Swooping

a source for that comment would be nice.

Yeah topical finasteride is basically sort of a gimmick it goes systemic anyway. Here is one study (I had another study but can't find it atm. It does confirm the same fact though);

Pharmacodynamic of P-3074 (finasteride 0.25% topical solution) in subjects with androgenetic alopecia

 

A new proprietary topical formulation, P-3074, containing finasteride 0.25% as active ingredient and hydroxypropyl-chitosan (HPCH) as film-forming agent, was developed for androgenetic alopecia. The present study was aimed at investigating the pharmacodynamic profile of finasteride in terms of dihydrotestosterone (DHT) concentrations in the scalp and in serum after multiple topical application of P-3074 or oral finasteride intake in subjects with androgenetic alopecia. Eighteen healthy men were randomly allocated to P-3074 or oral treatment after providing written informed consent. Twelve volunteers applied P-3074 topical solution for 7 days: six subjects once daily (o.d.) in the morning and the others twice daily (b.i.d.) in the morning and in the evening. The third group of six volunteers was administered 1 mg oral finasteride once daily in the morning for 1 week. Scalp (vertex) biopsies were collected at baseline and 6 hours after last dose administration, while serum samples were collected at baseline, before last administration, and 6 and 12 hours after the last multiple dose. A marked decrease in scalp DHT levels was observed: by 47.22% with P-3074 b.i.d., from 1.91 (±0.54) to 1.01 ng ml−1 (±0.39), by 71.20% with P-3074 o.d., from 1.52 (±0.41) to 0.44 ng ml−1 (±0.08), and by 51.11% with the oral formulation, from 1.39 (±0.25) to 0.68 ng ml−1 (±0.34). Serum DHT was reduced by 69.3–74.0% with P-3074 b.i.d., 67.6–80.4% with P-3074 o.d., and 69.7–76.1%with the oral formulation. These results showed a similar inhibition of serum DHT after 1 week of finasteride administration with the three dose regimens and were consistent with the results obtained in a previous P-3074 PK study. These findings show that DHT concentration in the scalp, after 7-day treatment course of P-3074 o.d., was more reduced (about 40%) than after 1 mg oral finasteride administration for the same treatment period.

Which doctor recommended you to do that?

Toxicology studies show a average absorption of 2% from topical minoxidil (from what I recall). Going out from the dosage your doctor recommended you 20ml a day of 10% is 2 gram minoxidil a day.

This would be 40 mg minoxidil a day which reaches systemic levels. Take note that this is the average. Individual variability may exist. On top of that microneedling may increase absorption even more. Also you will be using 10%. So all in all systemic absorption of minoxidil will be huge with such a dosage a day.

FYI oral minoxidil has a black box warning. I wouldn't do it.

Topical finasteride pretty much goes 100% systemic. So you might as well pop the pill.

What a relief to find somebody who abides the scientific method here and has a voice of reason. My hat is off to you Dr. Bhatti. Enjoyed your posts and they are spot on.

Census results of the ISHRS tell it's pretty much 50/50 for FUT/FUE now. However seeing the geographical spread of the ISHRS members the census results are probably favorable to FUT imo.

In reality worldwide I would guess FUE is already more popular and is going to heavily overtake FUT in the coming years.

Does that make FUE the better procedure? No it doesn't. However it's clear what the consumers want. All the international and national forums don't lie too. One has only to open his eyes.

Personally while using Finasteride my libido decreased and penile sensitivity decreased (about 30%). Mentally I wasn't as strong too.

After discontinuing the treatment it all resolved though within 6 weeks.

Does PFS exist?

Off course it does. How high is the incidence rate? Who knows. It's still hormones which you are messing with. Someone who is going to shoot up testosterone up his ass for a year will probably have to recover for a significant amount of time too.

I was always under the impression that DHT levels decline as you age because Testosterone does. Just recently I discovered that DHT levels are quite steady actually until the age of like 50-55 years old. Only above that age do DHT levels generally really plummet.

All in all Finasteride is a pretty damn serious medication and should be taken seriously. Some just get unlucky I guess.

Thanks for sharing your story and I agree your hair looks nice!

The funny thing is that in the background hair transplant pictures are displayed on that website .

Good luck! Is it a shampoo?

Hmm 2nd undesirable result from H&W... Just 3 weeks ago there was another guy too. Just reaffirms the fact that hair transplant surgery is a risk, and it's definitely not "rare" to get a undesirable outcome.

By looking at the pictures you provided there is indeed not much improvement in my opinion.

Anyway it's highly unprofessional to first comply with a full refund/another surgery and then back off the statement 3 months later.

since he felt the results were as good and as expected.

First he talks about little growth and how rare such cases are and few months later (17th month) he suddenly says that the results are good and as expected?

Based on your story, I would opt for a full refund.

Why wouldn't it be safe?

Anyway if you have a pause of finasteride for 2 weeks that shouldn't be a problem at all don't worry.

Why is Lorenzo not showing up on tne listing of recommended surgeons?

Cause he probably isn't ?

Go ahead. As long as you steer clear of actually using testosterone I don't see a problem.

With 1 month post op you should be able to wash your hair like you normally do with no problems. Best to follow post-op instructions that you probably got!

The consensus about spironolactone is that it's a weak treatment, topically at least. If you want to grasp the merit of spironolactone you would need to take it orally at higher dosages. However that will feminize you. Also spironolactone has a broader pharmalogical activity than just being a anti-androgen. Purely looking at antagonizing of the androgen receptor it's not that strong actually.

Many people use RU58841 these days, which is a topical anti-androgen. It's a legit and strong treatment no doubt. Many find it working better than Finasteride. However it is not approved thus "experimental", so use at your own risk.

Aside from that you don't really have much viable options in the "anti-androgen" category for topical use. CB-03-01 is one but it is running phase 2 clinical trials now.

You don't need to use minoxidil. It won't impact the survival of your grafts in any way imo. However I do believe it can speed up your hair growth post-op. If you don't want to do it, don't.

Gratz and good luck Blake .

Swoop,

 

Yeah, it's looking solid.

 

Now that you're all settled there, we should get working on cracking the whole donor doubling and hair multiplication thing ; )

Hell yeah, that is the next goal :cool:!

Actually Blake can you post and sticky those examples? Would be nice if people can reference etc.

Indeed guys a sticky with a general consensus about the pro's and con's of both procedures would be great in my opinion.

Have you tried minoxidil & finasteride?

Damn came across this picture from another site. These pictures are from Iran but apparently some clinics operate kinda the same way too in Turkey! Talk about a FUE hair clinic mill :eek:!

Thanks guys, appreciate the comments!

@Blake

Yeah it worked out pretty well! I'm pretty happy how things are progressing. What I found most important is that my hair would get a natural flow and I think that is already the case.

In the summertime my hair tends to get very light brownish which works in my advantage as you mention.

@Thatoldchestnut, yeah, I had pretty much pretty visible redness till like the 3-4th month mark. After that it decreased pretty fast suddenly. Make-up does wonders though .

Donor;

(I'll shave it down to at the 1 year mark and take new pics)

So I'm just at about 5 months now, decided to take some pictures. Left side seems to be going well. Right side is obviously a bit lacking and behind as you can see on the picture. The first two pictures are pre-op just the day I had surgery (out of bed look lol). Other 3 are how my hair stands now.

Donor has healed awesome (shock loss was pretty big in the beginning)

I think it's going pretty well and it's going to be interesting what the coming months will bring!

I need to stay realistic too as I have extremely fine hair which makes things more difficult.

At the 1 year mark I'll make really good pictures from all angles, and will probably shave down too then!)

Oh btw my scalp is still a bit red for those who are wondering (Caucasian genes I guess )

Comments are welcome!

(click on picture for bigger view)

Great job!

Alex, great information.

A questions to you,

- Do you feel that in these days FUT still holds the advantage over FUE in terms of yield in state of the art procedures? If so, to what degree?