does dutasteride nuke your hairline?

[zenmu]

ive been on the subreddit tressless for awhile and ive seen lot’s of reports of people saying dutasteride caused them to recede faster along the hairline, or it “nuked” their hairline, etc. 

logically and based off the mechanism of the drug it doesn’t make sense. yet ive seen so much reports on it.

specifically, i want to add dutasteride 0.5mg 1-2 times a week, and finasteride 1mg the other days. (a couple years from now as i just started fin, which also depends on the results i get, however i just wanted to research it now.)

what’s your thoughts on this?

[NARMAK]

Been taking 0.5mg Dutasteride for over a year now. I actually saw some regrowth alongside using some very occasional Microneedling. Initially with a derma roller then a derma pen. 

If anything, Dutasteride probably helped me save more hair than i would have on Finasteride and although i haven't done an official hair count reading etc. the images/video progress i did take seemed to validate it. 

I would personally say that if you can tolerate it, might help you slow down/stop hair loss for even longer as it blocks 10% more scalp DHT than Finasteride at 1mg everyday does. 51% vs 41%. 

I would even argue if the average person has 50% natural hair resistance, having 51% blocked by Dutasteride could stop it in its tracks for them. 

Of course i'm sure somebody will be along to mention sides, but they're imo a lower percentage risk and i'd argue losing your hair, not being able to do anything about it will probably manifest as depression, anxiety etc. and cascade into negative mental effects and knock ons.

[Testaccount9900]

52 minutes ago, zenmu said:

ive been on the subreddit tressless for awhile and ive seen lot’s of reports of people saying dutasteride caused them to recede faster along the hairline, or it “nuked” their hairline, etc. 

logically and based off the mechanism of the drug it doesn’t make sense. yet ive seen so much reports on it.

specifically, i want to add dutasteride 0.5mg 1-2 times a week, and finasteride 1mg the other days. (a couple years from now as i just started fin, which also depends on the results i get, however i just wanted to research it now.)

what’s your thoughts on this?

It's usually people who took dutasteride, encountered a shed, then jumped off, which is effectively the worse thing you could possibly do, induce a shed and stop the medication thats going to restore the hair.

Alot of people on that subreddit also claim Finasteride ruined their hair.

[MissMyLongHair]

Nope.

[zenmu]

6 minutes ago, Testaccount9900 said:

It's usually people who took dutasteride, encountered a shed, then jumped off, which is effectively the worse thing you could possibly do, induce a shed and stop the medication thats going to restore the hair.

Alot of people on that subreddit also claim Finasteride ruined their hair.

that makes sense tbh, i could see ppl stopping bc of a shed and saying it ruined their hair 

[zenmu]

12 minutes ago, NARMAK said:

Been taking 0.5mg Dutasteride for over a year now. I actually saw some regrowth alongside using some very occasional Microneedling. Initially with a derma roller then a derma pen. 

If anything, Dutasteride probably helped me save more hair than i would have on Finasteride and although i haven't done an official hair count reading etc. the images/video progress i did take seemed to validate it. 

I would personally say that if you can tolerate it, might help you slow down/stop hair loss for even longer as it blocks 10% more scalp DHT than Finasteride at 1mg everyday does. 51% vs 41%. 

I would even argue if the average person has 50% natural hair resistance, having 51% blocked by Dutasteride could stop it in its tracks for them. 

Of course i'm sure somebody will be along to mention sides, but they're imo a lower percentage risk and i'd argue losing your hair, not being able to do anything about it will probably manifest as depression, anxiety etc. and cascade into negative mental effects and knock ons.

we naturally block dht? i heard someone else say that but haven’t found studies to support it, how does that work?

[ciaus]

45 minutes ago, zenmu said:

we naturally block dht? i heard someone else say that but haven’t found studies to support it, how does that work?

When he talks about resistance to DHT he's not talking about our body naturally blocking DHT. Our body naturally produces DHT. He's talking about how easily DHT is able to bind to your hair follicle receptors, which is what causes you to lose your hair. And that comes down to each person's genetics, family history of baldness.

Finasteride, dutasteride, and minoxidil can all potentially cause temporary shedding when you start taking them. But its just temporary.

If you want straight information on hair loss its better to avoid sites like reddit and just come here.

[zenmu]

5 minutes ago, ciaus said:

When he talks about resistance to DHT he's not talking about our body naturally blocking DHT. Our body naturally produces DHT. He's talking about how easily DHT is able to bind to your hair follicle receptors, which is what causes you to lose your hair. And that comes down to each person's genetics, family history of baldness.

Finasteride, dutasteride, and minoxidil can all potentially cause temporary shedding when you start taking them. But its just temporary.

If you want straight information on hair loss its better to avoid sites like reddit and just come here.

in what ways does our body block dht though?

[ciaus]

22 minutes ago, zenmu said:

in what ways does our body block dht though?

 

Again, the body doesn't block DHT. Drugs like finasteride and dutasteride lower DHT. And when your DHT levels are lower, that means there is less circulating around in your body to bind onto your hair follicle receptors and cause hair loss. Some guys have great genetics when it comes to their hair follicle receptor sensitivity, DHT doesn't easily bind to them, so they don't need DHT blocking drugs at all. The rest of us have varying degrees of receptor sensitivity that is high enough that we need the help of the drugs.

[zenmu]

1 minute ago, ciaus said:

 

Again, the body doesn't block DHT. Drugs like finasteride and dutasteride lower DHT. And when your DHT levels are lower, that means there is less circulating around in your body to bind onto your hair follicle receptors and cause hair loss. Some guys have great genetics when it comes to their hair follicle receptor sensitivity, DHT doesn't easily bind to them, so they don't need DHT blocking drugs at all. The rest of us have varying degrees of receptor sensitivity that is high enough that we need the help of the drugs.

ohhhh, so our sensitivity to dht over time decreases?

however, ive also learned that our testosterone decreases over time so it could also result in less dht

[ciaus]

 

Hair loss accumulates, often for years. Estimates are anywhere from 30% up to 50% of hair loss needs to occur before it starts becoming noticeable in the mirror. That's why its important to start the drugs earlier the better when you first notice loss. 

 

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by ciaus

[BaldDude]

39 minutes ago, zenmu said:

ohhhh, so our sensitivity to dht over time decreases?

however, ive also learned that our testosterone decreases over time so it could also result in less dht

Yes it does but not much decrease until age 60 or so. 

[NARMAK]

7 hours ago, zenmu said:

we naturally block dht? i heard someone else say that but haven’t found studies to support it, how does that work?

So the poster above kinda gave a response that makes sense too, but my own understanding on it was slightly different. 

He was right that a person's genetics play a factor in how we're affected by DHT when losing hair but i'll explain what my understanding has been. 

Each person i believe due to genetics has hair follicles that are affected by DHT differently. If this wasn't true, then we would also lose hair in the exact same way, but we don't. Some lose it earlier in their teens/20s, some later in 30s/40s and some don't have anything noticeable. Then there's the "pattern" where some might lose it in the crown only, some from the front backwards and some a combination. Some are also just diffuse thinning. 

However when men do lose the hair due to DHT, we all know that hair doesn't fall out immediately. It weakens over time and gets miniaturised and then fails to grow through as a healthy hair once did due to DHT.

How quickly DHT attacks those follicles was in my understanding your "natural scalp DHT resistance". Otherwise, if all scalp DHT was 100% destructive to hair follicles, then why do some people manage to entirely slow or stop hair loss with Finasteride/Dutasteride when it only blocks 41% and 51% scalp DHT respectively? 

Some people like that video above say DHT doesn't increase over time but at the end of the day, if you didn't intervene with medication then your genetics will show you how quickly or not your hair loss will affect you. I actually noticed some of my relatives which i do not believe took any medication started losing quite a bit of their hairs in late 20s to 30s whilst some from my other parents side fared better and yet even within families there was a variation and i've actually seen this even more within my own family.

So, it's important to take medication like Finasteride or Dutasteride but people that claim it "nuked" their hairline have got to have had some severe underlying issues or without pictures, it's hard to say if maybe the hair they lost was a miniaturised hair beyond saving that shed and never managed to regrow. The job of Finasteride /Dutasteride isn't regrowth, that's an extremely lucky bonus for anybody. It's merely to block scalp DHT and keep the hair it can as healthy as possible. Some hair which are miniaturised may even be saved past the so called point of no return (50%) i believe too by blocking enough DHT if your body also can have a genetically higher resistance to aid the follicle recovery. 

[ciaus]

The real question here is whether reddit nukes your brain.

[Britanium]

7 minutes ago, ciaus said:

The real question here is whether reddit nukes your brain.

Yes 😂

[zenmu]

6 hours ago, ciaus said:

The real question here is whether reddit nukes your brain.

valid 😭

Edited July 30, 2022 by zenmu

[zenmu]

10 hours ago, NARMAK said:

So the poster above kinda gave a response that makes sense too, but my own understanding on it was slightly different. 

He was right that a person's genetics play a factor in how we're affected by DHT when losing hair but i'll explain what my understanding has been. 

Each person i believe due to genetics has hair follicles that are affected by DHT differently. If this wasn't true, then we would also lose hair in the exact same way, but we don't. Some lose it earlier in their teens/20s, some later in 30s/40s and some don't have anything noticeable. Then there's the "pattern" where some might lose it in the crown only, some from the front backwards and some a combination. Some are also just diffuse thinning. 

However when men do lose the hair due to DHT, we all know that hair doesn't fall out immediately. It weakens over time and gets miniaturised and then fails to grow through as a healthy hair once did due to DHT.

How quickly DHT attacks those follicles was in my understanding your "natural scalp DHT resistance". Otherwise, if all scalp DHT was 100% destructive to hair follicles, then why do some people manage to entirely slow or stop hair loss with Finasteride/Dutasteride when it only blocks 41% and 51% scalp DHT respectively? 

Some people like that video above say DHT doesn't increase over time but at the end of the day, if you didn't intervene with medication then your genetics will show you how quickly or not your hair loss will affect you. I actually noticed some of my relatives which i do not believe took any medication started losing quite a bit of their hairs in late 20s to 30s whilst some from my other parents side fared better and yet even within families there was a variation and i've actually seen this even more within my own family.

So, it's important to take medication like Finasteride or Dutasteride but people that claim it "nuked" their hairline have got to have had some severe underlying issues or without pictures, it's hard to say if maybe the hair they lost was a miniaturised hair beyond saving that shed and never managed to regrow. The job of Finasteride /Dutasteride isn't regrowth, that's an extremely lucky bonus for anybody. It's merely to block scalp DHT and keep the hair it can as healthy as possible. Some hair which are miniaturised may even be saved past the so called point of no return (50%) i believe too by blocking enough DHT if your body also can have a genetically higher resistance to aid the follicle recovery. 

thanks for the in depth response! that makes sense

[Curious25]

Natural Scalp resistance isn’t a thing. 
 

AGA is due to individual hair follicle sensitivity to DHT.
 

The miniaturisation process was correctly described above. So if you are a man affected by AGA, if you lower the levels of DHT in your body (and therefore scalp) - you are effectively reducing the speed of the miniaturisation process. Since the scalp tissue is the tissue of concern - it has been proven that by directly focusing on reducing DHT levels in this area of the body, as opposed to systemically reducing DHT levels, this can be an effective treatment option, such as dutasteride mesotherapy.  
 

Anyway - RE. using 5AR inhibiting medication. Depending on follicle sensitivity; 

- If your follicles are super sensitive, the reduced DHT levels throughout your body may slow down the balding process.
 

- If your follicles are moderately sensitive, this may appear to ‘halt’ the balding process, and slow down the miniaturising process greatly, to the point at which you are classified as ‘stable’ and appear to be maintaining your native hair.  

 

- If your follicles are only slightly sensitive, this may reverse the hairloss experienced, and regrow miniaturised hairs back into terminal healthy hairs. 
 

Every man has a different varying sensitivity range to each follicle on his scalp - hence why even some peoples donor areas are affected, whereas others aren’t. 
 

Look at high end Norwoods - some have amazingly preserved donor hair regions (the Zarev cases are good examples), whereas some have lost it all on top, and even their NW7 ‘safe zone’ has become unstable to the point at which it looks diffusely thinned. 

Each hair follicle is genetically programmed as to what it’s resistance timeline against DHT will be. If you are able to reduce the thing that attacks the hair follicle, 9 times out of 10 you are able to at the very least, delay the onslaught. 

 

[Melvin- Admin]

Reddit is filled with young anxious men suffering from BDD, and OCD. I don’t see how dutasteride would affect hair loss, aside from stopping it. It’s possible the dutasteride induced a temporary shed, which would resolve and the hair would grow back thicker.

[NARMAK]

2 hours ago, Curious25 said:

Natural Scalp resistance isn’t a thing. 
 

AGA is due to individual hair follicle sensitivity to DHT.
 

The miniaturisation process was correctly described above. So if you are a man affected by AGA, if you lower the levels of DHT in your body (and therefore scalp) - you are effectively reducing the speed of the miniaturisation process. Since the scalp tissue is the tissue of concern - it has been proven that by directly focusing on reducing DHT levels in this area of the body, as opposed to systemically reducing DHT levels, this can be an effective treatment option, such as dutasteride mesotherapy.  
 

Anyway - RE. using 5AR inhibiting medication. Depending on follicle sensitivity; 

- If your follicles are super sensitive, the reduced DHT levels throughout your body may slow down the balding process.
 

- If your follicles are moderately sensitive, this may appear to ‘halt’ the balding process, and slow down the miniaturising process greatly, to the point at which you are classified as ‘stable’ and appear to be maintaining your native hair.  

 

- If your follicles are only slightly sensitive, this may reverse the hairloss experienced, and regrow miniaturised hairs back into terminal healthy hairs. 
 

Every man has a different varying sensitivity range to each follicle on his scalp - hence why even some peoples donor areas are affected, whereas others aren’t. 
 

Look at high end Norwoods - some have amazingly preserved donor hair regions (the Zarev cases are good examples), whereas some have lost it all on top, and even their NW7 ‘safe zone’ has become unstable to the point at which it looks diffusely thinned. 

Each hair follicle is genetically programmed as to what it’s resistance timeline against DHT will be. If you are able to reduce the thing that attacks the hair follicle, 9 times out of 10 you are able to at the very least, delay the onslaught. 

 

Okay, if you do not have a natural level of DHT resistance in your follicles, which is what i refer to when i made my post, how do we explain how some stop their hair loss entirely and why specifically the donor area is considered more "permanent"? 

I've explained my ideology if you will that all the hair on the scalp due to the receptors and genetics of a person have different resistance to DHT, with obviously the highest resistance being in the donor hair, but then isn't this something we can consider as a person's "natural DHT blocking" ability via genetics? 

Maybe we are agreeing on things i think but approaching this from two different viewpoints? 

To me, your post saying our genetics determine our follicle sensitivity to DHT is spot on, and to me at least, that resistance level is what i would say is our bodies "natural DHT blocking level" and that's what we bolster when we take 5AR inhibitors like Finasteride or Dutasteride. Again, i also agree with you that depending on genetics, lucky individuals can stop it entirely but most can grind it down as slow as possible whilst the most sensitive of us will still suffer despite the medication. 

[Curious25]

‘Okay, if you do not have a natural level of DHT resistance in your follicles, which is what i refer to when i made my post, how do we explain how some stop their hair loss entirely and why specifically the donor area is considered more "permanent"?’

Each follicle has a unique genetic make up, that determines first of all, whether or not it is affected by DHT, and second of all, the rate at which it’s miniaturisation process occurs as a result of DHT binding to the receptor. 
 

10 hours ago, NARMAK said:

I've explained my ideology if you will that all the hair on the scalp due to the receptors and genetics of a person have different resistance to DHT, with obviously the highest resistance being in the donor hair, but then isn't this something we can consider as a person's "natural DHT blocking" ability via genetics? 

No, because it isn’t about the body having a natural DHT blocking ability - it’s about some hair follicles being less sensitive than others. 
When you hear the expression ‘DHT blocking’ being referred to - it’s in relation to the process of inhibiting the 5AR enzymes (Type I and/or Type II) from converting (reducing) testosterone into DHT. So it’s actually more accurate to say blocking the conversion of T into DHT.  The male body doesn’t naturally ‘block’ this process, therefore your terminology would be incorrect in this sense. 
 

I think you’re on the right lines, you’re perhaps just confusing yourself with certain terminologies. 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Curious25
Spelling

[NARMAK]

1 hour ago, Curious25 said:

‘Okay, if you do not have a natural level of DHT resistance in your follicles, which is what i refer to when i made my post, how do we explain how some stop their hair loss entirely and why specifically the donor area is considered more "permanent"?’

Each follicle has a unique genetic make up, that determines first of all, whether or not it is affected by DHT, and second of all, the rate at which it’s miniaturisation process occurs as a result of DHT binding to the receptor. 
 

No, because it isn’t about the body having a natural DHT blocking ability - it’s about some hair follicles being less sensitive than others. 
When you hear the expression ‘DHT blocking’ being referred to - it’s in relation to the process of inhibiting the 5AR enzymes (Type I and/or Type II) from converting (reducing) testosterone into DHT. So it’s actually more accurate to say blocking the conversion of T into DHT.  The male body doesn’t naturally ‘block’ this process, therefore your terminology would be incorrect in this sense. 
 

I think you’re on the right lines, you’re perhaps just confusing yourself with certain terminologies. 

Okay, so we're more or less i guess differing on terminologies. 

I can understand what you're saying but my point i guess focused also on what you touched on that each follicle has its own resistance to DHT based on genetics. To me, that was what i referred to as the natural DHT resistance or "DHT blocking" as in the amount of DHT a hair follicle can naturally resist as a %. So for example if you genetically are able to say have a follicle resist 50% of the DHT then to me that's "blocking 50% scalp DHT" as it were. 

Either way, i think we both recognise and agree that DHT reduction via Finasteride/Dutasteride is very effective for the majority of men and that the rest is all down to genetics as to whether we manage to stop or slow hair loss and to what extent. 

[mr_peanutbutter]

maybe it makes the already miniatures hairs fall out

 

many goes think they have a good hairline when half of the hair in the front already only half as thick and long as the rest of the hair. them they freak out when those go. 

[NARMAK]

38 minutes ago, mr_peanutbutter said:

maybe it makes the already miniatures hairs fall out

 

many goes think they have a good hairline when half of the hair in the front already only half as thick and long as the rest of the hair. them they freak out when those go. 

Unfortunately that is something that can happen. Weak hair that were possibly on their last phase fall out more quickly and together causing a noticeable loss. I think personally for myself, this happened when i had hydrogen peroxide used to lighten the hair to colour it. This was well before i used any Dutasteride for hair loss, possibly 6+ months and i am not 100% sure but fairly confident that i had weak, thinner hair that offered a bit more coverage in the frontal area that i lost. I guess i do wonder if maybe had i begun Dutasteride that 6+ months or sooner whether some of them might have been able to be saved. 

[A Fue Good Men]

It seems like forum broscience but the myth has been around for almost 20 years when dut was first released and people began using it for hair loss.

 

the theory is….dut raises scalp testosterone by 104% (according to one study) at .5mg/day. The frontal and temple hairs are most affected by testosterone as that’s the first to go even with “maturing” hairlines when puberty hits.
 

And there’s some history for ya