Propecia Once Per Day Enough?

[htownballa]

Propecia is 1mg. The half life is supposedly 5 hours, so by the end of the day the levels of finasteride in your bloodstream is very low assuming you take your pill in the morning. Does this mean that towards the end of the day your hairs suffer due to DHT not being suppressed? Should I up my dosage?

 

[Guest]

I read that 1 mg of finasteride inhibits DHT for 72 hours. Other sources have said 48. Anyone want to correct me on this, college or someone?

I think that htownballa asked a good question

 

[CCS]

you are both correct. finasteride quickly (in 1-3 hours) binds with the enzyme 5-alpha-reductase type 2, which turns testosterone inside your follicles and prostate into DHT. testosterone and DHT are quickly made and recycled in your body. testosterone gets there by the blood, is made into dhT inside the cells, and leaks out of the cells and is metabolised by the liver. Once 5ar2 stops making DHT in the cells, DHT levels drop very fast, hitting their low in 2-4 hours. 5-alpha-reuctase type 2 takes almost a week to be fully re-synthesized inside the cells, but is up to at least 50% in 3 days, if memory is right. DHT levels return to normal in about a week or 2, but they are high enough to attack sensitive hairs in less than that. i would take finasteride at least every 3 days, though i think bryan said even 4-5 days is ok.

 

[Guest]

i think if you want the best regrow results possible then you want at least 0.5 mg a day

 

[CCS]

0.2 mg/day regrows 82% as much hair as 1mg/day. I don't know the percentages for maintainance. This is the figure I was basing my guestimate on for the 0.5mg/day.

 

[Bryan]

Propecia is 1mg. The half life is supposedly 5 hours, so by the end of the day the levels of finasteride in your bloodstream is very low assuming you take your pill in the morning. Does this mean that towards the end of the day your hairs suffer due to DHT not being suppressed?

I want to reinforce what "college" said: the short half-life of finasteride isn't really particularly important in this case. What most people don't understand is that it's the slow regeneration rate of the type 2 5a-reductase enzyme which is the reason that DHT levels only slowly rise back to "normal" over a period of a week or two after the last dose of finasteride. In other words, even though the finasteride is all gone in just a few hours, the 5a-reductase itself takes considerably longer to come back.

Bryan

 

[jakeb]

In that case, why not take finasteride every other day, or every third day? Would probably reduce sides.

 

[Bryan]

It would probably reduce effectiveness to the same extent that it reduces side-effects.

Bryan

 

[CCS]

even though 0.2 mg/day regrows 82% as much hair as 1mg per day, the side effects are probably also 82%, but not necessarily. Some people respond well to finasteride, others get side effects, and the two don't necessarily have to be correlated. Maybe your prostate needs at least 50% DHT, and your hair can thrive at 40% reduction. This does not sound to likely though. Topicals may be your only hope. but some guys get by on 0.25 mg/day and just have watery semen and no morning wood.

maybe if you help your hair just enough, without getting too much side effects, other topicals can do the rest. try making topical finasteride. it will go systemic, but your scalp will get a higher concentration compared to what your body gets. It is just a question of whether the concentration difference is big enough to help your hair and not give side effects. I recently wrote some posts in the experimental section on some good ways to do trial and error.

 

[Guest]

Maybe your prostate needs at least 50% DHT, and your hair can thrive at 40% reduction.

Now which number should we go by, serum DHT reduction or scalp DHT reduction? Which percentage number is more important for baldness?

Cause I've heard that since propecia goes through the bloodstream rather than being a topical, it lowers serum dht far more than scalp dht.

 

[bubka]

In that case, why not take finasteride every other day, or every third day? Would probably reduce sides.

you probably could, and possibly get as good results... we don't know... as no study has been done on every other day... also for drug compliance reasons, every day is just easier

 

[Bryan]

Cause I've heard that since propecia goes through the bloodstream rather than being a topical, it lowers serum dht far more than scalp dht.

Depends on which study you believe! :wink:

Bryan

 

[ANDREW_J_I]

can i just add, Bryan and college are legends!

just take 1mg a day for 1 year and see if anythings happened, THEN think about experimenting. but i wont be experimenting i do no think.

 

[CCS]

I would not consider SOD's, minoxidil, and 5ar2 inhibitors experimentation. nor topical anti-androgens. if you have a full head and want to keep it, finasteride 1mg is the easy, simple, cheap way for most people to do it. If you get a shed that lasts 3 months, that means you are not following the first line on my avator and probably should add some other stuff at least until you regrow that shedded hair. i know some people on this site insist on re-performing the 5 year propecia studies before trying anything new, but the best route is to first regrow your hair and then later see what the minimum is to maintain it.

 

[CCS]

yeah, i have to thank bryan for sending me links to every study I needed, when i asked the questions. that helped me learn stuff at least 5 or 10 times faster than otherwise.