Excessive shedding after a few months of topical minoxidil

Blurryface · Aug 7, 2021

Hey everyone. It’s been 5,5 months since I started using topical minoxidil, I was somewhat around VA on Hamilton-Norwood scale then. So I went to a trichologist and he recommended that I start using Rogaine foam. And I gotta say it worked wonderfully, in 4 months a lot of my lost hair recovered and I got somewhat close to III on that scale. And of course I wanted to speed up the process of getting my hair back so I bought 15% iiSolutions with azelaic acid and started using it alongside with Rogain (applying Rogain foam in the morning and iiSolutions in the evening, since I’ve heard that it’s a reasonable thing to do and it has to speed it up) and after one month of that regimen my hair started shedding just like it did when I initially started using minoxidil. So I thought it’s okay and it’s only because I went up to the higher percentage that initial shedding thing repeated and it’ll stop after a couple of weeks. But it didn’t. It’s been a month since it started and it just won’t stop. It’s already noticeable, that balding area starts being clearly visible again. Can you guys help me out? I think it might be either an ‘initial’ shedding that occurs when starting minoxidil (since I went to the higher percentage) or a sync shedding (or maybe it’s both, maybe it’s combined because I chose the wrong timing to do it). Or maybe I just shouldn’t bother and go back to 5% Rogaine?

Grim · Aug 12, 2021

Blurryface said:
Hey everyone. It’s been 5,5 months since I started using topical minoxidil, I was somewhat around VA on Hamilton-Norwood scale then. So I went to a trichologist and he recommended that I start using Rogaine foam. And I gotta say it worked wonderfully, in 4 months a lot of my lost hair recovered and I got somewhat close to III on that scale. And of course I wanted to speed up the process of getting my hair back so I bought 15% iiSolutions with azelaic acid and started using it alongside with Rogain (applying Rogain foam in the morning and iiSolutions in the evening, since I’ve heard that it’s a reasonable thing to do and it has to speed it up) and after one month of that regimen my hair started shedding just like it did when I initially started using minoxidil. So I thought it’s okay and it’s only because I went up to the higher percentage that initial shedding thing repeated and it’ll stop after a couple of weeks. But it didn’t. It’s been a month since it started and it just won’t stop. It’s already noticeable, that balding area starts being clearly visible again. Can you guys help me out? I think it might be either an ‘initial’ shedding that occurs when starting minoxidil (since I went to the higher percentage) or a sync shedding (or maybe it’s both, maybe it’s combined because I chose the wrong timing to do it). Or maybe I just shouldn’t bother and go back to 5% Rogaine?

If dht isn't being blocked the minoxidil will not be as effective and the loss will resume and eat up any growth. Some finasteride and oral minoxidil will bring you back. If anything though the dht needs to go if you want regrowth this late in the game.

bluestar99 · Aug 12, 2021

You're probably already on finasteride. Obviously you should be on the 1 mg regiment. I'd go back to the 5%. I personally would stop using the 15% iiSolutions with azelaic acid and just go with finasteride and 5%. It's great it worked before.