Finasteride 3x/week vs daily?

[general-etwan]

I wish to put a final consensus to this. Finasteride is commonly prescribed at 1 mg every day for hair loss. However, I've seen a few people in the hair loss/restoration field endorse 3 days/week, most notably Drs. Knudsen and Jayaprakash from the Hair Loss Show on YouTube. Here, they endorse their 3 days/week dosing, claiming that because finasteride remains in the skin for much longer than 24 hours (30 day half life in the hair follicles), it is unnecessary to take it every single day. 

 

 

So, is it true that finasteride remains in the skin at the hair follicle level for at least 30 days? If that is true, then wouldn't it make sense that finasteride is best to be taken every other day, or 3 days a week, to avoid unnecessary buildup in the system that will just be wasted rather than used for actual hair regrowth or preservation?

[Gatsby]

@general-etwan yes I have heard of this a lot and I have watched the above videos. It interesting because I recently saw Dr Beven Bhoyrul at Sinclair Dermatology. I intended to recommence finasteride at 0.25mg's MWF but he has instructed me to take 0.25mg's everyday at this low dose. I asked him why and he stated that the drug in my system at this dose would 'dip' on the days that I don't take it? Dr Bhoyrul works with Dr Rod Sinclair and they both have a lot more experience research experience on 5ari's. However it kind of went against my intuition. Anyway so far so good.

[LookMaxx]

I have always taken it at 0.2-0.5mg every 2-3 days later and it worked well.

Not sure why this is so surprising, it’s established that the drug stays in system for a long time and we want it in skin not blood. 

When I went off it, 2-3 weeks later is when I saw my hairs fall slowly and after a month is when I felt free of fin effects completely.

 

[Melvin- Admin]

I think the most common sense would be 0.25mg 3x a week, then slowly ramp up. There’s a threshold as Dr. Oscar Munoz told me, it might be 3x per week at 0.5 or 5x a week at 0.25. Ultimately the more frequent and the higher dose the more effective, but something is better than nothing.

[general-etwan]

7 hours ago, Melvin- Moderator said:

I think the most common sense would be 0.25mg 3x a week, then slowly ramp up. There’s a threshold as Dr. Oscar Munoz told me, it might be 3x per week at 0.5 or 5x a week at 0.25. Ultimately the more frequent and the higher dose the more effective, but something is better than nothing.

So do you personally think based on your knowledge that 1 mg daily would be more effective in preventing hair loss (or regrowing hair) than 1 mg every other day? It seems that Knudsen and Jayaprakash imply that above 1 mg 3 days a week there is essentially no added hair benefit and therefore they never prescribe it for more than 1 mg 3 days a week.

I already take 1 mg Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings and then I take 1 mg on Saturday night...no problems with that going on 9 months but just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on even more benefit by taking it daily.

On another topic, it's possible I could be missing out by not taking dutasteride, since DUT apparently blocks another type of 5-a that finasteride does not, and maybe I personally could benefit from that with my situation. But the doctors always cite the lack of study on dut compared to finasteride and my dermatologist denied my request to try dutasteride.

Edited September 23, 2022 by general-etwan