Injection the Scalp With CB-03-01 or other Anti-Androgens

[hemingway_the_mercenary]

I've been thinking of doing this for a while as the biggest barrier to topical anti androgens working is the absorption through the skin. Based on what I've researched less than 1% of what we apply to the scalp actually penetrates deep enough to go systemic, ie reaches the follicles. This number decreases as more milligrams of drug are added to the solution. We are able to deliver micrograms to the scalp without a problem but delivering even a milligram of a drug through the scalp is a huge challenge.

With that said, delivering as little as 2.5 mg of OH-Flutamide to the front half of the scalp will be approximately as effective for hairless as taking an oral dose of 250mg a daily which was found to effective in female patter hairloss (females who lose hair are much more sensitive to androgens than almost all males).

Since I don't feel like typing all this again, here is a copy n paste of what I posted in another thread:

I was thinking CB0301 or OH-Flut injected over the scalp once-twice a week if possible at a depth of around 1mm so that the follicles are not injured from injection.

Unfortunately there are pretty big hurdles to doing this. First of all, the solubility of these drugs is almost zero in water and ethanol cannot be injected into your scalp as it will kill the cells it comes into contact with. Oil based injections will cause scar tissue and may also damage the follicles but this is a possible option. The easiest and likely the best reasonable option is to mix the drugs into a suspension in isotonic sterile water and perform the injection that way.

Obviously the problem with that is potential clogging of the needle and inflammation at the site of injection. The thing is that if we could inject even 2.5mg of oh-flut into the front of half of the scalp that would likely be almost as effective as an oral flutamide/bicalutamide regiment at least for the day of the injection. How often we could perform the injections would depend on the amount of inflammation created. Last thing is that I would definitely use a mesotherapy gun to do this instead of hand injecting with a needle to make sure the depth of injection is consistent.


Probably the biggest hurdle will be insuring that the suspension we are injecting is sterile. If you have any ideas for how to go about this post them down below. If we could form a solution then the solution could be passes through a micron filler with pores small enough to filter out bacteria/pathogens, this is commonly done for penicillin.




All things considered this can potentially be a great alternative to a full trans regiment for those of us who are not fully responding to finasteride/dutasteride or get side effects from those medications.

 

[ScottSummers]

Microneedling before applying a topical increases absorption.

It creates microchannels that allow topicals to penetrate deeper into the skin in higher quantities.

Microneedling enhances the delivery of various drugs across the skin barrier as it bypasses the stratum corneum and deposits the drug directly up to the vascularized dermis. It has also been shown to cause significant widening of the follicular infundibulum by 47%, which may partly explain the increased penetration of the medication across the skin barrier. In addition, it removes the scales and sebum residues in the neighbourhood of the infundibulum.

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Source: ncbi.nlm.nih [DOT] gov/pmc/articles/PMC4976400/

 

[debyne]

Microneedling before applying a topical increases absorption.

It creates microchannels that allow topicals to penetrate deeper into the skin in higher quantities.


Source: ncbi.nlm.nih [DOT] gov/pmc/articles/PMC4976400/

Might as well just go oral at that point

 

[ScottSummers]

Might as well just go oral at that point

The needle penetration is comparable for microneedling (1.5-2.5mm) and mesotherapy (1-4 mm).

Blood tests could confirm whether one method goes more systemic than the other.

But if they do go systemic, I'd guess a mesotherapy gun would do so more than topical application following microneedling because mesotherapy injects the ingredient into the middle layer (mesoderm) of the skin.

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Sources for needle lengths:
1. perfecthairhealth [DOT] com/microneedling-best-needle-length/
2. healthline [DOT] com/health/mesotherapy

 

[ScottSummers]

To be extra safe about ingredients going systemic, we could start with microneedles that are even shorter.

Some studies suggest even 0.6mm could be effective:

At depths of 0.6mm to 2.5mm, microneedling seems to increase both topical absorption (with minoxidil) and hair follicle proliferation (as a standalone treatment)... While the 2020 study demonstrates shorter needle lengths may produce results comparable to longer needle lengths (at least with respect to hair counts), the majority of evidence supports the use of a 1.5mm to 2.5mm needle length.

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Source: perfecthairhealth [DOT] com/microneedling-best-needle-length/

 

[ScottSummers]

Might as well just go oral at that point

2 ways to control systemic absorption from applying a topical after microneedling:

1. Experiment with needle depth.
2. Experiment with duration of wait before applying the topical. This study waited 24 hours before applying:

"The participants in the microneedling group were instructed to not apply Minoxidil on the day of microneedling treatment, but resume application 24 hours after the procedure."

Source: hairguard [DOT] com/microneedling-for-hair-growth/

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

I always apply minoxidil and Retin-A before and after and also I apply Estrogel for hair growth and healing reasons.

 

[Jakejr]

I watched a doctor inject PRP into the scalp. He just used a typical syringe. He said his thumb is trained to administer correct depth & dose. He can do the whole top of the head in 3 minutes or so. He then uses a microneedle device & covers the scalp in another 3 minutes

 

[hemingway_the_mercenary]

Microneedling before applying a topical increases absorption.

It creates microchannels that allow topicals to penetrate deeper into the skin in higher quantities.


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Source: ncbi.nlm.nih [DOT] gov/pmc/articles/PMC4976400/

We’ve tried this. I even applied up to 100mg of topical minoxidil by gradual dose increases right after micro needling to see how much systemic absorption there would be and I had zero side effects which would not be the case if even 2-5mg of the drug was being absorbed. So unfortunately micro needling is not a good enough solution, believe me I wish it was.

I used a derma pen machine for this btw at a depth of 1.5 mms. My scalp was covered in blood and still the absorption was this low.


there seems to be some confusion btw. For the drug to work it has to go systemic, follicular delivery at a reasonable dose is not possible otherwise. The point is that these drugs are not potent enough to have anything other than a local effect so we are not at risk of the typical side effects from anti androgen treatment. Our main concerns will be infection and inflammation/possible damage to hair follicles from the injections

 

[JaneyElizabeth]

Microneedling appears to also produce stem cell activation/re-activation and it may promote cross-talk among follicles, meaning essentially the ones with hair somehow turn on the balding areas contiguous to them. Plucking studies indicate that this is in fact possible. It's ability to reduce scar tissue is essentially mind-blowing. It can turn scar tissue back into beautiful pink tissue and apparently back to hair-bearing tissue. My results would be far less without microneedling and its amazing healing/rejuvenative properties.