Holy Moly. Dutasteride Is Massacring My Hairline

[Ninja Turtle]

@kir glad to hear you're having success. Looking good, dude.

The fact remains that some are (seemingly) adversely affected by use of 5ar inhibitors like finasteride and dutasteride.

My experience on finasteride, now 15 months on 1mg daily, has fallen far far short of my hopeful wishes. Not unlike @buckthorn, before finasteride I was a long term, gradual diffuse thinner with strong nw1 pattern. No temple recession. No vertex balding. I was only experiencing general thinning over the previous 10 years steadily. Since starting finasteride I've developed a very noticeable bald spot at the vertex on the right side, along with severe thinning of my hairline and recession of right temple by about 1 inch. The pace is brutal.

I don't know much about the up regulation theories, so I don't know if that's what I'm experiencing. I haven't experienced increased libido, itching, acne, or sebum production that seem to be part of the up regulation theory, but something fucked up is definitely going on here with regard to my finasteride use.

I keep telling myself that maybe sh*t just hit overdrive and finasteride isn't enough, but I'm too scared to jump to dutasteride and risk an even harsher response. Trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Even if upregulation was real (it isn’t), Dutasteride would be a fix as it inhibits 99% of type 2 DHT. Even if the receptors were jacked up there wouldn’t be enough DHT to hurt them.

 

[CrownBalding]

Just laughed my *** off at this title

 

[bluecyclone]

Is there any research on AR up regulation? I was tentative for the first two years of loss to try anything due to side effects. I had lowish serum DHT normal T.

I started on RU for 6 months then switched to Finasteride and it’s a gross mess, everywhere side and back hair quality also changed within a month.

Afraid to stop afraid to do nothing but each treatment seems to trigger a shed that doesn’t ever regrow.

 

[neddy2016]

From my experience taking Dutasteride gave me a hairline itch/tickle in the receding spots and i even had moments of tingling or pins and needles on the area at the back of my hairline where it looked like it was getting abit thin.

Although i will say this. apart from an itch i had no bad side effects, infact i felt pretty damn good all things considered.

Having recently stopped taking it the itch and tingling has gone... im still not 100% sure why my body reacted that way and gave me this itch... i don't get the male pattern baldness itch normally. although i noticed that i did get it again very mildly when i used revivogen scalp therapy and shampoo for 2 days.

it has popped into my head occasionally that i may have been getting a dutasteride induced shed itch... but i haven't seen anyone else report such a thing exists. its usually the opposite and Duta stops their itch. people often say the itch is a sign of your hairline being attacked by DHT or something.

This is all far to stressful when it was meant to be more simple. instead i have gone through more treatments that have either given me systematic side effects or given me what feels like a sped up receding hairline with an itch.