I Will Do Dht Blood Tests Before And After Taking Topical Finasteride (h&w Farmacia Parati)

[LaboratoryRat]

Hello there,

I've been lurking on this forum for some time now and today I decided to post.

I am a 22 year old guy living in Europe, and it's been a while since I've noticed that I've been losing my hair at a fairly bad rate.

I've been lurking on this forum, french forums and italian forums for months. I've also watched many YouTube videos about hairloss and hair transplantation. But I've never took any medication because I was concerned about potential side effects. I didn't even take minoxidil because I figured it would be useless without finasteride.

So I began getting interested in the topical form of Finasteride, the gel form that is made by doctors Hasson and Wong (H&W) in Canada. However from my understanding most of you guys don't have access to it because you live in the US. So I didn't find many comments about it.
Some people here think that this finasteride gel might go systemic and that it gives sides too just like the oral form, but H&W and farmacia Parati (the only pharmacy that distributes it here in Europe) say only 1/18th goes systemic and that they made this gel so people don't have sides from finasteride. H&W claim nobody has had sides from this, even people who had sides from oral finasteride.

On this forum I didn't find many threads with people using this gel, but on french and especially italian forums I've found many threads and many people use it there. But still, even on the italian forums, many people still don't believe that it doesn't go systemic because some people reported sides.

The problem is that everybody that uses the finasteride gel, was on oral finasteride before, and nobody ever posted any blood tests to see any DHT variations.

I've read many times, especially in this forum, that people would like to find someone that has never used any form of finasteride, do DHT blood tests, then take TOPICAL finasteride from h&w (farmacia parati) and then do DHT blood tests again to see if the DHT levels changed, so we can know if Farmacia Parati and h&w say the truth or not.

Well I've never taken oral finasteride, I live in Europe, which means I should have access to the gel from Farmacia Parati. So my plan is to do before and after blood tests to see my DHT levels before and after I take this topical finasteride gel from Parati.
I will then post the results here.

However, I have some questions, which led to me posting here:

1) Besides DHT, is there anything else I should get tested/measured?

2) When should I do my "after" test?

3) Anything else I should be aware of?


On a side note, I thought some of you might find this information useful:
Doctors Hasson and Wong often go to Italy to do conferences about hair loss, some people from the italian forums went there a couple of times. One of them said that the doctors don't prescribe oral finasteride anymore, only their gel. And that the doctors use it themselves.
But the interesting part is that apparently doctor Hasson himself has had gyno surgery because of oral finasteride and that this is the main reason why he uses the gel. The doctors also claim that the gel shows results quicker than the oral form.

Thank you for reading my long post.

LabRat

 

[inmyhead]

Hello there,


1) Besides DHT, is there anything else I should get tested/measured?


LabRat

Dick length perhaps?

 

[Heinrich Harrer]

Blood dht is useless, it doesn’t measure the amount of dht in the scalp/follicles. Instead, measure cortisol, tsh, test, shbg, prolactin, progesterone, dheas, Pregnenolone, Lh, Fsh and do a PSA. Then soon after you start the medication, measure them again.

 

[LaboratoryRat]

Dick length perhaps?

Will do

Blood dht is useless, it doesn’t measure the amount of dht in the scalp/follicles. Instead, measure cortisol, tsh, test, shbg, prolactin, progesterone, dheas, Pregnenolone, Lh, Fsh and do a PSA. Then soon after you start the medication, measure them again.

Why is it useless to measure blood DHT? People want to know if the topical finasteride lowers DHT levels only in the scalp or also in the whole body, where it's needed. It's the whole point of topical finasteride.... from my understanding all sides effects are due to the fact that finasteride lowers body DHT, hence why people want to know if the topical finasteride also lowers DHT on the whole body and not only in the scalp.

What does PSA stand for?
I don't know the other hormones you mentioned, only by the names from my memories from high school lol. If any of those change, I should stop? Does oral finasteride affect all of those?

edit: I googled PSA is the prostate test, is that the one where they stick a finger in your no-go zone?

Thank you for your reply

LabRat

 

[Heinrich Harrer]

Measuring DHT in blood won’t give you a clue, trust me. Do it if you want to have a picture in general but as far as Finasteride goes, it won’t matter.

As far as PSA goes: What is the PSA test? Prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, is a protein produced by normal, as well as malignant, cells of the prostate gland. The PSA test measures the level of PSA in a man's blood. For this test, a blood sample is sent to a laboratory for analysis.

 

[LaboratoryRat]

Measuring DHT in blood won’t give you a clue, trust me. Do it if you want to have a picture in general but as far as Finasteride goes, it won’t matter.

As far as PSA goes: What is the PSA test? Prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, is a protein produced by normal, as well as malignant, cells of the prostate gland. The PSA test measures the level of PSA in a man's blood. For this test, a blood sample is sent to a laboratory for analysis.

Ok I will do a PSA test aswell.
Why do I need to test all the other hormones though? And how do I read the results? I mean how do I know that it's time to stop and that I should not continue the treatment?

Have you done research on this finasteride gel by farmacia Parati or have any anecdotes or personal experiences on the matter?

Thank you for your help, I appreciate it.

LabRat

 

[Ismagom7]

Hi Sorry to jump in I also want to use Topical Finasteride and I see MacGrathMedical in texas prescribes it. Has anyone used them? Thanks for the help.

 

[telogen]

I've been using it for like 4 months and it certainly goes systemically, libido/erection quality goes down, just not as much as oral. I'm only using 1/4th of what h&w claims is side effect free and still have low grade sides. Combined with ru i manage to maintain.

 

[LaboratoryRat]

I've been using it for like 4 months and it certainly goes systemically, libido/erection quality goes down, just not as much as oral. I'm only using 1/4th of what h&w claims is side effect free and still have low grade sides. Combined with ru i manage to maintain.

Thank you for sharing your experience. How bad are your sides on 0.5 and 1 mg Propecia? If you stopped RU and only took 1/4th of the topical finasteride gel, would that be useless? Do you think the gel is still a good alternative? Tbh I don't know what to do anymore.

LabRat

 

[Pequod]

Haven't you guys heard of the testosterone gels? Those are applied on the skin and go systemic, I can't see why this finasteride gel is any different. As far as someone saying DHT levels don't matter, yes they do. That's what hair loss is all about.

 

[Heinrich Harrer]

Haven't you guys heard of the testosterone gels? Those are applied on the skin and go systemic, I can't see why this finasteride gel is any different. As far as someone saying DHT levels don't matter, yes they do. That's what hair loss is all about.

They don’t matter when you measure them in blood. Even on Finasteride, blood values will remain the same more or less. And yes, topical Finasteride is going to go systemic or not work at all.

 

[LaboratoryRat]

Haven't you guys heard of the testosterone gels? Those are applied on the skin and go systemic, I can't see why this finasteride gel is any different. As far as someone saying DHT levels don't matter, yes they do. That's what hair loss is all about.

Farmacia Parati and H&W say it's different because they use special silicones that make finasteride stay on the scalp, but they've only been tested in vitro at University of Milan as far as I'm aware.

They don’t matter when you measure them in blood. Even on Finasteride, blood values will remain the same more or less. And yes, topical Finasteride is going to go systemic or not work at all.

Are we talking about the one from H&W and Farmacia Parati? I'm not disagreeing with you but I know that there are different topical finasteride and I wanted to make sure that we're talking about the same product, the gel with silicones.

Anyway you say DHT blood values remain the same, then what causes the side effects?

 

[Heinrich Harrer]

Farmacia Parati and H&W say it's different because they use special silicones that make finasteride stay on the scalp, but they've only been tested in vitro at University of Milan as far as I'm aware.


Are we talking about the one from H&W and Farmacia Parati? I'm not disagreeing with you but I know that there are different topical finasteride and I wanted to make sure that we're talking about the same product, the gel with silicones.

Anyway you say DHT blood values remain the same, then what causes the side effects?

You are gonna keep asking the same sh*t until you hear what you wanna hear but that ain’t gonna happen. I feel your frustration but nothing is gonna change, you won’t trick the system with any Indian Finasteride lotion. You don’t need to know everything about this subject because it never ends. Either take the medication like you’re supposed to for life or don’t take it at all and bald gracefully.

 

[Nimatus]

I got a prescription online from doctor for Finasteride. All legit, real doctor . Prescription was for Fintrid 5mg finasteride, 6 months supply. I go to pharmacy, get prescription but don't look in bag until I get home, one lowsy box in bag, and only 10 tablets in box , cost me 30 euro too !
WTF ????

 

[Pequod]

They can't keep it out of your system like they claim. If it is rubbed into the scalp, it goes into the blood stream. That's why they don't do FDA trials on it.

And yes, finasteride does lower DHT because I've had the blood tests to prove it. My scalp is 1000% better thanks to finasteride.

 

[LaboratoryRat]

You are gonna keep asking the same sh*t until you hear what you wanna hear but that ain’t gonna happen. I feel your frustration but nothing is gonna change, you won’t trick the system with any Indian Finasteride lotion. You don’t need to know everything about this subject because it never ends. Either take the medication like you’re supposed to for life or don’t take it at all and bald gracefully.

No, I'm trying to understand. And the people who will stumble across this thread in the future will be just as confused as me if you claim that finasteride doesn't lower blood DHT, when in common knowledge that's what happens, and it's the cause of side effects when they happen. Or at least most people think this way. You could explain your reasoning in a few sentences but instead you ignore and just say "trust me" and that I am frustrated because I ask normal questions.

They can't keep it out of your system like they claim. If it is rubbed into the scalp, it goes into the blood stream. That's why they don't do FDA trials on it.

And yes, finasteride does lower DHT because I've had the blood tests to prove it. My scalp is 1000% better thanks to finasteride.

So you had blood tests done before taking oral finasteride and right after you started taking it? That's basically what I plan on doing. Did you only test for DHT? Why did you do the tests?
I understand that the topical one probably goes into the blood stream aswell, but there's no way to know what % of it. Hence why I started this thread.

LabRat

 

[Heinrich Harrer]

No, I'm trying to understand. And the people who will stumble across this thread in the future will be just as confused as me if you claim that finasteride doesn't lower blood DHT, when in common knowledge that's what happens, and it's the cause of side effects when they happen. Or at least most people think this way. You could explain your reasoning in a few sentences but instead you ignore and just say "trust me" and that I am frustrated because I ask normal questions.


So you had blood tests done before taking oral finasteride and right after you started taking it? That's basically what I plan on doing. Did you only test for DHT? Why did you do the tests?
I understand that the topical one probably goes into the blood stream aswell, but there's no way to know what % of it. Hence why I started this thread.

LabRat

You won’t prevent side effects by using a topical antiandrogen. You won’t know or prosper from dht levels in blood. You will notice some or all of side effects of antiandrogens a day, a month, a year or ten years later and the only method of administration is oral. Complimentary products include vasodilators such as minoxidil, wounding such as dermarolling and fighting calcification and fibrosis of scalp by massaging.

You have no other choice. You won’t have another choice for unknown years to come. Arm yourself with courage and decide what’s more important, take responsibility for those decisions and move on.

You’re asking the same thing in every post because you want to hear a clever way to dodge all negative aspects of this medication and reap the rewards. This cannot happen. If you still refuse to accept the simplicity of these facts, then by all means go with the Indian topical Finasteride.

 

[Pequod]

The DHT level should drop about 60% from whatever it is before you start. You also want to test testosterone as that will rise after you start finasteride (some stops being converted to DHT). I noticed the difference myself.

 

[reyl]

The problem is that everybody that uses the finasteride gel, was on oral finasteride before, and nobody ever posted any blood tests to see any DHT variations.

Just had to chime in and state that this is definitely not true. I don't have the link on me right now but I specifically saw someone test for their DHT levels before and after applying topical finasteride, and their DHT blood serum levels were down all the same. Anything that goes into your scalp typically goes systemic throughout your whole body.

 

[memoryboy]

any results from your tests?

I also think it probably goes systemic but maybe not 100% the same like oral. Anyway, curious to try it out.

Haven't got the prescription to Farmacia Parati yet, any ideas where to get it?

I used oral 1mg finasteride for years but eventually got sides.