Does minoxidil lose the effectiveness in long-time use?

[WarLord]

Of course it loses effectiveness in the long term like all male pattern baldness treatments.

It doesn't stop male pattern baldness, it is simply a growth stimulant which will do a good job of maintaining your hair for 5years or so... but after that who knows.

You have to remember every treatment loses effectiveness in the long-term (i.e. 10years +) even the mighty finasteride and dutasteride.

Sure, your 20-years' study unequivocally demonstrates this! Please, show me this epic work - or shut up!

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finasteride since 1997, Rogaine liquid since 1993, switched to rogaine foam in 2006.


Basically on Rogaine for 18 years and Propecia for 14 years and still have much more hair at age 42 than I did at 24.

Tell Bryan to put that in his study, lol

The worst thing is that these f*cking braindead idiots pollute the internet with their unfounded mystifications and negativism, and discourage people from the use of effective treatments.

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If you're lucky enough to tolerate both finasteride and minoxidil, then the big 3 will most definitely be enough to maintain your hair... only after 10-15years would you maybe need to consider adding other treatments to your regimen.

minoxidil is effective for roughly 5years, minoxidil + finasteride will be effective for 10-15years in most cases...

I see that you have quite accurate data. I am really looking forward to see the whole text of your research!

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Just wondering whose *** you are pulling those numbers out of as they are pure speculation

His brain is located in his ***.

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Wow, fast forward 9 days and boom minoxidil kicked into action again. Hope I don't jinx it, but there's been a vast, vast improvement over the last week. Hopefully it'll continue to improve, I'm not far off the point where I'll be very happy with the results now. And I pray to God that I actually get to keep the results for a while this time (I'm hoping finasteride will do the job here)

The newly regrown hairs have a short cycle. They will exchange for many times, until they get to normal.

 

[Beingbaldsucksass]

If you want to know more about minoxidil long-term effectiveness search for Bryan's threads.. he cites a number of studies which show that minoxidil haircount generally begins to fall after about 2years of use, then by year 5 haircount is back at baseline level... although obviously there will be some exceptions, i.e. minoxidil may only work for 2years on some men, while it could work for 12years on others, 5years is just the average response.

minoxidil alone, not with finasteride, with finasteride I heard of people maintaining for 10 even 15 years

 

[WarLord]

minoxidil alone, not with finasteride, with finasteride I heard of people maintaining for 10 even 15 years

Well, I see that Bryan is the ultimate source of all the garbage about minoxidil that we encounter on the internet.

The fact is that minoxidil effectiveness is dose-related. I may be an excellent responder, but it doesn't matter, because if minoxidil once worked and gradually loses efficiacy, it can always be upgraded. I believe that you can never lose hair on minoxidil, if it once worked in you. You will simply increase the concentration. It's that simple.

Go figure, with the use of 6% minoxidil and the dermastamp, I am now regrowing hair on places that have been bald for 15 years. The state of my right temple is better than ever before, and in fact, 2 out of 4 cm2 are covered by cosmetically acceptable hair. (But I am not too fine, because 15% minoxidil severely damaged hair in my left temple and if it doesn't grow back, I will have to undergo a hair transplantation.)

This doesn't suggest that it should stop working anytime soon. Actually, after I switched from 2% to 5% in 2008, I regrew few thin hairs on it. At the same time, I have never regrown any hair during the whole 11,5 years on 2% minoxidil. This indicates that minoxidil worked basically the same like at the beginning, because 5% was noticeably stronger than 2% 11,5 years before.

These concentrations are more than enough for me. I am a bit amused, when I hear people using the 15% version. This would burn my hair out of my skin.

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Well, I see that Bryan is the ultimate source of all the garbage about minoxidil that we encounter on the internet.

The fact is that minoxidil effectiveness is dose-related. I may be an excellent responder, but it doesn't matter, because if minoxidil once worked and gradually loses efficiacy, it can always be upgraded. I believe that you can never lose hair on minoxidil, if it once worked in you. You will simply increase the concentration. It's that simple.

Go figure, with the use of 6% minoxidil and the dermastamp, I am now regrowing hair on places that have been bald for 15 years. The state of my right temple is better than ever before, and in fact, 2 out of 4 cm2 are covered by cosmetically acceptable hair. (But I am not too fine, because 15% minoxidil severely damaged hair in my left temple and if it doesn't grow back, I will have to undergo a hair transplantation.)

This doesn't suggest that it should stop working anytime soon. Actually, after I switched from 2% to 5% in 2008, I regrew few thin hairs on it. At the same time, I have never regrown any hair during the whole 11,5 years on 2% minoxidil. This indicates that minoxidil worked basically the same like at the beginning, because 5% was noticeably stronger than 2% 11,5 years before.

These concentrations are more than enough for me. I am a bit amused, when I hear people using the 15% version. This would burn my hair out of my skin.

If 86% people keep their hair on finasteride for 10 years, then minoxidil+finasteride must keep hair in 90+% people until the end of their life.

 

[Deppish]

Where's the proof, if any, that minoxidil will lose its effect..?


Are there ways to monitor whether it's having any effect anymore?


And how would it factor in whether you're also on fina, or something else, or not..?




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(Note: This is one of my "New registrations must have at least 4 posts in order to create a new thread"-posts, so I hope people won't mind me digging up old threads or asking questions already answered... at least I'm not looking for answers I know already. I'll post the whole story at "Tell Your Story" once I can.)

 

[warner8]

I started minoxidil in 2009 when I just started to experience minor hairless from my hairline. I experienced a shed, but the regrowth was amazing. I would slack with the applications, I would get hairloss, and the minoxidil would regrow everything. This was all frontal hairless by the way. Because it came back everytime, I wasnt so obsessed with everyday applications because like I said it always comes back. I was only using liquid minoxidil at this point from walmart equate brand.

Around 3 years later, when the foam came about and was supposedly better absorbed I began using the rogaine brand foam. I noticed that I was for the first time beginning to lose hairs on my temple, I went back to equate liquid minoxidil. The big problem with minoxidil shedding is that it can be confused with progressive hairless shedding. By this I mean, when I started back on the liquid equate minoxidil and saw my hair getting worst, but it was actually my hairloss progressing beyond the minoxidil, or overpowering the minoxidil, not a real minoxidil shed. When after 3 months the liquid minoxidil from equate wasn't doing anything, I went for the first time to the brand name rogaine minoxidil with the idea the brand name must be better for the first tie. One again, i thought the hair getting worst was a minoxidil shed, but once again this was not the case. To cut a long story short, after shedding and shedding, I had to end up on finasteride 1 mg once a day. The DHT in my scalp as I was getting older was just overpowering the minoxidil.

Now, did my minoxidil start working again while I got on finasteride. No it didnt. I no longer saw the excellent growth i had with minoxidil that I had years ago, even with a DHT blocker such as finasteride. I even bumped up to 12% minoxidil, didnt see a thing. Now I am on a 15% minoxidil for little over a month now. I do not have such high hopes, as I thought over a double jump concentration jump to 12% from 5% would have had a more dramatic effect. so based off my experience i cant really say minoxidil has a dose dependent effect, and I would have to say for now, that might be true after a while minoxidil does lose it effect.

So now, I am on a compounded minoxidil, aka susans formula from murray avenue apothecary

its contains
minoxidil 15%
Azelaic Acid
Tretonin
Progesterone

I am also still on 1 mg generic finasteride for 15 months now. I just ordered a .5 mm derma roller to help with minoxidil absorption, and will be trying Herbalisers Natural topical homemade regrowth formula containing Coconut oil, and coconut milk, crushed fresh cilantro, emu oil, castor oil, olive oil. I will see what happens. I also will be trying regenpure shampoo as well. If this turns things around in terms of serious regrowth I will let everybody know.

 

[The Picard]

Does it affect the duration of minoxidil effectiveness at which point you start using it, and in what way? (age/amount of hair)

 

[Scrappy]

I don't think it does at all. I used 5% for more than 20% years. It definitely slowed my baldness. I would be a Norwood 5 by now, as my father was if I didn't use it. However, eventually age and DHT takes its toll, if DHT is not controlled.

The 2 combo (finasteride and minoxidil) is excellent at beating balding. One stops the DHT miniaturization process, the other grows the hair.

I use them both in a minoxidil concentrated solution, which I put on my scalp daily. I'm in my 40s, and I'm still growing hair back. Slowly but surely, and I'm no longer balding.

Minoxidil probably is not enough for most men, however.

Where/how do you get topical finasteride? I've been on Rogaine 7yrs, it's probably not working anymore, and I am basically trying everything but Propecia to save some hair.

 

[yetti]

Where/how do you get topical finasteride? I've been on Rogaine 7yrs, it's probably not working anymore, and I am basically trying everything but Propecia to save some hair.

I second this question. I just started liquid Rogaine a few weeks ago. I wonder about dropping a few finasteride pills into each bottle...

 

[jamesrav2]

I second this question. I just started liquid Rogaine a few weeks ago. I wonder about dropping a few finasteride pills into each bottle...

Unfortunately I don't think there's any indication that you'll bypass the possibility of side effects doing it that way. I believe I've read it gets absorbed all the same, no different than if you'd taken a pill. Whether really tiny amounts put on topically would solely help the follicle and it's DHT problem and not impact the rest of the body - I'm sure it's been tried and we'd know about it if it worked. The magic bullet would just prevent DHT from affecting follicles and not our body as a whole. I don't think anyone has claimed Finasteride meets that criteria.
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Note: a little further reading brings up these somewhat contradictory quotes, from the same promotional article from someone selling topical Finasteride:

"Our experience from several thousands of patients has been that less than 0.1% of patients have had side effects from topical 0.1% solutions of finasteride."

"... This suggests that the main action of finasteride is to lower circulating dihydrotestosterone through inhibiting production by the prostate ..."

So if you're a believer that lowering circulating DHT levels by 40-80% is a bad thing overall, then I'm not sure how quote #2 jibes with quote #1with respect to side effects.

I recall trying this in my mid 30's, and didn't feel the side effects were lessened. However, I don't think I did a proper experiment, having some minoxidil bottles with dissolved Finasteride, and some without (ie I knew it had Finasteride, and had negative pre-conceived notions based on taking small amounts of Finasteride (.5mg) orally in the past) With Kirkland 5% generic being so cheap (6 bottles is around $30 I think), it would be pretty easy to do a 'blind' test and judge for oneself.

 

[yetti]

Based on a post you made in another thread... it seems (unless I read it wrong) that you also got sides from the liquid finasteride, so you decreased the dosage?

 

[yetti]

You've probably said it about 380 times already in this forum, but I ask... min was pretty much effective for you for 21 straight years? Did it slowly get worse for those 21 years, or stay pretty steady? I'd be real happy to maintain for the next 21 years!