6 year proscar update (good news and bad), need some advice

[Diddy]

It's been a good number of years since I've even thought about hairloss (or been to any forums), but you can read my original story here:

http://www.gourmetstylewellness.com/interact/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5728&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Basically around 9 months or so into taking quarter proscar my hair thickened up tremendously, and I'm happy to say it has pretty much stayed that way. I'm 27 now, and I never thought I'd say this but I have considerably more hair then the average 27 year old. I'm positive I'd be NW3+ by now if I wasn't on this stuff (most of my male family members were full on NW4 - 5 by this age).

I do though believe I now have to get off it. I can't remember when exactly but when I went through a bad shed maybe 3 years or so ago I decided to get some dutasteride as a plan B if the shed never recovered. I thought proscar had run it's course, so shortly thereafter I cut out proscar for a month or so and switched to dutasteride. Almost immediately after taking dutasteride I had these scary as hell brain / memory issues. I was basically in a complete cloud all day, I'd go to meetings at work, and then afterwords could barely remember what happened. I'd space out a lot too. Got off the dutasteride, brain problems went away, went back to Proscar, but at higher dose for a while. Hair recovered like usual.

Flash forward to a couple of months ago. Just like any day of the week I wake up, take a shower, and something feels off with my head. Thought I was maybe just getting sick, but after a couple days of foggy memory it all started to eerily remind me of when I was on dutasteride. 2 weeks go by and it's not getting better, so just incase I decide to stop the proscar for a few weeks. Sure enough after 2 weeks brain is back to normal. I wait another week and take another pill to make sure it's not something else. Take a 1/8th pill, go to bed, mid-morning next day brain is a mess, feel like i'm in a total haze. I have absolutely no idea why this would randomly occur after such a long time, but it is, and frankly my hair right now just isn't worth the cost of my brain (I work with a lot of formulas and numbers all day, and for those few weeks I had some serious difficulties properly doing my job).

So folks - anything new come around in those 3-4 years I've been gone? I thought age would make me care less about my hair, and while it does somewhat, I still am nowhere near comfortable letting it go...

minoxidil is a no go for me....dutasteride is absolutely a no go.... nizoral and vitamins I've already been taking, and I doubt will help much much once my DHT receptors throttle up again... This post is my first check back into things, but I've got a gut feeling not much has probably changed...

Also if anyone has any questions about my experience, go for it. I'm really hoping not to get back into cruising the hair loss forums, but I'll stick around for a bit.

Many thanks for you advice folks.

Diddy

 

[Mr_T]

From what I can gather the big 3 are still the main players in this hairloss battle. Was just wondering have you tried reducing your dosage of proscar to see if that helps?

 

[Timi]

was dutasteride good for Your Hair??

for me was dutasteride a Desaster

the side effects the same

Timi

 

[Sorue]

ok dude, here's the deal.
dutasteride stays in your system for a LOOOONG time before it finally gets out of the body. I am pretty sure that it is the residual dutasteride that's causing the mental issues you have and not the finasteride. As to why you getting off the finasteride would stop the mental sides.. i would say it's more placebo effect

 

[Timi]

i have stop dutasteride March 2008

and i have from finasteride side effects as never bevor
15Years finasteride no side effects (little Eye burning)

this sh*t dutasteride Drug destroyed my Hormonbalance


Timi

 

[IBM]

Could you post some pics of your hair.

 

[Petchsky]

I'd say your options now lie with topicals, look in to proxiphen, spironolactone cream, revivogen, fluridill, maybe topical finasteride, promox. unfortunately there has not been a new drug to replace finasteride as yet.

 

[Diddy]

ok dude, here's the deal.
dutasteride stays in your system for a LOOOONG time before it finally gets out of the body. I am pretty sure that it is the residual dutasteride that's causing the mental issues you have and not the finasteride. As to why you getting off the finasteride would stop the mental sides.. i would say it's more placebo effect

I was only on the dutasteride for a few months over 3 years ago. Brain fog then went away within a month after quitting, never came back. This time around it's definitely the finasteride (It's now been 3 weeks since I've been off Propecia again, brain fog went away like clockwork again around 1.5 - 2 weeks out of my system). Very real side effect, terribly scary one to have happen.

Petchsky: You seem like you know your stuff, seen your name in a lot of other posts. I think I've decided to add the following in lieu of stopping proscar: 5% spironolactone Cream, Tricomin peptides. Reasoning is they both seem fairly easy to apply topicals, and there's at least some science backing them up (albeit they're both weak). I'd only be applying to temples and area an inch behind. I don't need to regrow anything, just maintain what I have. Revivogen I like the idea of (remember years ago gourmetstylewellness.com had success in combination with spironolactone), but it seems a bit hokier then the others, and application seems a hassle (appears to be issues with staining / scalp irritation).

IBM: My hair is pretty much identical to my after photos from years ago. Hair is not quite as thick as back then, but styled it's not noticeable. Hairline hasn't moved further back at all. For 6 years later I sure can't complain.

I am quite scared as to what the next year will hold, whether hair will 'catch up' for all those lost years, or continue as if things were frozen during those 6 years (hopefully the latter). Ideally I'd like an outcome like gourmetstylewellness.com, where it seems he was able to avoid a major hit, and coasted for the next several years on topicals alone.

 

[DoctorHouse]

Diddy, since you have been on finasteride for 6 years, could you tell me when you noticed your hair reached its maximum thickness. I am also curious that during those 6 years, did you experience the typically rollercoaster shed or synchronized shed EACH year? Or did your thickness reach its maximum and then it stayed that way for 6 years straight without any relapses. I am just trying to understand how finasteride works long term. I have read some people saying they noticed their hair looked the best finally at the 3 to 4 year mark on finasteride. I was wondering how your experience was during the 6 years. Could you kind of sum it up from year 1 to the present time?

 

[Vigaku]

Diddy, I'll be honest. You are the best anti-androgen improvement I've seen, period. If I didn't know any better I'd think you got a partial hair transplant.

 

[Diddy]

Diddy, since you have been on finasteride for 6 years, could you tell me when you noticed your hair reached its maximum thickness. I am also curious that during those 6 years, did you experience the typically rollercoaster shed or synchronized shed EACH year? Or did your thickness reach its maximum and then it stayed that way for 6 years straight without any relapses. I am just trying to understand how finasteride works long term. I have read some people saying they noticed their hair looked the best finally at the 3 to 4 year mark on finasteride. I was wondering how your experience was during the 6 years. Could you kind of sum it up from year 1 to the present time?

Sure, my hair was probably the healthiest looking somewhere between the 1 - 2 year timeframe; however that said the first 2 years were much more filled with ups and downs (sheds a bit more stronger and more frequent then in later years). I never though even during a shed dropped back to baseline (I think there was one time around the 3rd year I got somewhat close and stupidly hopped on dutasteride).

For me my hair 'bellweather' is my right temple, which I can tell when going through a shed lightens up and gets a bit thin. After 2 years on the stuff I seemed to go into a routine where in the winter I'd always notice my hair get dry / crappy, but sure enough come spring it'd always come back thick as ever. Again, nothing noticeable to others, just me. It could very well be just the weather, but there were some months where I'd freak out that it stopped working. Hair I would say was the most consistently stable during years 3 - 5 (Last summer my hair wasn't quite as good as in past summers, same with this winter).

For me it's been all around pretty stable, certainly nothing extreme like I've seen with some people and their minoxidil sheds.