Topical Dutasteride Case Assessment Thread

[Mustang]

That 500 dalton bullshit is a meme at this point. Everyone here is obsessed with "penetration", what they really should be obsessed with is scalp retention.

Well it's not.
Topical Finasteride reduced my serum DHT by 60% at 0.1%
Topical Duasteride reduced my serum DHT by 20% at 1%
I used a dose 10 times larger on a med with a half life of 5 weeks, not hours.
Explain that to me.

 

[oddmood]

It greatly depends on the other ingredients. Take a look at this study comparing finasteride and dutasteride with their special formulation. https://europepmc.org/article/med/32739394

"After 24 h of the penetration experiment finasteride-ION lead to almost double of the finasteride amount in the skin compared to control solution, while dutasteride-ION lead to almost 4-times the amount of dutasteride in the skin compared to control solution. Therefore, when each drug penetration is compared to its respective control, dutasteride-ION was twice more effective than finasteride-ION (4-fold versus 2-fold increase, respectively)."

 

[Mustang]

I used the same vehicle on both.

 

[sonictemples]

If you use Topical Dutasteride with a regular vehicle you will end up with systemic side effects.
Been there, done that.

Liposomal or nothing for me.

I have used both and had no sides with either
I was using Liposomal first and then changed to a standard vehicle as I couldn't get any for a while.
No change so far 3 months in. Systemic DHT reduction is less now than when on Liposomal dutasteride but I also changed to 0.1% from 0.5% so that would probably was the cause. Scalp DHT reduction is still the same, 80%
Still no hair loss which is what matters and still no sides.

Hello Mustang, these posts of yours have 11 days or so between them so I have been pretty confused, would you mind relieving my confusion?

 

[Mustang]

Hello Mustang, these posts of yours have 11 days or so between them so I have been pretty confused, would you mind relieving my confusion?

There is not much to explain. My initial assessment was wrong. I had sides with other vehicles on Finasteride and wrongly assumed Liposomes was what was preventing them.

A fellow forum member on the another forum used a different vehicle (non Liposomal) and had the same results. 80-90% scalp DHT reduction confirmed high performance liquid chromatography a few days after my original post. His serum DHT was reduced 20% I believe.

I felt by then I could recommend this with other vehicles

I apologize if I confused you

 

[sonictemples]

There is not much to explain. My initial assessment was wrong. I had sides with other vehicles on Finasteride and wrongly assumed Liposomes was what was preventing them.

A fellow forum member on the another forum used a different vehicle (non Liposomal) and had the same results. 80-90% scalp DHT reduction confirmed high performance liquid chromatography a few days after my original post. His serum DHT was reduced 20% I believe.

I felt by then I could recommend this with other vehicles

I apologize if I confused you

Thank you, is that user in the Discord server? There are several people with blood tests so I am trying to keep a record to get an accurate estimation

 

[jackisback]

I’m planning to get bloodwork tomorrow to check how topical dutasteride is impacting my levels. I was planning to just do it through a T clinic and pay out of pocket for DHT somewhere else (they won’t write the DHT script—I think they know insurance balks at it Bc they know it’s cosmetic).
But now I might cancel Bc idk if the clinic will test for enough things? What all is essential. Obviously DHT, t, free t. But what else? Prolactin? Estradiol? I don’t know any of this sh*t

 

[Equal Rights]

I’m planning to get bloodwork tomorrow to check how topical dutasteride is impacting my levels. I was planning to just do it through a T clinic and pay out of pocket for DHT somewhere else (they won’t write the DHT script—I think they know insurance balks at it Bc they know it’s cosmetic).
But now I might cancel Bc idk if the clinic will test for enough things? What all is essential. Obviously DHT, t, free t. But what else? Prolactin? Estradiol? I don’t know any of this sh*t

An extensive hormone test would inlcude the following: total T, free T, DHT, SHBG, Estradiol, prolactin, DHEA, FSH, LH, progesterone, albumin. I would be interested to know if this could be cut down further to the bare essentials though. Maybe some informed members could give their 5 cents.

 

[corkmeister]

Alright, so I decided to take the plunge and try it for myself. I'd call it a success, but with a few caveats.

Bloodtests:
I had my serum dht tested prior to applying, and six and a half days post-application. I tried to keep the variables as consistent as possible: time of testing (both at 9AM), amount of sleep prior, etc. I chose to measure the value at around seven days because I would ideally use it once weekly, so this would roughly tell me whether a re-dose at that point was feasible. I would have liked to get more bloodtests at different intervals but they're expensive and a huge hassle to get done.

Application:
I only had a 1% bottle (liposomal) from Farmacia Parati available. I wanted to use around 2.5mg, so I measured out a little over 0.25ml (to compensate for whatever got stuck in my hair) and asked my girlfriend - god bless her - to meticulously apply it to my crown. She was actually able to get quite a bit of coverage, but if I had to do it myself it would probably be difficult (albeit not impossible).

In dgadgdea's case, 0.1% appeared to cause no reduction in serum dht. I wanted to avoid dosing too high (I would really rather not use these drugs at all, and given dutasteride's dose-dependent halflife I knew I had to be careful), but not too low either because that wouldn't give me a lot of new information. So I settled on 2.5mg.

Results:
My serum-dht at baseline was 0.68 nmol/l, and 6.5 days after applying 2.5mg of dutasteride it was 0.64 nmol/l. So a difference of roughly 6%.

Sidenotes:
1. By doing this experiment, I accidentally found out my dht levels are quite low in relation to my testosterone levels. The ratio seems to be way off. I wasn't coming off finasteride/dutasteride, and I wasn't born with 5ar-deficiency either. I'm looking into it and it's more of a personal issue, but I felt I should mention it to you guys for the sake of transparency. The first (baseline) bloodtest only tested dht. Only in the second one did I include testosterone, because I was surprised by the low inititial dht-reading. It's theoretically possible that, for some reason, my testosterone levels (and thus dht) were really low at baseline, but normal at the follow-up test. That could mean that dutasteride was supressing dht at follow-up, and the fact that the two values are almost identical was merely a coincidence. I don't think it's likely though, because that would be a pretty big coincidence, and it would have to be a huge fluctuation in testosterone, even though I kept every variable as consistent as possible. I'll be getting more tests, this time from a different laboratory to shed further light on this.
2. It seems like it reduced my shedding. Could be a fluke, and I also don't know how I would even explain it given what we know about hair growth/loss. These drugs shouldn't be able to work that fast.
3. I may have experienced some mild side effects. I think I noticed a slight reduction in libido for around 3 days after applying it, after which it quickly improved back to normal. This may have all been in my head though. I really don't underestimate the power of placebo when it comes to things like libido. Whatever the case may be, I felt completely normal at the 5 day mark.
4. Applying 0.25ml of 1% concentration may be different from applying 1ml of 0.25%.

Analysis:
My results appear consistent with what Mustang, Vincent and Dgadgea reported, although I do not think I'd personally be able to tolerate extremely high doses with almost no effect on serum dht, like Mustang and Vincent report. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm aware that a single experiment like this, with only testing serum dht, has its limitatons. I'll obviously need more data in the future, which I intend on getting.

So, although it's hard to draw definitive conclusions from this, I'm inclined to believe that a 0.25% dose, for me personally, is feasible in the sense that 5-alpha-reductase (in the rest of the body) is either fully or mostly recovered at the 7 day mark. So re-dosing at that point would be possible without significant accumulation. I can't be sure whether I actually experienced side-effects, especially because they felt quite mild. However, if I had to draw a conclusion one way or the other, I would say that I did actually experience them and it wasn't due to nocebo.

Going forward, I'll be assuming that this was indeed the case and that my dht-levels were somewhat inhibited following application, and then quickly returned to baseline. If I'm correct, that tells me the 0.25% dose was too high for what I'm trying to do, but not that far off. Alternatively, I'm wrong and it was all nocebo and my dht levels weren't impacted at all. But I'd rather err on the side of caution in this case and leave myself room to gradually increase the dose. It'a shame I couldn't get another bloodtest at the 3 day mark or something, but as I said, they're expensive and a huge hassle to get done.

For my next experiment, I'll adjust the dose to 0.1% (1mg). Given my experience with 0.25%, this should be sufficiently low to avoid any significant impact on serum dht. I should have an actual 0.1% bottle available by then, so that I can apply the entire 1ml.

At this point, I'm more concerned with questions of effectiveness rather than safety. We still don't know whether applying once a week is enough/optimal. I would like to eventually figure out if I can lower the frequency further to every 4 or 5 days. That's why I'm planning to do the following. I'll apply 1ml @ 0.1% once weekly, for four weeks in total, and evaluate with a bloodtest. If the results are as expected, I will start re-dosing after 6 days rather than 7, evaluate with another bloodtest after 4 applications, and keep repeating the process.

 

[dgadgdea]

thank you for your service!

 

[sonictemples]

I’m planning to get bloodwork tomorrow to check how topical dutasteride is impacting my levels. I was planning to just do it through a T clinic and pay out of pocket for DHT somewhere else (they won’t write the DHT script—I think they know insurance balks at it Bc they know it’s cosmetic).
But now I might cancel Bc idk if the clinic will test for enough things? What all is essential. Obviously DHT, t, free t. But what else? Prolactin? Estradiol? I don’t know any of this sh*t

Anything new on your way, man?

 

[Mustang]

I will start using 0.1% 3 times a week once back on TRT.
Once a week is still more than enough for natural.

You can immediately see the effect of this medication as it reduces shedding very fast.

 

[sonictemples]

I will start using 0.1% 3 times a week once back on TRT.
Once a week is still more than enough for natural.

You can immediately see the effect of this medication as it reduces shedding very fast.

Can you get tests as well

 

[Stating facts]

Alright, so I decided to take the plunge and try it for myself. I'd call it a success, but with a few caveats.

Bloodtests:
I had my serum dht tested prior to applying, and six and a half days post-application. I tried to keep the variables as consistent as possible: time of testing (both at 9AM), amount of sleep prior, etc. I chose to measure the value at around seven days because I would ideally use it once weekly, so this would roughly tell me whether a re-dose at that point was feasible. I would have liked to get more bloodtests at different intervals but they're expensive and a huge hassle to get done.

Application:
I only had a 1% bottle (liposomal) from Farmacia Parati available. I wanted to use around 2.5mg, so I measured out a little over 0.25ml (to compensate for whatever got stuck in my hair) and asked my girlfriend - god bless her - to meticulously apply it to my crown. She was actually able to get quite a bit of coverage, but if I had to do it myself it would probably be difficult (albeit not impossible).

In dgadgdea's case, 0.1% appeared to cause no reduction in serum dht. I wanted to avoid dosing too high (I would really rather not use these drugs at all, and given dutasteride's dose-dependent halflife I knew I had to be careful), but not too low either because that wouldn't give me a lot of new information. So I settled on 2.5mg.

Results:
My serum-dht at baseline was 0.68 nmol/l, and 6.5 days after applying 2.5mg of dutasteride it was 0.64 nmol/l. So a difference of roughly 6%.

Sidenotes:
1. By doing this experiment, I accidentally found out my dht levels are quite low in relation to my testosterone levels. The ratio seems to be way off. I wasn't coming off finasteride/dutasteride, and I wasn't born with 5ar-deficiency either. I'm looking into it and it's more of a personal issue, but I felt I should mention it to you guys for the sake of transparency. The first (baseline) bloodtest only tested dht. Only in the second one did I include testosterone, because I was surprised by the low inititial dht-reading. It's theoretically possible that, for some reason, my testosterone levels (and thus dht) were really low at baseline, but normal at the follow-up test. That could mean that dutasteride was supressing dht at follow-up, and the fact that the two values are almost identical was merely a coincidence. I don't think it's likely though, because that would be a pretty big coincidence, and it would have to be a huge fluctuation in testosterone, even though I kept every variable as consistent as possible. I'll be getting more tests, this time from a different laboratory to shed further light on this.
2. It seems like it reduced my shedding. Could be a fluke, and I also don't know how I would even explain it given what we know about hair growth/loss. These drugs shouldn't be able to work that fast.
3. I may have experienced some mild side effects. I think I noticed a slight reduction in libido for around 3 days after applying it, after which it quickly improved back to normal. This may have all been in my head though. I really don't underestimate the power of placebo when it comes to things like libido. Whatever the case may be, I felt completely normal at the 5 day mark.
4. Applying 0.25ml of 1% concentration may be different from applying 1ml of 0.25%.

Analysis:
My results appear consistent with what Mustang, Vincent and Dgadgea reported, although I do not think I'd personally be able to tolerate extremely high doses with almost no effect on serum dht, like Mustang and Vincent report. Still, I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm aware that a single experiment like this, with only testing serum dht, has its limitatons. I'll obviously need more data in the future, which I intend on getting.

So, although it's hard to draw definitive conclusions from this, I'm inclined to believe that a 0.25% dose, for me personally, is feasible in the sense that 5-alpha-reductase (in the rest of the body) is either fully or mostly recovered at the 7 day mark. So re-dosing at that point would be possible without significant accumulation. I can't be sure whether I actually experienced side-effects, especially because they felt quite mild. However, if I had to draw a conclusion one way or the other, I would say that I did actually experience them and it wasn't due to nocebo.

Going forward, I'll be assuming that this was indeed the case and that my dht-levels were somewhat inhibited following application, and then quickly returned to baseline. If I'm correct, that tells me the 0.25% dose was too high for what I'm trying to do, but not that far off. Alternatively, I'm wrong and it was all nocebo and my dht levels weren't impacted at all. But I'd rather err on the side of caution in this case and leave myself room to gradually increase the dose. It'a shame I couldn't get another bloodtest at the 3 day mark or something, but as I said, they're expensive and a huge hassle to get done.

For my next experiment, I'll adjust the dose to 0.1% (1mg). Given my experience with 0.25%, this should be sufficiently low to avoid any significant impact on serum dht. I should have an actual 0.1% bottle available by then, so that I can apply the entire 1ml.

At this point, I'm more concerned with questions of effectiveness rather than safety. We still don't know whether applying once a week is enough/optimal. I would like to eventually figure out if I can lower the frequency further to every 4 or 5 days. That's why I'm planning to do the following. I'll apply 1ml @ 0.1% once weekly, for four weeks in total, and evaluate with a bloodtest. If the results are as expected, I will start re-dosing after 6 days rather than 7, evaluate with another bloodtest after 4 applications, and keep repeating the process.

Thank you for your service, mate.

Just a small query , did you also measure scalp DHT?

 

[corkmeister]

Thank you for your service, mate.

Just a small query , did you also measure scalp DHT?

Unfortunately not. I would have to find a specialist with the right equipment, and convince them to perform an experiment on my own terms, just so I can figure out how effective rubbing dutasteride on my scalp is. Even if I find someone, they'd never agree to it. Maybe if I could find a private clinic somewhere, but I have no idea where to look.

 

[Abomination]

Things are looking bright. Corkmeister was able to dig up a study from Olsson Gisleskog who worked for GSK at the time. From the graphs, one-time usage of 0.1 mg of oral dutasteride has only blocked around 30-40% of serum DHT which recovered fully after a week, the dutasteride also gets out of the system in less than a week. From this, as long as our topical applications don't result in more than 0.1 mg systemic absorption, we are in the saw palmetto territory orally while possibly having a similar efficacy to oral finasteride in the scalp.

Also, some friends have provided us with bloodwork which shows that scalp DHT can be decreased way more while serum DHT can be less affected.

So yeah most people should get away with using the topicals at the right dose and the most important, at the right frequency. Just book a consultation with your doctor, discuss, get him to prescribe, get blood levels, apply the topical dutasteride, in the next 1-7 days get your serum DHT checked again and see if there is a change or not. Also report to us so we can build data.

How do you measure scalp DHT from bloodworks? You can't.

Dutasteride will not spike testosterone. Let's stop with that lie. It will only temporarily increase free test that will envetually lead to more aromatization signaling excess E2 into the hypothalamus therefor decreasing total testosterone and free test as a consequence. There are several studies on this. Even with Finasteride.

The majority of men with PFS are nothing but hypogonadal men with chronic low testosterone due to the imbalance of the negative feedback loop that is created when blocking the action of the 5 alpha reductase

Topical Dutasteride nukes scalp DHT while having a very small reduction on plasma DHT when used correctly as I explained on this thread. Once a week or once every 10 days.

If you are on TRT or have high levels of testosterone despite using Finasteride/Dutasteride which can happen then yes, you will need CB or RU as a compliment to prevent further miniaturizations caused by other androgens, mainly test.

How do you measure the scalp DHT? I want to measure it.

My DHT went from above range (1.45) to to low range (0.35) from using topical finasteride, so I don't see how oral dutasteride would have less systemic impact. The good news is that I've had no sides and i've used for it for many years, if anything the only side I noticed is that I no longer shot massive amounts of c*m which is annoying. However it doesn't stop hairloss.

Im also using dutasteride 0.25% every 3 days in trichosol format for the last 4 months and it doesn't do anything so far. I use like 4mls per application, no sides.

Now im looking at dutasteride mesotheraphy monthly at 0.05%, and I want to measure my scalp DHT and compare it to my current treatment and see if it does anything extra.

 

[Abomination]

You can do it by yourself if you're not scared of insulin syringes and if you can find a liquid solution of dutasteride on the market. you can find all the info about syringes and solution on the Egyptian pilot study.

I don't know where to find liquid dutasteride suited for inyections, also I can't really trust it. I don't even trust Kane and co. I would need to test each batch I buy myself increasing the price. At that point I would rather just pay a clinic to inyect it for myself. I couldn't be able to do it myself anyway.

 

[Abomination]

Unfortunately not. I would have to find a specialist with the right equipment, and convince them to perform an experiment on my own terms, just so I can figure out how effective rubbing dutasteride on my scalp is. Even if I find someone, they'd never agree to it. Maybe if I could find a private clinic somewhere, but I have no idea where to look.

So how are the people here claiming they measured scalp DHT doing it?

 

[Abomination]

If people could explain how they're applying it and whether it's a gel or a liquid would be hugely appreciated! I'm just trying to imagine how I'd apply it to a large portion of my scalp without megadosing. Details like dry scalp/wet scalp, cotton buds etc. Again, I appreciate the bravery and effort lads.

The format i've got is liquid. I have to use 4ml because otherwise I don't understand how people get coverage for all potential balding spots. You have to cover the whole NW9 area and you can't cover that with less than 4ml.

 

[Abomination]

For those of you who have or had been using topical dutasteride, I would like you to reply to a few questions for my spreadsheet.

1) For how long have/had you been using topical dutasteride?
2) What is/was your topicals concentration?
3) What is/was your application frequency?
4) When did you get sides if you got them?
5) What was your experience in regards to effect/side effects on oral treatment compared to a topical one, if you ever used antiandrogens orally

4 months
7% minoxidil 0.25% dutasteride, 4ml per application
I leave gaps of 3 days of not applying
no sides
never used orally

so far it doesn't do anything, in fact im lossing ground. Both topical finasteride and dutasteride don't seem to do anything. Topical finasteride lowered my DHT bloodwork results by like 70%... no sides other than the fact that I don't shot big amounts of c*m for some reason. I've used it for 8 years, the topical dutasteride is only 4 months, but so far like I said it doesn't do anything.

Btw it would be cool if this forum automatically merged replies. Im cba to manually join each quote on the same post.