Topical spironolactone Users

[CCS]

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/dutasteride2b.htm
http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/ ??

Bryan,

What is your homepage? I was going to go find the spironolactone cream vs liquid study you had, using the address on that dutaseride graph, but I cut of the end, I don't get any web page.


Everyone else, there is a study that showed that 1% spironolactone cream (water, alcohol, PPG, oils, so jetroleum jelley, emulsifiers) was affective at treating women's facial hair and 1% liquid (water, alcholol) did nothing.
Perhaps the PPG did something, or perhaps it was the evaporation speed. The study did not figure out why. It just showed that one was more effective. Dr Lee's 2% does have 30% PPG, so we are comparing apples and oranges.

 

[Bryan]

http://www.geocities.com/bryan50001/spironolactone.txt
(spironolactone creams vs. spironolactone solutions)

 

[Felk]

Damn, there are some revelations in that.

The spironolactone cream performed well, whereas the alcohol might not have performed at all. However the cream vehicle alone was detrimental!!

Surely if one were able to find the right cream, such as a moisturiser or something which wouldn't dry out the skin like what was seen in the study Bryan posted, spironolactone should be an excellent treatment. Or even some other sort of vehicle.

Another thing I found interesting was that each topical formulation was applied three times a day. I guess twice a day spironolactone should be a minimum, but I really only apply it at night.

 

[Old Baldy]

Damn, there are some revelations in that.

The spironolactone cream performed well, whereas the alcohol might not have performed at all. However the cream vehicle alone was detrimental!!

Surely if one were able to find the right cream, such as a moisturiser or something which wouldn't dry out the skin like what was seen in the study Bryan posted, spironolactone should be an excellent treatment. Or even some other sort of vehicle.

Another thing I found interesting was that each topical formulation was applied three times a day. I guess twice a day spironolactone should be a minimum, but I really only apply it at night.

Felk: Find yourself a good cream for your base and use it twice a day.

Look at women's creams and find out which creams offer penetration, antioxidants, etc. There are a PLETHORA of good creams out there.

Don't worry much about the cream vehicle as long as you buy a good one.

For example: (From Swansonvitamins.com)

Featured Items

Wrinkle Cream with DMAE & CoQ10
2 fl oz (59 ml) Cream
$11.99


CoQ10 Cream
2 fl oz (59 ml) Cream
$6.99




Sort by: best sellers price brand product name

Products 1-2 of 2

Swanson Premium Brand
Wrinkle Cream with DMAE & CoQ10
SWU158
2 fl oz (59 ml) Cream $11.99 qty





Swanson Premium Brand
CoQ10 Cream
SW861
2 fl oz (59 ml) Cream $6.99 qty

The $11.99 cream is in a liposome base. The $6.99 cream should be great also.

Just buy a good cream and run with it!!

If you want to add finasteride. or dutasteride. to the creams, most veterans have suggested 3 to 6 pills or capsules to 2 ounces is theraputic. You could add more but that's the range most veterans have suggested over the years.

The key is to buy a good cream, mix in your pills and USE IT!! :lol:

Btw, some of those "women" creams are pricey but have good stuff in them. I think they're a little overpriced but what the heck do I really know?! (You know the type of creams I'm talking about. Can't think of any names buy you know what I mean.)

Like Bryan has said, the vehicle is SO IMPORTANT! I agree with him.

I've done alot of reading on creams, etc., and the anti-wrinkle types of creams usually have good penetrators in them.
The good thing is there are alot of excellent creams out there. You don't need to make your own creams to get good vehicles. That's for sure!!

Good luck!

 

[Felk]

Thanks for all that great info Old Baldy!

Even though I've read a lot of good stuff about using liposomes in topical formulations, my main motivation for mixing my own spironolactone. is to reduce the cost, so I might opt for the cheaper cream. Iamnaked mixes his spironolactone. with rosewater glycerin (about page 4 of this thread) and ends up costing him less than $5 a month, so that's what motivated me.

I am still most likely going to try out RU which will be $50 a month, and other things, so I'm really trying to keep my spironolactone costs down. Even though at $30 for 300 25mg spironolactone tabs, it would make it a lot cheaper than Dr Lee's still

I was planning dissolving my proscar tablets in my minoxidil, because I'd apply it to a greater area than my spironolactone cream. Do you still think that the minoxidil vehicle for topical finasteride. is about as good as the others?

 

[powersam]

i have to say that study confused me a little bit. i will be buying Dr Lee's 5% minoxidil cream because i want to be able to apply it in the day time and the no smell bit is important.

collegechemistrystudent and bryan - these are the ingredients, does it sound like a good formulation with regards to the above study?

water
aloe vera gel
stearic acid
cetyl alcohol
alkyl octanoate
mineral oil
dimethicone
tocopherol acetate
magnesium aluminium silicate
sorbitol
disodium edta
methylparaben
propylparaben
dimethyldimethyl hydantoin

in the same order as they appear on the ingredients list

 

[Old Baldy]

Thanks for all that great info Old Baldy!

Even though I've read a lot of good stuff about using liposomes in topical formulations, my main motivation for mixing my own spironolactone. is to reduce the cost, so I might opt for the cheaper cream. Iamnaked mixes his spironolactone. with rosewater glycerin (about page 4 of this thread) and ends up costing him less than $5 a month, so that's what motivated me.

I am still most likely going to try out RU which will be $50 a month, and other things, so I'm really trying to keep my spironolactone costs down. Even though at $30 for 300 25mg spironolactone tabs, it would make it a lot cheaper than Dr Lee's still

I was planning dissolving my proscar tablets in my minoxidil, because I'd apply it to a greater area than my spironolactone cream. Do you still think that the minoxidil vehicle for topical finasteride. is about as good as the others?

The finasteride. will dissolve completely in minoxidil. Generic minoxidil. takes a long time to dry, so it should act much like a cream IMHO. Dissolving it in Dr. Lee's low PPG stuff should be ok also. It should get into the scalp.

 

[Old Baldy]

i have to say that study confused me a little bit. i will be buying Dr Lee's 5% minoxidil cream because i want to be able to apply it in the day time and the no smell bit is important.

collegechemistrystudent and bryan - these are the ingredients, does it sound like a good formulation with regards to the above study?

water
aloe vera gel
stearic acid
cetyl alcohol
alkyl octanoate
mineral oil
dimethicone
tocopherol acetate
magnesium aluminium silicate
sorbitol
disodium edta
methylparaben
propylparaben
dimethyldimethyl hydantoin

in the same order as they appear on the ingredients list

Can't answer for College or Bryan but his ingredients are good. That type of cream is probably every bit as good as the cream used in Bryan's study IMHO.

It's a very basic base cream from all I've read and from all the creams I've made.

I don't see any anti-oxidants but since he uses mineral oil, the need for anti-oxidants is minimized. However, anti-oxidants would be good for your scalp health IMHO. No biggie though.

 

[CCS]

bryan, that is just the link to the spironolactone page. do you have a homepage so I can navigate the sight instead of just having to save a collection of links to individual pages with no navigation links?

 

[CCS]

the tocopherol is vitamin E.

the problem with adding adding spironolactone to a cream at a store is the powder will dry the cream and change its properties and it is only 20% spironolactone. If you extract it with ethanol, you have too much ethanol. Also, I don't know if the liposomes will wrap around anything you put in the already made cream, which may have just enough for the active ingredients.

the cream looks similar to the study stuff, in terms of the lengths of molecules, but i have to look up each term individually to see what is going on.

i don't think minoxidil is a good vehicle for dutasteride or finasteride. i think it needs to be wet for at least 2 hours, and I think minoxidil lasts about 30 minutes and is barely there for an hour. the PPG free stuff should work great. glycerol will be a bi product of my fatty acid separation, so I can use that.

 

[powersam]

thanks for the info old baldy and collegechem , much appreciated.

 

[Old Baldy]

the tocopherol is vitamin E.

the problem with adding adding spironolactone to a cream at a store is the powder will dry the cream and change its properties and it is only 20% spironolactone. If you extract it with ethanol, you have too much ethanol. Also, I don't know if the liposomes will wrap around anything you put in the already made cream, which may have just enough for the active ingredients.

the cream looks similar to the study stuff, in terms of the lengths of molecules, but i have to look up each term individually to see what is going on.

i don't think minoxidil is a good vehicle for dutasteride or finasteride. i think it needs to be wet for at least 2 hours, and I think minoxidil lasts about 30 minutes and is barely there for an hour. the PPG free stuff should work great. glycerol will be a bi product of my fatty acid separation, so I can use that.

College: What some guys do is grind up the spironolactone tabs, add some PPG (or something like it of your choice), then add the "slurry" to the cream. That dissolves some of the spironolactone. first and prevents the cream from getting too dry.

 

[CCS]

felk, if you want to save money buy using using a liquid, you could just not buy the spironolactone and then get RU with that money. Even then, it would be worth your while to research a good vehicle for the RU. The only reason I am not saying the 2% is ineffective is it does have PPG, and the the liquid in the study does not, so I don't know if the PPG causes good results, or if the cream vehicle does.

 

[Old Baldy]

felk, if you want to save money buy using using a liquid, you could just not buy the spironolactone and then get RU with that money. Even then, it would be worth your while to research a good vehicle for the RU. The only reason I am not saying the 2% is ineffective is it does have PPG, and the the liquid in the study does not, so I don't know if the PPG causes good results, or if the cream vehicle does.

Doctor Proctor uses PPG in his Proxiphen cream.

 

[Felk]

the tocopherol is vitamin E.

the problem with adding adding spironolactone to a cream at a store is the powder will dry the cream and change its properties and it is only 20% spironolactone. If you extract it with ethanol, you have too much ethanol. Also, I don't know if the liposomes will wrap around anything you put in the already made cream, which may have just enough for the active ingredients.

the cream looks similar to the study stuff, in terms of the lengths of molecules, but i have to look up each term individually to see what is going on.

Old Baldy, what do you make of this? Best to go for a good wrinkle cream with good penetration enhancers, and risk the mixture being too... er... saturated? (Excuse the non-chemists terms here ) or go for something else?

I must say I was curious to use the spironolactone as a facial cream, so i was hoping spironolactone would be effective in that cream vehicle you showed, if topical spironolactone has an effect on acne (which is mild now, but still there)

Bryan's recipe using dermovan and a 3% spironolactone mixture, that has to be a cheap safe bet i;d say. Would you know if ever got any "results" from this, Bryan?

 

[CCS]

I found this:


I'm now using Dermovan, which is specifically designed as a cream
vehicle for drugs. This stuff is very light, has a pleasant smell, and
dissolves spironolactone tablets extremely well. There's virtually no thickening
at all after being refrigerated.


If anyone else wants to experiment with this product, you can have
your local pharmacy order it for you. Unfortuanately, the smallest
amount you can get is a 16 ounce jar, and the total price my local
Eckard's charged me (including shipping) was about $30. This will
last a *long* time. Again, this is "Dermovan", made by HealthPoint.


You can also call a couple of their distributors and order it directly.
One is Supreme Medical at 1 (800) 461-1370. They want $23.10
plus $5.45 shipping, if I wrote it down correctly. Another is MS Depot,
at 1 (800) 879-6863. They want $23.45 and a flat $7.75 for shipping
anywhere in the USA, if I understood correctly.


Bryan

 

[CCS]

Does glycerol completely dissolve spironolactone tablets, filler and all? What about PPG?

Does anyone have the ingredients of dermavan? I can't find them anywhere. $30 for 16 oz is great, but I'm just bothered by having the spironolactone filler in there. I looked at the spironolactone ingredients, and I doubt much filler will dissolve in ethanol. I'd just like to use PPG so I can get a higher concentration, but I don't want it dissolving the filler.

 

[Felk]

This is the dermavan post you referred me to then college?

So theres nowhere to buy it online then? I might just opt for cetaphil or neutrogena if i can't find it...

 

[CCS]

that is the post. why not call them? or ask your pharmacy to order it for you?

 

[Felk]

I'm in australia, so calling would be quite expensive

Also, bryan said they ship to USA. 16oz to australia would cost the earth in shipping.

Ill ask my pharmacy though.