alopie

No side effects on 0.5mg daily. Trying to do 5mg/week now to see how it goes.

The difference in shaft diameter is significant and noticeable, but not in hair count as much. 5mg is as good as it gets, you can't go higher than that.

I had to lower the dose on both fin and minoxidil due to side effects (testicular discomfort/pain, and a bit of dizziness). I took a 5 day break from minoxidil and finasteride that should not affect my overall progress. Now this is where I am: - Oral finasteride 0.5mg daily - Oral minoxidil 2mg daily - Topical minoxidil 5% - only a few drops on some spots once daily - Shampoo Ketoconazol 2% 2-3 times a week, occasional dermarolling I had a transplant 2 years ago and everything is still looking good. I just want to maintain and not lose ground, hoping to thicken my existing hair if possible. Is this regimen enough? Would vitamin supplements and LLLT provide any additional measurable benefit? Or should I try and increase minox to 2.5mg daily? Please let me know your thoughts.

Check @De Freitas Clinic in Valencia, Couto and Freitas are top surgeons in Spain @De Freitas Clinic, can you help this guy by providing an estimated time for an in-person consultation? Couto's 2 years in Madrid is way too much

If you want to nuke your dht you could use oral dutasteride daily, dut mesotherapy and possibly add some oestrogen medication (used for gender transitioning) to grow some kind of gyno. This will resurrect hair follicles, but it comes with much bigger issues, so play safe and the time will come.

Good doctors take time, you won't regret it. In the meantime, try to stick to a good protocol, oral minox 2.5mg+, oral finasteride and possibly some topicals too. Quit smoking, and try to get a strong donor before the day comes. You will be surprised by how much you can gain before the HT in 2 years. There are people that used dermaroller and dutasteride mesotherapy and regrew hair from nowhere

My plan was to use 0.5mg every other day and use topical in between, but I still have some minor testicular discomfort as a leftover, so I guess I can stop the topical and continue with 0.5mg eod. But since it accumulates, maybe I need a longer break from it (more than 3 weeks that I already did) and build up. In the first 3 years I was taking a solid 1mg daily and there was no side effects, not even loss of libido. The testicular discomfort must be either from accumulation or unrelated to finasteride. I do not want to lose ground, that's why I don't want to take a longer break, pff this stuff is anyone, I thought I won the hair loss war for a long time

no side effects, my oral minoxidil is formulated at the farmacy.

That's exactly what I think is happening. My side effects started to appear after 4 years of use, but now it took me 3 weeks and side-effects are still here. I think that tissue binding might take more than a couple of months. Should I take it slow until I have no side effects and then start at 0.25mg eod? What do you think?

Hypermobile testicles and sensitivity in the area due to lifestyle choices (I seat many hours throughout the day for work). I want to avoid topicals because they are difficult to apply and mess with the appearance of my hair. When I used topical finasteride, I felt like I could not control how much of it I am applying, and if I am applying it correctly, let alone the fact that it might be absorbed to a good extent. I was told that the area there is so sensitive that there are many other reasons that could cause this. All the urologists I have seen so far are in unison that low dose finasteride is unlikely to cause testicular pain, or at least nothing irreversible. However, they are more concerned over the long-term use (beyond 10+ years) as there are not many studies regarding the safety profile for long term use. Hormonal imbalances, particular oestrogen abundance may be carcinogenic in men in the long run. They all seem to agree with this. No, nothing that I can feel. I also did 3 ultrasounds, both last year and this year. My ultrasounds included prostate, bladders and lower abdomen. Nothing, apart from a small abundance of bacteria in one of my urine tests, but both sperm and urine tests excluded STDs, and culture bacteria. Again, the urologists were not concerned at all, they prescribed some minor medication for inflammation as well as a kind of orthopedic boxers that can keep my testicles up in place. I lowered the dose of finasteride and the discomfort has definitely decreased over the last month, I would say it's at a maximum 2-3/10, and it was 6/10. Sometimes, especially when I am standing, I do not feel any discomfort at all, so it looks like it happens when I am seated, that's why I am keeping my small dose finasteride for now (0.5mg every other day). I believe the topical solution was being absorbed and it was contributing to the side effects.

The question is if 5mg oral minoxidil + 0.25mg oral finasteride daily could be considered as potent as 1mg oral minoxidil + 1mg oral finasteride. This would be an interesting study. My experience is that, at least in the short term, 5mg minoxidil will increase the diameter of the hair, giving a fuller appearance. Long term, though, it is unclear if that 50-60% of androgens that are not blocked by 0.25mg finasteride can miniaturize hair. If 5mg minox + 0.25mg oral fin is enough for maintenance, I would choose that over 1mg oral minoxidil + 1mg oral finasteride

I have been on finasteride for 5 years and I had my HT 3 years ago. After my HT, I was prescribed a combination of 5mg oral finasteride and 1mg oral dutasteride weekly, so I actually went from 7mg oral fin to this: 5mg oral fin + 1mg oral dut. During the first year post-op, I did not have any side-effects. However, during the second year I started experiencing some testicular discomfort (pain at times) so I stopped dutasteride and I went back to my 7mg oral fin weekly, the pain went away after 3 weeks. This year, after 12 months from my last testicular discomfort, I started feeling the same discomfort and pain while on oral finasteride 7mg weekly. I went to urologists, was told that everything is fine, and that it might be unrelated to finasteride, as it looked like it was position dependant. I stopped finasteride for 1 month and then I switched to topical 0.1% 1ml daily. For a good 2 weeks, discomfort went away, but now I have also started feeling something really small again. My assumption is that finasteride accumulated and there was in abundance on my tissues, but also topical is likely absorbed to a great extent. Now I am slowly stopping topical and going back to a low dose oral finasteride at 0.5mg every other day or 0.25mg daily which I can better control. I am on 2mg oral minoxidil, ketoconazole 2% and dermaroller. I apply topical minoxidil 3x week on some weak spots, too. Is 0.25mg oral finasteride daily + 2mg oral minoxidil daily enough for maintenance for a month or two? I am planing on increasing to 0.5mg oral finasteride daily + 2.5mg oral minoxidil daily, which is viewed as an overall good protocol for maintenance.

5mg oral daily and twice dut weekly is a very potent combo, you will definitely get results. 5ar inhibition is important and it may increase hair diameter, that's why I am suggesting a 0.25mg oral daily. But your dut protocol is close to what I am suggesting.

Here are two papers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10461613/#:~:text=Multi-target mechanism of minoxidil,expression%2C thus reducing DHT production. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4039155/ The general consensus is not that inhibits 5ar, but it can disrupt dht pathways which prevents tissue binding. Effectively, dht circulates in the blood stream but it get disrupted when it reaches the skin tissue.

After getting my HT, I switched from topical to oral minox. I started at 5mg, but I grew a unibrow so I lowered that to 2.5mg, and some months even 2mg daily. After reviewing the literature, it looks like 5mg oral minoxidil is so potent that it also disrupts dht pathways and it is such a beast that is nearly impossible for dht inhibition to miniaturize hairs that quickly. I am wondering if anyone here has tried 5mg oral minox alone, without finasteride? My suspicion is that the effect of 5mg oral minox might postpone hair miniaturization by 20 or more years, alone. If that's the case, it means we can use a super potent version of oral minox with a small oral dose of finasteride (0.25mg daily), and have less exposure to the androgenic side effects.