by Donnie » Tue Oct 02, 2012 6:59 pm
You have three main options. Finasteride, Dutasteride and Minoxidil.
Hair loss is caused by DHT, a hormone which is derived from testosterone. Basically in some people this hormone can begin to cause hair to try to fall out/regrow more often and also for those hairs to regrow smaller each time until they're invisible to the human eye.
Finasteride partially blocks one of the 2 enzymes in your body that convert testosterone to DHT. Which reduces the levels of DHT in your body by around 40%. The obvious effect of this is to reduce the amount of DHT that reaches your scalp and so reduce its effects on hair loss. Depending on how badly DHT affects your hair this can either slow down hair loss, stop hair loss or even reverse hair loss in some cases. Some people do experience side effects from Finasteride, especially early on as the body adjusts. But I think for most people there aren't any noticeable side effects.
Dutasteride is a newer chemical which partially blocks both enzymes. Which reduces the levels of DHT in your body by 90%. Because of the extreme reduction in DHT this chemical has been shown to either totally stop hair loss or in most cases reverse it. The problem here IMO is that DHT is in your body for a reason, it doesn't just affect your hair. So removing 90% of it seems extremely unwise. It hasn't been out long enough to show what side effects it may cause or what changes in your body it may cause.
Minoxidil attacks the problem from a different angle. Instead of removing the problem it simply encourages hair to grow. It certainly works in encouraging your hair to grow. But at the same time the underlying problem, hair being told to shed and shrink over and over, will remain. Minoxidil sort of just has a running battle with hair loss, it tries to grow it faster than the problem tries to shrink it. This is why some people use both Finasteride and Minoxidil, one helps stop hair loss while the other encourages hair to grow. There are well known side effects for Minoxidil, it often causes scalp irritation (flaking) and can make your hair dry and easily broken.
There are many other smaller products that can help. But listing them all with any kind of explanation would take all day. So I'll just list the one I use. Which is Nizoral shampoo. Its a medicated dandruff shampoo which also has the side effect of reducing DHT at the scalp level. Combined with Finasteride you can reduce DHT at the scalp by over 40%. To me combining Finasteride and Nizoral is the preferred way to go rather then Dutasteride. It gives you a 45-50% reduction of DHT at the scalp level without reducing it much over 40% in the rest of your body.
For the last few years I've used 1.25mg of Finasteride (Proscar cut into 4 peices) once every night before bed and Nizoral shampoo once every 3 days leaving it on my scalp around 5-6 minutes each time. I wouldn't advise using it more than once every 3 days as since its a medicated shampoo it can dry your hair out if you use it too much.
As far as its effectiveness. Well when I started I had a small bald patch at the back of my head. At the front my fringe was almost disconnected from the rest of my hair (like a balding line between the front of my fringe and everything else). Along with the usual receding temples. Now I have no bald patch on the back and my fringe is nice and thick at the front. It hasn't added anything to my temples but its totally stopped them from receding further.
I pay about £19 per month for my Finasteride and about £3 a month for the Nizoral. Well worth it IMO and if anything I just wish I'd started doing this earlier.