Hi everyone,
This is my first post, after being reading the forum from almost the start of my treatment, 5 years ago, with topical finasteride and minoxidil.
I'm writing this in case someone could come to a conclusion about topics like topical finasteride vs oral, sides, and minimum effective doses.
To summarize:
I started 1mg propecia, minoxidil 3% and topical finasteride 0.5%.Dropped the pills soon after, and kept on with topicals. It worked very well. Until I started suffering symptoms of gyno, 2 months in.
Took flaxseed oil and dropped the treatment. Pain and swell resolved.
Resumed the treatment while I was recovering, and the gyno symptoms didn't came back this time.
I kept on, with some stops, until July 2021, when I had to quit due to severe sexual sides. Im 25, 21 when I started.
I took a break of 2/3 months, and resumed the finasteride, but the chest burn, puffy nipples... came back. And this time it wasn't resolving with comtinuation, or flaxseed oil or ground flax.
I tried microdosing, 0,0016%, wondering if reducing the dht slower could be a way of bypassing the problem, but even with those tiny doses, i noticed puffy nipples, swollen lumps under the skin, not only under the nipple.
So I was wondering, could this proof that the minimum effectve dosage, it's not the same oral and topically? Maybe topically it's effective even at doses that it isnt orally.
Anyway, some important notes/questions on all of this:
-How can we explain the difference in effectivity of finasteride depending on the dose, if the inhibition is almost the same for every dose, at least orally.
- Being sensitive to it, was prety usefull to adress that even at super low doses, finasteride GOES SYSTEMIC TOO.
-I ('d like to) think that topically, the curve of effectiveness on low doses is different from the oral one, where a jump from 0 to 100 happens, and that we could find a dose topically where we inhibit dht by 20% or so. Maybe with the oral, at such low quantities, your organism can purge it, or can't reach levels on blood at which it could affect scalp. I think it's not that theres no in between, is that the oral path doesn't allow you to be on it.
-If what i've just write is not correct, and 50 or more dht is inhibited on my serum dht, even at this doses, causing the gyno, and it's not just (as I think it is) that the fact that I had gyno for years on puberty created sensible tissue to estrogens that can reactivate even with subtle changes, then we know that doses as low as 0.01 mg reduce, at least topically, serum dht that much, which is something that is not proven, I think.
Any thoughts on how this gyno thing is possible, or any other thing, will be apreciated, as this is my last bullet, and if the gyno doesn't resolve by continuing the treatment, I'll have to give up.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and sorry for the possible mistakes on my english, as it's not my mother language.
*Updte: I tried to synthetize the idea, so the post could be readable. I was panicing while writing it first time and couldn't deliver the message properly.
By the way, had some blood check and th Prolactin came like x16 my normal levels, it was 36, can't remember units. Estradiol was 30. Fsh low, too. I was taking flaxseed.
This is my first post, after being reading the forum from almost the start of my treatment, 5 years ago, with topical finasteride and minoxidil.
I'm writing this in case someone could come to a conclusion about topics like topical finasteride vs oral, sides, and minimum effective doses.
To summarize:
I started 1mg propecia, minoxidil 3% and topical finasteride 0.5%.Dropped the pills soon after, and kept on with topicals. It worked very well. Until I started suffering symptoms of gyno, 2 months in.
Took flaxseed oil and dropped the treatment. Pain and swell resolved.
Resumed the treatment while I was recovering, and the gyno symptoms didn't came back this time.
I kept on, with some stops, until July 2021, when I had to quit due to severe sexual sides. Im 25, 21 when I started.
I took a break of 2/3 months, and resumed the finasteride, but the chest burn, puffy nipples... came back. And this time it wasn't resolving with comtinuation, or flaxseed oil or ground flax.
I tried microdosing, 0,0016%, wondering if reducing the dht slower could be a way of bypassing the problem, but even with those tiny doses, i noticed puffy nipples, swollen lumps under the skin, not only under the nipple.
So I was wondering, could this proof that the minimum effectve dosage, it's not the same oral and topically? Maybe topically it's effective even at doses that it isnt orally.
Anyway, some important notes/questions on all of this:
-How can we explain the difference in effectivity of finasteride depending on the dose, if the inhibition is almost the same for every dose, at least orally.
- Being sensitive to it, was prety usefull to adress that even at super low doses, finasteride GOES SYSTEMIC TOO.
-I ('d like to) think that topically, the curve of effectiveness on low doses is different from the oral one, where a jump from 0 to 100 happens, and that we could find a dose topically where we inhibit dht by 20% or so. Maybe with the oral, at such low quantities, your organism can purge it, or can't reach levels on blood at which it could affect scalp. I think it's not that theres no in between, is that the oral path doesn't allow you to be on it.
-If what i've just write is not correct, and 50 or more dht is inhibited on my serum dht, even at this doses, causing the gyno, and it's not just (as I think it is) that the fact that I had gyno for years on puberty created sensible tissue to estrogens that can reactivate even with subtle changes, then we know that doses as low as 0.01 mg reduce, at least topically, serum dht that much, which is something that is not proven, I think.
Any thoughts on how this gyno thing is possible, or any other thing, will be apreciated, as this is my last bullet, and if the gyno doesn't resolve by continuing the treatment, I'll have to give up.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and sorry for the possible mistakes on my english, as it's not my mother language.
*Updte: I tried to synthetize the idea, so the post could be readable. I was panicing while writing it first time and couldn't deliver the message properly.
By the way, had some blood check and th Prolactin came like x16 my normal levels, it was 36, can't remember units. Estradiol was 30. Fsh low, too. I was taking flaxseed.
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