two week break from finasteride caused a shed?

[yadayada029]

I took finasteride inconsistently between the end of november and december, and was absolutely off it for two weeks. Would that have initiated a shed or has finasteride started losing its effectiveness?

before


after

 

[Digidako]

Don't sweat it brother, I always shed if I take a few weeks off of finasteride.
Hair cycles are long, just be patient and everything will stabilize

 

[yadayada029]

Thanks that makes me feel a little better. When I saw that patch I was stunned. I though it took 6-12 weeks to see shedding. Hopefully I get back what I lost.

 

[yadayada029]

Any one want to take a guess if it will grow back and how long it might take?

- - - Updated - - -

I will never again take a break from finasteride. The hair fall caused me massive stress

 

[myhairbegone]

Why did you stop taking it? Just got lazy or did you have sides? If sides do you mind me asking which ones / how bad?

 

[yadayada029]

I thought I was having sides. See my thread in my signature. The doctor wanted blood work done with me off finasteride for a while. Had I known it would cause such a shed I would have said forget it.

For all the issues with sides, nothing caused me so much grief as that balding spot on my head.

 

[Digidako]

You took it inconsistently which effectively altered your body's ability to adapt to this fluctuating internal state, and shed hair as consequence.

Certain medications take [sometimes] weeks to reach stable blood levels to achieve their desired pharmacologic activity. With regards to finasteride, you need to understand that it will lower your systemic DHT, and any sudden hormonal imbalance will have direct ramifications on hair (hair follicles are very sensitive to hormonal change). In consequence, your body's natural ability to remain stable [homeostasis] will be thrown off until it can re-adjust to this new "low-DHT" environment. I truly believe that this phenomenon is what was responsible for your "side-effects". I'm confident that if you just stick with the treatment, after a few week to a month these "side-effects" will become much less of a problem.
----------
As an aside, I used quotations "" around side-effects for the simple fact that if you have not gotten blood tests done, it would be scientifically inaccurate to attribute observations to Finasteride alone.

finasteride has a serum half-life of ~six hours with oral bio-avalibility at ~63%.
I will explain what this means the best way I can.

1. yadayada ingests 1mg at 0:00 hours.
   • 63% of the 1mg tablet (0.63mg) is effectively absorbed into the body. 0:00 hours=0.63mg
2. Six hours later, 1/2 of the initial dose remains in circulation.---> 6:00 hours = 0.315
3. 12:00 hours = 0.1575mg remains in circulation.
4. 18:00 hours = 0.07875mg remains in circulation
5. It takes around 6 half-lives for a drug to be fully eliminated

​
After only 18 hours, Finasteride has become nearly inactive.
THIS IS WHY IT WORKS THE BEST IF TAKEN EVERYDAY.


Albeit, based on this information it seems that maybe twice a day dosing would be optimal, hmmm... food for thought I guess.
Off to the research lab for me.

 

[yadayada029]

It seems, not surprisingly, that I shed from all over my scalp. The crown was the most immediately noticeable, but the hairline, forelock, and corners all exhibited thinning out.

 

[yadayada029]

Its been a month and a half and it's seems that I continue to shed, especially from the crown. It's looking pretty awful back there. Hopefully this turns around soon.

 

[shookwun]

FYI: different lighting and angles makes a huge difference in picture distortion.

 

[sebastian1807]

Did you resume taking Finasteride after the two week break? I took a break for two weeks also and I’m worried the shedding won’t stop