Is It Possible To Go High Norwood While Being On Propecia

[michel sapin]

hey guys , i a m wondering if it is possible to go Norwood 3, 4 or 5 if you were Norwood 2 or less when you started propecia .
Because i started propecia 2 years ago as a Norwood 1,5 and now i am well below baseline . I a m currently on finasteride 5 mg and will add duta, but i am disapointed by my result with propecia.

 

[Roberto_72]

hey guys , i a m wondering if it is possible to go Norwood 3, 4 or 5 if you were Norwood 2 or less when you started propecia .
Because i started propecia 2 years ago as a Norwood 1,5 and now i am well below baseline . I a m currently on finasteride 5 mg and will add duta, but i am disapointed by my result with propecia.

It is not impossible.
It depends on:
- are you one of the unlucky ones who do not respond to finasteride? There is no medicine that works for everyone.
- will your body at a certain point up-regulate testosterone exactly because you are suppressing DHT with finasteride? Some users suspect this has happened to them years after starting on finasteride.

If the outcome of taking finasteride were so clear-cut and predictable, many more people would probably risk the side effects.

 

[jetlife1]

Let's put it this way: May not be impossible, but very very rare. Personally, I haven't seen a case where someone is on an antiandrogen and dropped a norwood level. I asked my dermatologist and he said the same about his patients.

Also, @Roberto_72 isn't upregulation a myth? There aren't any professional medical studies that back that right? Cause that's a pretty scary thought.

 

[buckthorn]

Also, @Roberto_72 isn't upregulation a myth? There aren't any professional medical studies that back that right? Cause that's a pretty scary thought.

Why would anyone care to study it? Merck makes a killing on propecia.

@OP - my experience, straight up facts -

one year finasteride, 2.5mg/day - terrible scalp inflammation and rapid progression of male pattern baldness (DPA). lost about 50-60% of my hair. so... do whatever you'd like with that. but it's the truth and many on here have seen the pictures.

 

[jetlife1]

Why would anyone care to study it? Merck makes a killing on propecia.

@OP - my experience, straight up facts -

one year finasteride, 2.5mg/day - terrible scalp inflammation and rapid progression of male pattern baldness (DPA). lost about 50-60% of my hair. so... do whatever you'd like with that. but it's the truth and many on here have seen the pictures.

Wow if that's the case, that's wild. I've only heard about people complaining about downregulation from antiandrogens. Maybe if you rode it out longer the hair would have came back? I definitely lost at first, but eventually recovered and continue to improve after 2+ years.

 

[michel sapin]

you know if havent got any sides of upregulation , ive got no itch, oily skin acne .
I took a blood test and my dht was very low and my test normal .
But i'm stressing all day long about my hair , my mind is obsessed with this sh*t . And i am afraid of going Norwood 3 .
I was almost Norwood 2 when started , and my hairline have clearly receded those past 2 years

 

[michel sapin]

And i feel really sorry for you buckthorn , that seems like a harsh experience .
I havent got diffuse thinning , but i have ever being obsessed with my hair that is why jumped on propecia at 20 yo when i saw the first sign of receding temple , but it has failed to keep my hairline and now things are going worse .

I dont thing that is because of upregulated receptor , but maybe the fact i dont inhibit enough dht to stop my loss .
that is why i try 5 mg per day now , and will try duta soon , but i a mstill scared of the rate of gyno.

 

[buckthorn]

Wow if that's the case, that's wild. I've only heard about people complaining about downregulation from antiandrogens. Maybe if you rode it out longer the hair would have came back? I definitely lost at first, but eventually recovered and continue to improve after 2+ years.

I doubt it would have come back. You could see it miniaturizing. Oddly enough, finasteride maintained and even regrew some of the hair line. Just everything behind it went to complete sh*t.

As stupid as it sounds, I am microdosing finasteride right now. I am going down to like .1mg / day.

@OP - have you considered RU? maybe dutasteride will work for yoiu?

 

[michel sapin]

i don't really believe in ru, too shady . But i am almost sure that dutasteride would stop my hairloss at least , but i am really scare of the oestrogen rise and the rate of gyno.

 

[Samson123]

Michel, I've been on finasteride for two years now and it has made all of my hair androgen sensitive. Areas that were very thick before finasteride, back, sides, and crown have thinned out a ridiculous amount both in density and individual hair strand diameter. Never experienced anything. No inflammation, no itchiness, no increased sebum, no acne or oily skin, just rapid miniaturization of all my hair. If you are on 5 mg finasteride then I highly doubt dutasteride will do anything for you and may just worsen your situation.

 

[KO21]

I started finasteride between Norwood 2-2.5 and that was 9 months ago.

I'm now borderline NW3.

Continuing downhill regardless of finasteride.


I'm gunna go cry now.

 

[Roberto_72]

Also, @Roberto_72 isn't upregulation a myth? There aren't any professional medical studies that back that right? Cause that's a pretty scary thought.

Well we have the experience of some credible, attentive users who affirm they have been going through this upregulation after years of finasteride.

Take a look at this convo if you will. In particular the experience reported by @WangMQ .
It is damn scary, I concur.

https://www.hairlosstalk.com/interact/threads/lets-talk-about-andogen-receptor-upregulation.99965/

 

[jetlife1]

After reading through that thread, and this one (https://www.hairlosstalk.com/intera...ime-and-androgen-receptor-upregulation.99512/) by WangMQ , I do not buy it.

These guys are toying with the dosages. It is a proven fact that when you change dosages it causes an initial, temporary shed sometimes. This could be mistaken for "androgen upregulation." In the thread you posted, @buckthorn complained about shedding 3 months in. I went through the same sh*t, but stuck it out and everything worked out. I even consider my hair way better now at 26 months, than I was at 12 months into finasteride 1mg/day. Most people do go through an initial shed and it takes a while (sometimes years) for improvement.

I consider myself a pretty smart guy and am currently enrolled in a prestigious university, but come on guys it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots. Whenever I see a complaint on here, 99% of the time it has to do with someone changing their regimen or just not being on proven hair loss treatment.

 

[zzzzz]

The hairline is the most sensitive hair so it is not surprising that someone with mediocre results might lose that over time. However, I would expect the case of someone starting at a nw2 and ending up a nw4 for instance to be strange/very poor results compared to most people

 

[Roberto_72]

After reading through that thread, and this one (https://www.hairlosstalk.com/intera...ime-and-androgen-receptor-upregulation.99512/) by WangMQ , I do not buy it.

These guys are toying with the dosages. It is a proven fact that when you change dosages it causes an initial, temporary shed sometimes. This could be mistaken for "androgen upregulation." In the thread you posted, @buckthorn complained about shedding 3 months in. I went through the same sh*t, but stuck it out and everything worked out. I even consider my hair way better now at 26 months, than I was at 12 months into finasteride 1mg/day. Most people do go through an initial shed and it takes a while (sometimes years) for improvement.

I consider myself a pretty smart guy and am currently enrolled in a prestigious university, but come on guys it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots. Whenever I see a complaint on here, 99% of the time it has to do with someone changing their regimen or just not being on proven hair loss treatment.

Well I hope you are right because I plan on taking finasteride for years and years.

Problem with lifelong treatments is that there are NO lifelong studies of course (who would pay for them?), so the experience of other patients is pretty much all we have.

Even the finasteride - dutasteride comparison study stops at 24 weeks...

 

[Oriol]

I'm on avodart for almost 9 years and i'm pretty sure i'd be much worse if it wasn't for it.

 

[Massive]

finasteride + dutasteride kickstarted my hairloss into higher gear. I was doing much better on minoxidil alone before I developed an allergic reaction to the PG.

 

[GoldenMane]

Even with 0.5mg dutasteride per day, I believe only about 80% of DHT is being inhibited. If you were to take 2.5 per day then I guess maybe you could almost eliminate Androgenetic Alopecia but not age related thinning.

 

[jetlife1]

@Dante92 be patient man I saw your story, it really is too soon to be discouraged. A lot of improvement on finasteride comes after 1 year, even after 2. Just be consistent and take it every day. If it fails, get a transplant or wait for other promising treatments on the horizon and move on with your life.

 

[Dante92]

@Dante92 be patient man I saw your story, it really is too soon to be discouraged. A lot of improvement on finasteride comes after 1 year, even after 2. Just be consistent and take it every day. If it fails, get a transplant or wait for other promising treatments on the horizon and move on with your life.

Thank you very much, I hope that, too.