“Big 3” for 17 months. Dutasteride for the last 3. I’ve killed my hair haven’t I?
Finasteride Shedding And Reflex Hyperandrogenecity !!! Plz Help Me !!! What Should I Do ???
- Thread starter TitsWillSag
- Start date
Still on dutasteride like an idiot.
- Reaction score
- 432
No, it still looks salvageable. It's honestly quite amazing that you still have hair giving your age, most of us dream to make it to the 40s with at least NW3 still intact. When i saw "AAs" i was surprised, i thought some extreme regimen or something. Did you drop finasteride when you introduced dutasteride ??
I have sort of a long hair loss history. I’ve had areata since I was 25 but I was in remission for 10 years when I lost a huge chunk the size of a softball on the back of my head in early 2018. About a month later my temples started receding rapidly and even as my areata started filling back in with corticosteroid treatment I was suddenly and quickly losing hair in the front. So I jumped on the big 3 in July of 2018 and rode it out until November of 2019. During that time my hairline receded quite a bit as well as continued recession at the temples. I was hoping that dutasteride would finally slow things down to my pre hair loss rate but I’ve continued to thin out everywhere. I stopped taking finasteride the day I started dutasteride. Maybe not the best approach in hindsight. I know that I’m lucky in relative terms but I do have an identical twin brother who doesn’t have any of these hair issues so every time I see him it’s like a kick in the balls to see what my hair used to look like. I’d imagine I’m the only person in this forum who is on DHT blockers and has a twin with much better hair on no treatment. Makes me wonder how much of my hair loss is genetic and how much is underlying inflammation/immune reaction. I sometimes think the medicine is triggering the immune response but I have yet to find a dermatologist who can figure out what’s going on definitively.
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- Reaction score
- 177
Man its normal to see no result at the 2 months mark. What did you expect? Regrowth of all your hair in 2 weeeks?
Who said I was expecting something at 2 month mark?I only said that there is still nothing to report.
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- 544
I believed I had this close to two years ago. Now I’m still on finasteride and my hair hasn’t worsened that much since. I think our BDD makes us believe we’re losing a lot more than we are
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- 29
Finasteride gave me horrible shock loss and no maintenence, But I still took it for 6 months like an idiot and finally gave up in May 2019. After I quit my hair rebounded slightly with less shedding in the summer. Now it is February 2019 and I have terrible itchiness and burning and I am diffusing everywhere the past 2 months. I don't know if I should go back on finasteride or switch to dutasteride or try RU. Any advice?
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- 6
RU is gonna be my first go to along Rogaine.
i still cannot believe that the medicine that was supposed to save hair destroyed them for us. Wtfff !!!
This happened to me also, within the space of 6 weeks of taking finasteride from Oct-Dec 18. My hair is now lifeless, dry and dull.
I could literally feel my hair changing texture from day to day but was told that it gets worse before it gets better. People will say I wasn't on the drug for long enough but it made my scalp burn, my skin oily, my libido shoot through the roof, it turned my hair from black to brown, it actually thinned the hair on my head and I was getting severe panic attacks (which could have been from seeing my hair change so drastically so quickly). I've also increased body hair, in places where I couldn't see any before. 14 months off the drug and I still have all those symptoms.
My hair was pretty thick and hairloss minimal before starting finasteride. I hate it now. The hair quality has returned slightly to what it was before I took it but it still snaps if I pull on it.
I could literally feel my hair changing texture from day to day but was told that it gets worse before it gets better. People will say I wasn't on the drug for long enough but it made my scalp burn, my skin oily, my libido shoot through the roof, it turned my hair from black to brown, it actually thinned the hair on my head and I was getting severe panic attacks (which could have been from seeing my hair change so drastically so quickly). I've also increased body hair, in places where I couldn't see any before. 14 months off the drug and I still have all those symptoms.
My hair was pretty thick and hairloss minimal before starting finasteride. I hate it now. The hair quality has returned slightly to what it was before I took it but it still snaps if I pull on it.
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- 6
Man its so distressing. How i wish we could at least get back to baseline. Treatment not working is understandable. But the treatment completely f***ing up your hair is just beyond my comprehension.
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- 6
How long did you take it for ? did the shedding stop ? How much you lost and how much have you recovered (if any) ?
also, did you start any other treatment after that ?
I only took it for six weeks but those symptoms started within a few days of being on it. I first put the burning sensation down to paranoia and the oily skin to bad diet but when I could feel the texture changing, my hair turning lighter, unable to style it anymore and my barber even commenting saying it was unhealthy, I knew something wasn't right. And it's continued now, even 14 months on. The shedding may have slowed a little but I think it's increased miniaturisation as I don't seem to have recovered. Hard to tell how much I've lost but it's destroyed my density.
I haven't tried anything else because I've read that it can worsen it further and my doctor also advised me not to.
This drug isn't a miracle drug and I find it hard to believe the success rate. And the fact if you continue to lose hair/have increased hair loss you're just told that you're a non responder when we should probably question whether some of the non responders are actually speeding up hair loss.
I haven't tried anything else because I've read that it can worsen it further and my doctor also advised me not to.
This drug isn't a miracle drug and I find it hard to believe the success rate. And the fact if you continue to lose hair/have increased hair loss you're just told that you're a non responder when we should probably question whether some of the non responders are actually speeding up hair loss.
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This is exactly like mine. These pictures are probably the best evidence I've seen for the argument of this drug doing more harm than good. Unfortunately I don't have any decent before pics of my own hair, they are all quite low quality but I have plenty of pics since taking finasteride that show similar hair quality to yours. Even in the OP you can the difference in hair quality, although his hair is still jet black.
Winds me up when people refuse to believe the negative effect this drug can have.
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- 651
You had the burning/itch before finasteride?
Nope, absolutely no irritation whatsoever
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- 651
In the first couple of days you started shedding and itching?
I did this for 20 months. Im sure that by stopping it’s just going to invite DHT to come flooding back in and destroy everything I have left. Is there any hope of a recovery for me?
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- 6
Bro imo you need to get off of it.
Try other treatments meanwhile. RU, Zix, Rogaine, microneedling etc. there are many others. I hear that Zix can lower DHT levels in scalp alot. And RU has been very effective for a lot of people. Its efficacy is said to be even better that finasteride. We’ll never know if we never try.
besides that drug is already screwing your hair up. So whats even the point in taking it ?