for me.

In the study that was done, hair counts just peaked sooner and then levelled off sooner at 2.5mg than at 0.5mg, because 2.5mg built up in the system much more quickly. The 0.5mg dose started catching up after the first three months, and had almost completely caught up after six months. Had the study gone on longer than six months, it can be assumed that the gap would have closed even further until there was virtually no difference in hair counts.

 

[SaitamaSensei]

This study is convincing. I just want to play it safe and not drop it too quickly from 1.5 to 0.5. Do you have any links to the study itself?

In the study that was done, hair counts just peaked sooner and then levelled off sooner at 2.5mg than at 0.5mg, because 2.5mg built up in the system much more quickly. The 0.5mg dose started catching up after the first three months, and had almost completely caught up after six months. Had the study gone on longer than six months, it can be assumed that the gap would have closed even further until there was virtually no difference in hair counts.

 

[SaitamaSensei]

Irrelevant question to the topic but how y'all think the sugar consumption has an effect on hairloss? At least temporarily increased shedding when consuming more sugar than the body is used to.

 

[Michael1986]

This study is convincing. I just want to play it safe and not drop it too quickly from 1.5 to 0.5. Do you have any links to the study itself?

Yes here's a full-text link to the study: https://baumanmedical.typepad.com/articles/JACD_dutasteride_vs_finasteride_MPHL.pdf
As you can see in the report, after three months, the mean hair counts relative to baseline were 71.3 for 0.5mg dutasteride, and 99.9 for 2.5 dutasteride. After six months, the mean hair counts relative to baseline were 94.6 for 0.5mg, and 109.6 for 2.5mg. Therefore, 0.5mg grew much more hair than 2.5mg did between months three to six (23.3 for 0.5mg, versus only 9.7 for 2.5mg). Based upon this, it can be assumed that if the study had gone on longer than six months, hair counts from the 0.5mg dose would have continued to catch up even more until there would most likely be virtually no difference in hair counts between these two doses.

Irrelevant question to the topic but how y'all think the sugar consumption has an effect on hairloss? At least temporarily increased shedding when consuming more sugar than the body is used to.

I don't think sugar consumption has much of an effect at all on hair loss. Male pattern baldness is almost entirely genetic. The effect of diet is minimal in my opinion.

 

[Father_of_Shiseido]

@itchymadscalp did the same mistake. He reduced his duta doses from 2.5 mg to 0.5 mg. He lost all his hair.

 

[Michael1986]

@itchymadscalp did the same mistake. He reduced his duta doses from 2.5 mg to 0.5 mg. He lost all his hair.

That seems a little strange, as there shouldn't be much of a difference in effectiveness between 0.5mg and 2.5mg of dutasteride. I wonder if the guy's results might have started declining anyway even if he'd stayed on the higher dose, as dutasteride doesn't work indefinitely for some people. And it also isn't clear how quickly his results started declining after the point in time that he switched to the lower dose, and if some of what he noticed could have possibly been psychological. In theory, there shouldn't be much of a difference in effectiveness between 0.5mg of dutasteride and any dose higher than 0.5mg.

 

[NorwoodingMyWay]

The only reason 2,5 mg dutasteride grows "more" hair than 0,5 mg is because Dutasteride possess an extremely long half life, leading to a steady state of 6 times its half life (which will be acheived in 5~6 months on 0,5 mg everyday). Therefore, 2,5 mg acheives this steady state far quicker than 0,5 mg, thus Dutasteride starts working alot sooner. It's why some people try a loading dose to get to steady state quicker than waiting full 5 or 6 months. Be careful tho, 0,5 mg inhibits 55% of 5alphaR type 1, which exists in considerable amounts in the brain. 2,5mg inhibits 88% of type 1. I honestly think that what you acheived with 2,5mg, was going to be acheived by 0,5 mg albeit taking longer. Self dosing on prescription medicine is really a bad idea. Glaxo prescribed Dutasteride at 0,5 mg for BPH, so technically the "hair loss" version of it was going to be smaller dose, not more (just like finasteride). If you never tried Dutasteride, please start with the standart prescribed dose, or even better, start with 2 pills a week and monitor yourself. These drugs are no candy.

 

[SaitamaSensei]

I dont understand how dutasteride can not work. It should at least maintain your hair even if you go under heavy shedding.

That seems a little strange, as there shouldn't be much of a difference in effectiveness between 0.5mg and 2.5mg of dutasteride. I wonder if the guy's results might have started declining anyway even if he'd stayed on the higher dose, as dutasteride doesn't work indefinitely for some people. And it also isn't clear how quickly his results started declining after the point in time that he switched to the lower dose, and if some of what he noticed could have possibly been psychological. In theory, there shouldn't be much of a difference in effectiveness between 0.5mg of dutasteride and any dose higher than 0.5mg.

 

[Inigo1202]

Fibrosis theory explains why you could and still lose hair even on an AA like fina or duta.

Reduce scalp tension and fibrosis.

That's right. For anyone interested, here's an article talking about that which explains it all: https://perfecthairhealth.com/the-ultimate-hair-loss-flowchart-why-we-lose-our-hair/

 

[NorwoodingMyWay]

That's right. For anyone interested, here's an article talking about that which explains it all: https://perfecthairhealth.com/the-ultimate-hair-loss-flowchart-why-we-lose-our-hair/

Very intresting. I was intrigued by the article and it all makes sense. I even tried pinching my scalp skin for the fun of it while comparing it to my younger brother who is showing NW3 signs, my scalp is really hard, feels like a rock. If only there was a drug targetting scalp calcification and fibrosis excess, combining it with a 5AR inhibitor, a little of minoxidile to give the dying follicles a boost, and voila, hairloss could be reversed by a big percentage.

 

[Inigo1202]

Very intresting. I was intrigued by the article and it all makes sense. I even tried pinching my scalp skin for the fun of it while comparing it to my younger brother who is showing NW3 signs, my scalp is really hard, feels like a rock. If only there was a drug targetting scalp calcification and fibrosis excess, combining it with a 5AR inhibitor, a little of minoxidile to give the dying follicles a boost, and voila, hairloss could be reversed by a big percentage.

There are many modern theories regarding hair loss that talk about fibrosis as something as important as DHT itself. It's not a minor cause at all.

That web I just linked is fantastic by the way.. Here are the leading theories of hair loss https://perfecthairhealth.com/the-leading-theories-of-pattern-hair-loss/

Still, there is almost nothing we can do to fight calcification in our scalp right now. Good diet, massages or dermarrolling...but these are just temporary. I've always mantained that hair loss is completely incurable, you can only slow it at the highest rate, but its never going to be resolved.

 

[Michael1986]

I dont understand how dutasteride can not work. It should at least maintain your hair even if you go under heavy shedding.

Dutasteride still leaves a small amount of DHT behind, and dutasteride has the effect of increasing testosterone slightly. It is thought that testosterone itself contributes a small amount to hair loss. Additionally, there is an alternative backdoor pathway by which your body is able to produce DHT that does not involve the conversion from testosterone by 5-ar. Here is an article on this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5834294/. So even if you are on dutasteride, your body is still producing androgens. Also, as others have pointed out, scalp tension and fibrosis are theorised to play a role in male pattern baldness too.

 

[Michael1986]

Does it explain why eunuchs and people who lack 5-ar don't lose hair?

In my opinion, androgens are necessary for there to be any male pattern baldness to begin with, but certain other things such as scalp tension may be able to add to the aggressiveness of the existing androgen-dependent balding process.

 

[SaitamaSensei]

Yeah good article but is it that promising to commit to it for results? I'm not even motivated to use minoxidil everyday but I do it. Massaging and being super healthy by using curcumin etc. for inflammation I believe can help but won't make a drastic difference lookswise to your hair. There was a guy on this forum who went vegan and did all those massages but no result.

Yes, the fibrosis/scalp tension explains this as well.

Btw, you read this article already? https://perfecthairhealth.com/hair-transplants-debunk-scalp-tension-hair-loss/

 

[Michael1986]

So I assume that Rob from PerfectHairHealth promotes the use of scalp massage to treat hair loss based upon his theory? The thing about scalp massage is that while there is reason to believe it should work in theory, there have been very few studies done on it to date to test its efficacy reliably. There haven't been any double-blind, placebo-controlled studies done on it at all, so unlike finasteride, it is of unproven effectiveness. Until the evidence is there from studies, I'm afraid I'm not going to give it a try myself, especially taking into account the fact that it is not what I would call a low-maintenance treatment option.