READ READ READ.. Very Interesting POV

captain_que

captain_que

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I posted about this in a similar thread too, but I´ll repeat.

I had a go with roaccutane when I was about 16 because of bad acne. Turned my face blue/yellow/green and didnt cure it... Today I´m 24 and I´m still on milder meds for acne. And my skin is mad oily. Like my temples can be almost dripping wet with oil at times. I´ll definately discuss this with my derm and maybe get on a milder dose of accutane as suggested, and try to kick two cats with the same foot. !
 
MJT82

MJT82

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I've decided I need to stand up and speak up about this as well. I've also been taking low dose accutane for about the last two years now. I used to read this forum, as well as hairlosshelp.com, regrowth.com, etc. all the time in my battle against male pattern baldness, but have since stopped the heavy research and "regimen searching" that I used to constantly be doing.

I first stumbled upon the low dose accutane regimen idea when a member on hairlosshelp.com under the username "guillermo" mentioned his success with low dose accutane and how it was one of the best things he's ever tried for fighting male pattern baldness. From reading the forums, I came to understand him certainly one of the more experienced and knowledgeable people frequenting hairlosshelp.com. I believe he is a pharmacist by trade, so he has access to pretty much anything you can imagine to try to fight male pattern baldness.I am 27 years old now and I had early onset and aggressive male pattern baldness starting in my late teens. I've tried everything from Rogaine (I still use it, and have been using it now for about 10 years), Zix, Dr. Lee's products (spironolactone, Xandrox), Revivogen, Super Zix, Propecia, Saw Palmetto....the list goes on and on.

By far THE most effective thing I have EVER used is low dose accutane. I used to have much oiler skin and scalp, you could see the pinkish (inflamed) color of my skin the male pattern baldness prone areas. Ever since using low dose accutane my scalp has a healthy color to it, the itch is gone and male pattern baldness has essentially been arrested from further progression. I am convinced that low dose accutane, along with good health and aiming to balance your hormones is the most effective thing you can do to slow male pattern baldness.

I'll never have perfect hair again, but I am thankful for what LOW DOSE accutane has been able to do for me, and that is, it is keeping my hair from getting any worse and seeing some regrowth in certain areas. I've been at this long enough to know what works and what doesn't. NOTHING else even comes close.

P.S. - I also took the full "high dose" round of Accutane when I was 18 years to combat my acne. My hair started to fall out near the 5th month as part of the drugs side effects. So believe me, I was apprehensive to take it again at even a low dosage. But I can honestly report, that I have had zero issues with this at the low dosage I've been taking.
 
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oofah

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MJT82, thanks for sharing your accutane experience. Just a couple questions:

What dose and how often do you take it?

What's your diet like?

thanks
 
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oofah

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Here's a couple more interesting things regarding accutane and test/dht:

Google for : "Effect of oral isotretinoin treatment on skin androgen receptor levels in male acneic patients". According to the study, serum DHT was significantly lower in patient treated with Accutane. Also androgen receptor levels were decreased in back skin after treatment.

DHT is a more potent androgen than testosterone and is important for penis and male hair growth. Why is it so impossible for this drug to cause decreased pubertal growth including penis growth? The decrease in DHT, can it possible be the explanation for the decreased libido some people report?

Here's another:
Studies have shown that Accutane does NOT significantly affect the circulating levels of testosterone, but it does cause a 2.6 fold decrease in the number of testosterone receptors in your cells (which reduces acne, that is caused by androgens). Androgens stimulate protein synthesis and cell-division aka proliferation or mitosis. Accutane doesn't castrate you from the outside, it castrates you from the inside.

Effect of oral isotretinoin treatment on skin androgen receptor levels in male acneic patients
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abst...

Accutane reduces the levels of testosterone receptors in the body. This article applies this to the skin, which must account for a lot of testosterone reception as the skin is a large area of the human body, but since Accutane has systemic chemotherapeutic effects on the whole body, what's to say that this doesn't occur for all testosterone receptors in the body? With a blood test, Accutane patients will test normal on testosterone level and DHT. However, the message is going around, but no-one is there to receive it because the receptors for the testosterone in the body are decreased 2.6 fold by Accutane, as proved by the study above. And this is just after 3 months. Rather than the removal of your balls from the outside of your body, your ability to receive the testosterone is removed from the inside of your body. Accutane is one of the most powerful anti-androgenic substances on the market, which is why it has been studied as chemotherapy for prostate cancer.

Vitamin A and Retinoid Cancer Adjuvant Therapy from the Life Extension Foundation
http://www.lef.org/protocols/prtcl-027h.shtml
 
E

elan164

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MJT82 said:
I've decided I need to stand up and speak up about this as well. I've also been taking low dose accutane for about the last two years now. I used to read this forum, as well as hairlosshelp.com, regrowth.com, etc. all the time in my battle against male pattern baldness, but have since stopped the heavy research and "regimen searching" that I used to constantly be doing.

I first stumbled upon the low dose accutane regimen idea when a member on hairlosshelp.com under the username "guillermo" mentioned his success with low dose accutane and how it was one of the best things he's ever tried for fighting male pattern baldness. From reading the forums, I came to understand him certainly one of the more experienced and knowledgeable people frequenting hairlosshelp.com. I believe he is a pharmacist by trade, so he has access to pretty much anything you can imagine to try to fight male pattern baldness.I am 27 years old now and I had early onset and aggressive male pattern baldness starting in my late teens. I've tried everything from Rogaine (I still use it, and have been using it now for about 10 years), Zix, Dr. Lee's products (spironolactone, Xandrox), Revivogen, Super Zix, Propecia, Saw Palmetto....the list goes on and on.

By far THE most effective thing I have EVER used is low dose accutane. I used to have much oiler skin and scalp, you could see the pinkish (inflamed) color of my skin the male pattern baldness prone areas. Ever since using low dose accutane my scalp has a healthy color to it, the itch is gone and male pattern baldness has essentially been arrested from further progression. I am convinced that low dose accutane, along with good health and aiming to balance your hormones is the most effective thing you can do to slow male pattern baldness.

I'll never have perfect hair again, but I am thankful for what LOW DOSE accutane has been able to do for me, and that is, it is keeping my hair from getting any worse and seeing some regrowth in certain areas. I've been at this long enough to know what works and what doesn't. NOTHING else even comes close.

P.S. - I also took the full "high dose" round of Accutane when I was 18 years to combat my acne. My hair started to fall out near the 5th month as part of the drugs side effects. So believe me, I was apprehensive to take it again at even a low dosage. But I can honestly report, that I have had zero issues with this at the low dosage I've been taking.
Click to expand...

so you are just taking accutane and rogaine? No propecia? Ive been on propecia and nizoral for 9 months. Nothing to report except slightly more receiding in the temples but could be worse if i wasnt on the meds, who knows. I often have an itchy scalp, breakouts around the nose, chin and forehead which i hadnt had before starting propecia. My skin is definitely more oily and i can notice read bumps in my thinning hair.
 
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TameOne

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How do you go about getting a prescription for Accutane since it isn't prescribed for hairloss?
 
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bobonyc

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MJT82 said:
I've decided I need to stand up and speak up about this as well. I've also been taking low dose accutane for about the last two years now. I used to read this forum, as well as hairlosshelp.com, regrowth.com, etc. all the time in my battle against male pattern baldness, but have since stopped the heavy research and "regimen searching" that I used to constantly be doing.

I first stumbled upon the low dose accutane regimen idea when a member on hairlosshelp.com under the username "guillermo" mentioned his success with low dose accutane and how it was one of the best things he's ever tried for fighting male pattern baldness. From reading the forums, I came to understand him certainly one of the more experienced and knowledgeable people frequenting hairlosshelp.com. I believe he is a pharmacist by trade, so he has access to pretty much anything you can imagine to try to fight male pattern baldness.I am 27 years old now and I had early onset and aggressive male pattern baldness starting in my late teens. I've tried everything from Rogaine (I still use it, and have been using it now for about 10 years), Zix, Dr. Lee's products (spironolactone, Xandrox), Revivogen, Super Zix, Propecia, Saw Palmetto....the list goes on and on.

By far THE most effective thing I have EVER used is low dose accutane. I used to have much oiler skin and scalp, you could see the pinkish (inflamed) color of my skin the male pattern baldness prone areas. Ever since using low dose accutane my scalp has a healthy color to it, the itch is gone and male pattern baldness has essentially been arrested from further progression. I am convinced that low dose accutane, along with good health and aiming to balance your hormones is the most effective thing you can do to slow male pattern baldness.

I'll never have perfect hair again, but I am thankful for what LOW DOSE accutane has been able to do for me, and that is, it is keeping my hair from getting any worse and seeing some regrowth in certain areas. I've been at this long enough to know what works and what doesn't. NOTHING else even comes close.

P.S. - I also took the full "high dose" round of Accutane when I was 18 years to combat my acne. My hair started to fall out near the 5th month as part of the drugs side effects. So believe me, I was apprehensive to take it again at even a low dosage. But I can honestly report, that I have had zero issues with this at the low dosage I've been taking.
Click to expand...

Any pics to go along w/ your story ?
 
O

oofah

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I just started using accutane yesterday, 20 mg. I got 40mg caps from a friend so I refrigerate the cap for a few hours to solidify it a bit then cut it with a razor blade. My plan is to take 40 mg a week for 2-3 weeks and if there is no reduction of scalp itch, I'll up the dose.
 
Bryan

Bryan

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rogar6 said:
I just started using accutane yesterday, 20 mg. I got 40mg caps from a friend so I refrigerate the cap for a few hours to solidify it a bit then cut it with a razor blade. My plan is to take 40 mg a week for 2-3 weeks and if there is no reduction of scalp itch, I'll up the dose.
Click to expand...

Someone on HLH recently said that drinking grapefruit juice with the Accutane will increase its effect (evidently it's degraded by the CYP3A4 enzyme, and grapefruit juice is a CYP3A4 inhibitor), so you could use that to your advantage. I just hope you know what the hell you're doing: Accutane is some powerful sh*t.
 
O

oofah

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I found one person who said, "Accutane is metabolized by cytochrome p450 in the liver and if you drink grapefruit juice, which inhibits the enzyme, it can build up to toxic levels. I would not chance liver damage"

Based on this I probably won't drink any gf juice, although I haven't had any gf juice in over 20 years so it probably wasn't going to happen anyways :)
 
Bryan

Bryan

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I just figured that considering how expensive Accutane is, that would be an obvious and ideal drug with which to take advantage of the "grapefruit juice effect"! :) But I do agree that it would add an extra element of uncertainty to the equation, and you have to be very careful with that drug.
 
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canada1313

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Hi Guys I have been a lurker on this board for a while but I thought this thread was very interesting and did a bunch of looking into those taking low dose accutane for hair loss and found that over at hairlosshelp back in the early 2000's there were a couple of posters who used low dose accutane and had nothing but positive things to say about it. In fact the one poster guillermo over there who was mentioned by someone above began using it in 1998 at a dose of 20 mg per day and even in 2006 he was still calling it the most effective thing he had ever used for hair loss. Now being a skeptical type I read a ton of his posts to make sure he wasn't a total quack and found him to be one of the most intelligent posters I have come across on these boards. The guy worked in a pharmacy and with his access to all of the different drugs he seemed to be way ahead of his time in some of the treatments he was researching and using back in the early 2000s. They even reference a study showing accutane reduces androgen receptors by 2.5 times.

Here is a link to his posts over there and if go go through them you will see him reference low dose accutane or isotretinoin the ingredient in accutane in a very positive light numerous times over a very long period.
http://www.hairlosshelp.com/FORUMS/sear ... TMP=Linear

Also if you do a search there are a couple of other guys over there saying the same thing.

After looking into this for a while I started 10 mg accutane per day two weeks ago today. My scalp itch had completely gone away after one week and looking under my hair today my scalp looks much healthier. I am 29 with some diffuse thinning but caught it early and have a decent amount of hair still. I have been on minoxidil 9 months as well as finasteride for 17 months and while I have had periods where I have felt my hair improved, I have constantly been shedding more hair than prior to meds since week one of finasteride. I understand that sheds are a part of the game and can attest to the fact that my hair has at times looked much better than baseline even while shedding big but it has since starting meds always fluctuated a lot it thins thickens thins thickens.

Now for the first time in the last year and a half I dont seem to be shedding at all and havent been for last 6 days. I was very skeptical of accutane when I first read this thread as I did a higher dose for 6 months when younger and while I didnt notice hair loss while on using it dried the f**k out of my lips and I couldnt wait to be off of it (worst 6 months of my adult my life for being able to pick up any pu**y). Well, so far so good after 2 weeks of 10 mg/day no side effects other than scalp itch is gone , a high reduction in shedding and face has cleared up completely from minor acne. I Also added 5000 mcg of biotin/day as accutane can apparently cause a deficiency .
 
jimjams

jimjams

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hmmm, this thread is very VERY interesting indeed. I am currently taking finasteride, min and nizoral and having fairly good results although hairloss has not halted and I do get an itchy scalp, cant say I overly notice it inflamed but am certain it is.

Empire started the thread but has now disappeared, maybe Merck have hunted him and his egyption doctor down and killed them for letting out the secret. :)

Please try get this more public on the forums if you can, i would love to see the results. Are there any accutane success stories in 'success stories' on this forum?

It is quite an exciting prospect so please, those experimenting please report back, good or bad.
 
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