Does using minoxidil before a hair transplant make sense?

[Norwood311]

Hi guys, I'm a Norwood 2-3 (you can look at my photos on my profile) and I have been using finasteride 1mg a day for almost a year now. Recently I've been adding on 0.5mg of dutasteride (currently taking both as it takes around 3 months for dutasteride to reach steady state plasma concentrations, at which point I will stop taking finasteride) and it's been going very well, no sides. In the past I have used other treatments, to varying degrees of success, topical minoxidil, topical finasteride, microneedling, ketoconazole shampoo, and saw palmetto.

Anyway, finasteride seems to have pretty much stopped my hair loss and I'm getting some hairline regrowth (just little hairs for now anyway, but they could become terminal eventually). Dutasteride may work even better, too early to say but I will definitely stay on it. Anyway, I am considering starting minoxidil again because. I think it could help turn the baby hairs terminal, but I also want a hair transplant some time this year. If I were to do that, my concern is the transplanted hairs could become minoxidil dependent and fall out if I ever stop using it. 

I don't REALLY wanna use topical minoxidl the rest of my life, I hate applying it and how it feels in my hair, so is it better to just stick to oral finasteride/dutasteride and try to simulate all the "regrowth" with a hair transplant? 

Also, no I do not plan on using oral minoxidil. I don't feel it's safe personally and even topical minoxidil raised my heartrate so oral minoxidil certainly would as well

Edited April 21 by Norwood311

[Gatsby]

There's really no hard and fast rule on this. However if you are taking 5ari's and you are sensitive to minoxidil then I don't see the point in taking it. You sound like you are responding really well with finasteride and dutasteride. All the best!

[Norwood311]

Thanks. I think I probably would get some more temple regrowth if I got back on minoxidil, 5ARs don't seem to work well for that, but considering I want a hair transplant soon which would fix my hairline essentially, it just doesn't seem worth bothering with minoxidil and having to go through a shed phase when I start and come off. Especially considering I just started oral dutasteride and it's technically possible I could get the temples back with that, considering it does cause more regrowth than finasteride