Microdosing on finasteride - Updates?

[Afro_Vacancy]

It was posted a few weeks ago that the recommended finasteride dose in Japan is 0.2 mg/day, one fifth of that in North America.

The effectiveness of finasteride does drop, but barely.

The question is, is the same true of the side effects?

 

[MicroDoser]

I am aware of Japan's newly dosed tabs. As for the side effects, every microdoser either is happy with their treatment of fades out- that can either be a good thing or bad thing, who knows.The microdosers who have side effects from finasteride seem to already be fairly sensitive to the drug.

In my case, my sides were fairly minor [outside of the crash caused by quitting], so a dose that's 1/25th of what I took should do me just fine. I am documenting my libido for the next 3 weeks or so before I start this regimen to see how it compares.

- - - Updated - - -

It appears that if your sides aren't overbearing at 1.25mg, you can afford to lower the dose so that the sides from the finasteride are nearly negligible.

 

[WangMQ]

It was posted a few weeks ago that the recommended finasteride dose in Japan is 0.2 mg/day, one fifth of that in North America.

The effectiveness of finasteride does drop, but barely.

The question is, is the same true of the side effects?

Maybe that depends on your body's metabolism. Most people have that "buffer" in their system. Dosage＞buffer=sides build up. Dosage＜buffer=safe.

- - - Updated - - -

I didn't even notice that, truly incredible. It amazes me how many people are still adamant on taking 1.25mg or 1mg tablets when doses this low can still be effective. My question is, why is microdosing as popular as it should be? The biggest reason why people quit finasteride is because of the sides, but at this dose, the sides are much weaker.

Guess what

A lotta guys on a forum in my country are doing 5-10 mg per day :firing:

Suicide if you ask me...

 

[Samson123]

I wish I had researched low finasteride doses before I jumped on 1.25 mg finasteride, which basically destroyed my hair. I think .25 or .5 mg should be the starting dosage for guys looking to try finasteride. I think this should be talked about more. I've been on .5 mg for almost four months now. I don't put much stock in the flat dose response curve either. I kinda think that it doesn't matter for me at this point because the damage is already done. I must be a rare negative responder to finasteride, because I've only found a few other examples of the individual hair strands getting noticeably thinner all over, which is what happened to me and most definitely wasn't a result of the natural progression of male pattern baldness.

 

[MicroDoser]

How did it destroy your hair? Care to elaborate?

 

[Samson123]

Well, I had been slowly thinning in a diffuse pattern for a couple of years but still had a decent head of hair when I started finasteride and was happy with it. I tapered on for a month to 1.25 mg and noticed not much change for 9 months. Right around then I had a big loss of density from all over including back and sides. Over the the following weeks all of my hair shrank in diameter significantly and I was shedding these sickly white shredded looking hairs. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My hair texture has completely changed for the worse. Never had hairs that looked like that before finasteride.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and my crown and mid anterior were very thick with not much thinning at all and now these areas are very weak and thin and I have the beginnings of a bald spot in the crown.

 

[MicroDoser]

so you tapered all the way down to 1.25? 1.25 seems like too much to begin with- what did you initially start off with?

 

[monoid]

Maybe that depends on your body's metabolism. Most people have that "buffer" in their system. Dosage＞buffer=sides build up. Dosage＜buffer=safe.

- - - Updated - - -



Guess what

A lotta guys on a forum in my country are doing 5-10 mg per day :firing:

Suicide if you ask me...

They are actually taking an entire proscar pill every day?

 

[WangMQ]

They are actually taking an entire proscar pill every day?

some of them twice every day

 

[Pequod]

I think it is unlikely that anything below 0.5 mg of finasteride daily will have any effect on hairloss. If someone wanted to microdose they might be better off using dutasteride as a very small dose would have an impact perhaps. 0.05 mg will drop DHT by 50%.

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

I think it is unlikely that anything below 0.5 mg of finasteride daily will have any effect on hairloss. If someone wanted to microdose they might be better off using dutasteride as a very small dose would have an impact perhaps. 0.05 mg will drop DHT by 50%.

The standard dose in Japan is oral 0.2 mg/daily and the studies there show that performance is nearly identical to oral 1.0 mg daily.

 

[Pequod]

The standard dose in Japan is oral 0.2 mg/daily and the studies there show that performance is nearly identical to oral 1.0 mg daily.

Someone in here mistakenly got 1 mg filled at a pharmacy and split it 4 ways instead of a 5 mg pill. They lost all their gains, and finally figured out they got the wrong prescription. Low doses of finasteride are very unlikely to do anything for hairloss.

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

Someone in here mistakenly got 1 mg filled at a pharmacy and split it 4 ways instead of a 5 mg pill. They lost all their gains, and finally figured out they got the wrong prescription. Low doses of finasteride are very unlikely to do anything for hairloss.

No. There was a large clinical trial for Japan discussed here, the performance difference in hair density between 0.20 mg and 1.00 mg daily is tiny. That was done on a large sample and not one anecdote.

 

[shulk]

No. There was a large clinical trial for Japan discussed here, the performance difference in hair density between 0.20 mg and 1.00 mg daily is tiny. That was done on a large sample and not one anecdote.

Indeed, here is the japanese study.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15319158

 

[Norwood One]

I tapered down to 0.05...

Probably not going to do anything for me. But them sides doe.. never again.

 

[Pequod]

People can believe that Japanese study if they want but since it says they saw improvement in 12 weeks it sounds pretty unreliable to me. There have been hundreds of studies proven wrong by later testing.

 

[Coiffio]

Someone in here mistakenly got 1 mg filled at a pharmacy and split it 4 ways instead of a 5 mg pill. They lost all their gains, and finally figured out they got the wrong prescription. Low doses of finasteride are very unlikely to do anything for hairloss.

Hair is fickle like that. Any change in a regimen will lead to a shed. I read that account and who knows where he would've stabilized had he stayed on that dose long enough.

0.25mg 3 times a week worked well enough for me. It also made my estrogen levels shoot up to 40 and I started getting gyno.

 

[Afro_Vacancy]

People can believe that Japanese study if they want but since it says they saw improvement in 12 weeks it sounds pretty unreliable to me. There have been hundreds of studies proven wrong by later testing.

It's known from various studies that response to finasteride is nearly independent of dose.

 

[shulk]

People can believe that Japanese study if they want but since it says they saw improvement in 12 weeks it sounds pretty unreliable to me. There have been hundreds of studies proven wrong by later testing.

hmmmmm, what to believe, multiple placebo controlled studies showing hair improvement and DHT inhibition at various doses, or one anecdotal story on the forum.

hmmmmmmmm

Quite a pickle...

- - - Updated - - -

I tapered down to 0.05....

I hope you feel comfortable on this dose. If you think it is not enough for you, you could try upping the dosage a little bit after some time.

 

[Norwood One]

That's the plan. Just taking little bits of it to stave off any more hair loss. Then slowly build my courage up to take more.

Just buying ourselves time till a real cure comes out gents...(which maybe 5 years...10 years...who knows.)