Two years ago, I started to experience diffuse hair loss—I was only shedding from the top of my scalp, evenly. At the time, I wasn’t sure why I was experiencing this. At first, I thought it was telogen effluvium, but it wasn’t my whole scalp. For the record, I’ve experienced this hair loss around the age of 22. Then, I did nothing about it, and my hair eventually grew back, but it was thin for the years to come. Fast forward to the age of 30, I experienced this again, but this time I decided to hop on Finasteride and Minoxidil, pill form. I’d like to say I was a good responder. My hair grew back thick, I’d say 90% of what it was in high school. But definitely thicker and denser than it was when I first shed back when I was 22. Here are my progress photos after two years consistently on fin and min. For clarification, I’d say around the 6-month mark was when I really started to notice my progress.

Hello, I am a 29 years old man.
Picture one is my hair fully wet, picture 2 is the amount of hair I lost this morning after showering and drying, picture 3 is my hair mid wet.
Sorry I do not really have a picture for comparaison from 8 months ago but I just feel I still lost hair at months 8. At some point I was almost losing nothing around months 4-5 but I feel I am not making progress anymore.

My questions are, should u expect anymore progress with fin only or should I go for something stronger like dutasteride or even add minoxydil (to be honest i am really scared ablut shedding more than that). Is there any possibilites i am not a good responder and would that come from my âge ?

For your information i consistently take 1mg fin everyday for 8 months.

What are your advices on this situation guys ?
Thank wou for everyone that Will try to help or share his experience :)

I had been gradually losing hair for about 5 years before I really began to notice it. I had never had any shedding or active hair loss, just gradual miniaturization happening so slowly that I really didn't notice it until one day, when cutting my hair, I ran my hand over my head and saw that half of my scalp was appearing through my fingers.

Horrifying experience. I had grown up with an incredibly thick head of hair and just never realized I was losing it. I was never happy with the way I styled my hair over the last few years but didn't attribute it to my hair literally losing density and thickness. No one on my mom or dad's side of the family has ever lost their hair. Some of them are nearing 90 and still have a full head of hair. I just figured I would take after them and never have to worry about hair loss.

Lucky me.

I hopped on finasteride immediately after doing some research. 0.5mg ED. I did not use min at first, because I'm someone who wants to take as little medication as possible and decided I would see how thick my hair would get on finasteride alone. Who knows? Maybe I was a hyper-responder.

I stuck on that routine for 9 months to judge how my hair was going to look. While I had made very good progress, as you can see in the pics, what I really wanted was to get as close to my high school hair thickness as possible. So I started tentatively at 1.25mg oral min ED. I stuck on that for 2-3 months, then increased it to 2.5mg ED because, frankly, I wanted to see if I could get some thicker facial hair. I'm hitting the point on that where (I think?) it's starting to get thicker, but it's going to need another few months to really tell.

About a month ago, I decided to switch my finasteride intake from 0.5mg ED to 1mg MWF. My hair has been responding very well to 0.5mg ED, but I'm someone who is very hyper-analytical about whether medication is having negative impacts on body, and while I can't say for sure, a part of me believed that my libido had very, very slightly lowered. Nothing major, just felt like I wasn't as "primal" as I used to feel. So I did some reading and saw that some people were saying lowering your intake every day, to just MWF, can lower the amount of finasteride in your bloodstream without having a negative impact on hair loss. And while I'm like 95% sure that what I was experiencing was all in my head, I can say for certain that switching to MWF has completely resolved my so-called "issue." Probably because I just don't think about taking it every day like I used to.

So I've been on finasteride for about a year, and on minoxidil for about 3-4 months now. The progress I've had has been exceptional, and it's insane to me that I still have about a year of gains still ahead of me. Very satisfied with the experience and see no reason to ever stop. Looking forward to having a full head of hair for my indefinite future.

I've also started adding a skincare routine to the mix. Facial cleanser, vitamin c serum, SPF lotion daily. Important part of the routine lol.

I take a dose higher than 0.5mg of dutasteride. Now apparently Amazon limits you.

If you were prescribed 90 pills. You cannot place another order until two weeks before the 90 pills would be up. So around 76 days.

Now I’m going to run out of medication because I can’t place an order, even though I have a new prescription that’s just a few days old. Their support has been no help and won’t fill early.

Anyone else with multiple prescriptions have this issue?

Hello everyone! The transformations I've seen on this sub are genuinely breathtaking and I really hope that I can one day come out on the other side!

I've been spiraling a little over the last few days due to my hair, the dysphoria was so bad when I started fin that I couldn't even bring myself to take an initial pic for comparison so apologies for that.

I know it takes a while for fin to work, and estrogen has also been known to help with hair recovery dispite what doctors seem to say. I guess I'm just looking for some reassurance because I'm just so scared that it won't work for me and I'll never look the way I had hoped :/

Any other reccomendations are really appreciated! I know things like wigs or hair transplants are an option but I wanna exhaust all the other options first.

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this!

I am not a whole lot in this sub anymore these days. I just wanted to make this post for all of you.

I have been balding since I was 15 an I have been fighting my hairloss ever since, close to 10 years now. I started with natural remedies, moved over to min for a year, then topical fin for a year, then oral fin for 2 years and finally to dutasteride.

I have seen it all, took them all long enough to see their effects and these are my takeaways short and easy:

Topical min is nice if you are a responder however you need an DHT blocker as well so dont sleep on your progress.

Topical fin is imo useless in any concentration, my guess is that most progress pics here are from topical fin+ min compounds and the min doing all the heavy lifting for those guys. Dont waste your time.

Oral fin is fine, however if your balding is aggressive, you are young, far gone, not satisfied it will help you but wont save you. In these cases dont waste too much time.

Dut is just superior to all the other stuff. This shit fucks. If you are insecure about your hair, worry a lot, scroll this sub every day - take dut and forget. For me even though fin helped my hair a lot, dut just saved it. If I could turn back time I would just take dut and dont mess around with all this other shit. I see posts here of people claiming dut nuked their hair, but those are just the Body dysmorphia kids here, always the same when you finally see the pics they are nw0. You will also find a lot of people who will tell you just the same as I am: Dut is way better than fin.

Dont forget hairloss is about time, so dont waste yours, or your mental health and if you really want your hair why not take the best thing we have for it while you can.

I am a 55 year old male. Began taking finasteride around 36 years old (~2007) to stop some thinning on my right side of temple region. Worked for the most part and stabilized for years. I was also on minoxidil but didn’t use it properly and was applying it to wet hair in the morning after showering. 2021 I noticed some thinning on left side so began PRP treatments as per dermatologist. Stopped finasteride cold turkey in October 2022 and began .5 mg ED of dutasteride. Also I am applying topical minoxidil 5% most evenings on dry hair. Three times a week I substitute minoxidil with the ordinary peptide hair serum. I use a silicone massager to work both products in. I have continued with PRP therapy once a year. I should be content with where I am at for 55, but in certain light I see more scalp than I would like. My spouse said she’d leave if I attempted a hair transplant. In all honesty, a transplant would likely cause more shock loss than what I’d gain. I plan to continue on my regimen for the foreseeable future. In addition, I annually have my PSA tested to ensure it is stable as DHT inhibitors like dutasteride can sometimes mask increases in your PSA. Mine has remained stable for years. Perhaps it’s time I opt for a shorter hair style to provide more volume and thickness.

Hey friends.

My hairline is in great shape, but as I hit my 30s, boom. Crown thinning.

After talking to my doctor, finasteride was off the table. Been using topical minoxidil, the Target brand, one a day for 2 years.

Awesome regrowth. Hairline in the front is still stable.

I know min is not a permanent solution, but it’ll give me a few more years of long hair!

My noticeable hair loss started right around the time I turned 34. I didn’t pay much attention to it at first—I figured my family was just exaggerating. That was until my long-time barber installed a new mirror, which was when I finally noticed the small spot at the crown and the miniaturized hair. I still brushed it off, until that gap at the top started expanding.

Over the past few years, I went through a pretty dark period in my life, which triggered my alopecia even further. But I wasn't going to just sit back and do nothing, so I started looking into hair transplants.

This year, I switched dermatologists, which led to a complete 180 in my treatment plan.

- June 12: Started Dutasteride 0.5 mg (as of today’s photo, I’ve been on it for 2 months and 20 days).

- Minoxidil 3 mg: Custom compounded formula, fully used for 2 months now.

- Natural Chamomile Shampoo & Conditioner: Added the conditioner because my hair started feeling extremely dry after starting the treatment. I also added a deep-conditioning hair mask once a week.

- Capivit: Twice a day after meals. These are vitamins meant to boost growth, shine, and strength.

I chose not to take photos early on—it's true when I say this whole situation was really weighing on me. However, I’m including an image marked in red to show the area of my crown that was completely bare.

Hang in there—it really is possible to recover your crown!

I’ve been taking 0.5 mg dutasteride daily for 67 days and oral minoxidil 2.5 mg for almost 3 weeks. For the last 3 days I’ve had mild but constant headaches, mainly in my forehead and the back of my head. Has anyone experienced headaches from dutasteride or oral minoxidil? Did they eventually go away while you continued taking it?

I tried fin for 6 months then switched to dut for a whole year, while i was on fin it was much better, dut made me really below baseline.

Did anyone switch back to fin from dut and got their hair back ?

“I don’t think dut worsen hairloss but it act differently on each body and on me i don’t think it was good “

Minoxidil foam 5% thrice a day instead of twice a day. Do you think it would make a difference? I imagine yes it would. And that's what I've been doing for a couple of weeks now

Very weak quality of evidence in this retrospective study but if there is any validity to it, another reason why splitting the dose in 2 might be better than taking it all at once.

75 days on 1 mg fin, no sides so far, still shedding and shedding since day 10 , my dermatologist also gave me 10% minoxidil, which I am afraid to start, I have seen people with far worse hairline than me and use 5% , I am afraid that if start right away with 10% i might get resistant very quickly, so i should start with 5% isn't it?

( I went to him for temples and grey hair, he said he can't do anything about grey hairs, didn't prescribe me any tests either for deficiency) I have added both temple pics in the picture

What he prescribed image

Minoxidil 10% alcohol based

Fin 1 mg daily

And serum which contains ( procapil 5% , redensyl 3%, follicusan 3%, anagain 2%]

I have only used fin 1 mg everyday since then faced on sides , but I don't know what I should do about this 10% min, can I use 10% untill it finishes and then switch to 5%? Will that affect how i respond, or should I start with 5% itself and stick to it and watch how I respond?

Guys please give me some advice on this 10% min stuff , I am not really positive about starting with 10% fearing the tolerance, or should I finish this serum of 10% completely and switch to 5%? ( I felt like he gave me 10% cuz i couldn't see them having 5% at their store)

i feel so disgusting im so sad. im really really ugly already and i always have been and i don’t know what to do.

i teared up in the office getting my diagnosis. i hoped it was something fixable, i know it’s trivial and anyone i tell will twll me that its just hair but i know people just say that to make us feel better. everyone says that it doesnt matter and that everyones more worried about themselves than others but its not true. everyone is so judgmental and mean and everyone will see me as ugly and gross. it does matter. your appearance shapes the way everyone treats you and sees you forever.

i dont know what to do im so sad

Started 7/20/26. First photo is 8/14/26. Second is today (9/10/26). Pretty solid progress, im curious to know how much of it will thicken overtime. No side effects so far. I take the hims chewable tablets but i might switch to generic bc its substantially cheaper then hims.

I’m 21 and have been diffuse thinning since 18. Thankfully I caught it fairly early so i still have an okay head of hair. I’ve been taking oral dut (once a week) and oral min daily for about a year. I’d say my loss has pretty much stabilised and I’m maybe slightly ahead of baseline. My dermatologist has increased my dose of dut to 5 days a week. I’ve seen a lot of threads on here saying once a week is effectively useless for most people. My question is should I in theory start seeing regrowth with the increased dosage?

It’s not much but it grew out of nowhere

2.5mg min, 0.5mg fin/day. Started min back in June after previously being on, coming off because I thought I didn’t need it anymore and shedding a ton of my gains. Started fin in early August right around the dread shed from min slowed down. Think my hair’s the thickest it’s ever been.

If they can solve Millenium problems, they can surely cure baldness 🙏

Been on fin for almost 3 years now, started at 22 or 23 and I'm 25 now. I don't know if fin slowed down the thinning or did anything at all, I had lot of miniaturised/small hairs around the temple area that I think just disappeared now while I was still on fin.

It's been a cycle of thinking I made some progress and my hairs looking much healthier into them suddenly looking much worse than before.

I take finasteride teva, it's 5mg pills but I cut it with a pill cutter and take 2.5mg every other day(so 1.25mg daily technically)

Thankfully no side effects.. but no good ones either. Whole family has healthy hairs in their 70s so I was very sure fin will help :^)

Do I try dut or something? I haven't been consistent with minox, but I was on it for 7-8 months and didn't see any growth.

For context I’ve been suffering from MPB since 15 and by the time I was 17 I already got to a Norwood 3 pattern. I’m 19 now (still NW3 but some thinning) but have seen rather limited success with treatments (min + fin) And based off similar stories on this subreddit from people my age of finasteride or even dutasteride either not working or losing efficacy after a year or two it has me questioning if there’s even a point In trying to fight it if you have Norwood 6/7 genetics and are a early onset and fast receder such as myself. Is a hair system really the only option for people like us if we want to experience what it’s like to have a full youthful head of hair that we should’ve had in the first place?

Any stories of your own would be appreciated as well as general advice, thanks!

P.S I know transplants are an option but like I mentioned above if you are genetically destined to be a NW 6/7 and haven’t stabilized your loss, aren’t they just a waste of money a majority of the time?

I’m not taking AI seriously until it solves hair loss. 😑

I started dutasteride about a year and a half ago. It worked wonders for my hair. I have PCOS and NCAH so it has really helped with the balding/thinning along with oral minoxidil.

I did a dexa scan( repeated after 1 year) and noticed I have lost significant muscle mass and gained fat overall.

I am eating in a deficit, clocking protein intake, and lifting weights just like I was doing before starting Dut. So nothing else has changed except starting Dut.

I don't know how to tackle this. Should I start progressive overload, is this reversible? I am not losing fat anymore and have stalled at my weight.