Too much Primo?? Hair is thinning!!!

[Ghoul]

There are some hardcore defenders of oral fina/duta. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. Topicals work well for me.

Nothing wrong with topicals. Though one should consider why RU was suddenly dropped during its FDA phase 2 clinical trials by its pharma developers. "Not enough money in the anti-balding business" probably isn't it. Unfortunately when things go wrong in pharma trials, they are under no obligation to explain further to the public.

After suffering severe "Post finasteride syndrome" symptoms, before it had a name, I was lucky to be reassured by my derm that it could take as long as 6 weeks to recover, but that I definately would, and I did. Had I believed they'd be permanent, that may have been subconsciously induced.

He advised lowering the dose but I was so traumatized I vowed never again, and told others to avoid it, not only suffering needless hair loss but probably causing others to as well.

Post-Finasteride Syndrome: An Induced Delusional Disorder with the Potential of a Mass Psychogenic Illness? - PMC

Post-finasteride syndrome (PFS) has been claimed to occur in men who have taken oral finasteride to treat either hair loss or benign prostatic hyperplasia, independent of age, dosage, or indication. By definition, the condition is characterized by ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Sicsemptyran]

There are some hardcore defenders of oral fina/duta.

The only reason I’ll defend it so wholeheartedly is because I think there’s millions of men losing their hair/dealing with annoying regiments because of fear mongering (not saying you’re doing this) when they just absolutely don’t have to.

Glad topicals work for you, only point was to say you don’t have to and your reason (boner issues) is just not realistic and there’s less of a risk of that than from any of the dozens of other things we put in our body.

Obviously I would say keep doing what works for you, as long as you’re happy that’s all that matters!

 

[docpepper]

I respect people's skepticisms of 5ARIs, there are all types of well-researched and understood meds that I just feel sketchy taking despite the intensity of my skepticism being incongruent with the real risk factors. I'm not gonna let someone browbeat me into taking them anyway if I just have a weird feeling about the drug, ya know?

If someone tried Fin/Dut and responded poorly or felt weird, you can't really argue against that with data. They didn't like the med. Nothing wrong with that, there's a lotta drugs I don't really like. It's probably worth noting that its highly likely that it was nocebo-induced, or the sides are transient and would subside, but again, if i'm having a bad time, I don't really care about those arguments either so I get it.

I was on Fin, never had anything resembling a negative side effect. Recently switched to Dutasteride ~1 month ago and feel no difference. I happen to tolerate the drugs quite well and I think they're awesome. I'm a big advocate of starting on a super low dose and titrating up to your desired dose over a period of months just to see how you react and shit. Also better to start with Fin because you can come off much quicker than Dut, which has like a 6 week half-life or something like that.

My only pet-peeve with discussion around these meds is they're often treated with the mysteriousness of AAS. Like, yeah, we didn't have clinical trials of dudes blasting Tren, so our knowledge of it comes from understanding its biochemistry, whatever limited data from the French gathered from Parabolan, and then just steroid forum anecdotes. That's the best we got.

But Finasteride is one of the more studied drugs of the modern era. Nobody serious would listen to a random n=1 claim about Lipator, but case studies, anecdotes and bro-science is often floated as having equal evidentiary value as the dozens controlled trials when it comes to Fin, even from "Serious" thinkers like Andrew Huberman.

 

[Sicsemptyran]

If someone tried Fin/Dut and responded poorly or felt weird, you can't really argue against that with data. They didn't like the med. Nothing wrong with that, there's a lotta drugs I don't really like. It's probably worth noting that its highly likely that it was nocebo-induced, or the sides are transient and would subside, but again, if i'm having a bad time, I don't really care about those arguments either so I get it.

Totally agree, not going to tell someone to keep taking something that makes them feel like crap.

For me though, the death knell in the 5-AR Inhibitors are evil drugs argument is the fact that people often have side effects on oral finasteride but not topical finasteride, despite the fact that it’s systematically absorbed and has the exact same effect on the body. That is pure placebo effect, the hype around their side effects cause 99% of the side effects.

For kicks I even did a bloodwork experiment and sure enough, same exact blood levels of everything going from topical -> oral -> topical. Now am on dutasteride and enjoying it, zero sides and only benefits.

 

[Ghoul]

Totally agree, not going to tell someone to keep taking something that makes them feel like crap.

For me though, the death knell in the 5-AR Inhibitors are evil drugs argument is the fact that people often have side effects on oral finasteride but not topical finasteride, despite the fact that it’s systematically absorbed and has the exact same effect on the body. That is pure placebo effect, the hype around their side effects cause 99% of the side effects.

For kicks I even did a bloodwork experiment and sure enough, same exact blood levels of everything going from topical -> oral -> topical. Now am on dutasteride and enjoying it, zero sides and only benefits.

So much of this would be a non issue if .25mg and .50mg tabs were available. As a proto-PFS activist / hysteric myself, 1mg was just too much and crashed my DHT. When you know nothing about hormones or what a 5-AR inhibitor is doing all you know is that pill broke my sex. And it stayed broken after I stopped taking it, so maybe it'd be forever!

Hell, I recognize the same fear in guys who've crashed their E2 on Aromasin (which I suspect comes from overdosed UGL tabs), and after going through misery for a month+ insist AIs are evil from then on.

It took me decades to inch back onto the finasteride horse with a pill splitter, and lo and behold, I survived .25mg with my dick intact, and my hairline benefited greatly.

 

[Juicedhead]

@Ghoul Only thing about this is that ive read on a couple of these forums that nandrolone can casue issues with finasteride. Really like how i felt on the npp. You guys have experience running a nandrolone and finasteride or dutasteride?

I have heard it can cause more shedding on nadro for some reason but I dont notice any shedding at all on nandro and fina. The only thing i notice a little shedding on is a lot of anavar.

 

[Shoobiedoubie]

This might be too obvious to say, but I haven't seen it mentioned yet so I'll add it just in case.

5ARIs like Fin and Dutasteride won't protect you against hair loss from Primo and Var. All these drugs do is compete with androgens to bind the 5AR enzyme. But Primo and Var don't interact with 5AR in any meaningful way, so Fin/Dut only protect you from your test base converting to DHT, not your Primo/Var. Primo/Var don't convert into any other meaningfully active metabolites the way test does with DHT/E2. So you can't manipulate that aspect and are stuck dealing with Primo/Var in their "final form."

If you suspect that Primo is accelerating hair loss, you would need to use a topical anti-androgen to compete with the Primo for binding to your scalp androgen receptors. These are drugs like

RU58841	Limited human testing; experimental; thought to be the most effective of the bunch. Kinda sketchy.
Pyrilutamide (KX-826)	FDA approved for OTC sale as a cosmeceutical. Decent human testing that suggests reasonable efficacy, but some question marks do arise where it performed similar to placebo at some points.
Clascoterone (Breezula)	FDA approved for acne (Winlevi), pre-approval for androgenic alopecia. Haven't looked into efficacy for AGA.
Fluridil (Eucapil)	OTC in some EU countries. Never heard of it being used in US.

If you're not trying to go nuclear and take several drugs, the methodology @Ghoul is recommending is sound. Take a 5ARI, and that'll neutralize the DHT aspect of your test base, which significantly lower your total androgenic load on your scalp. The minoxidil will help to slowly regrow part of what you've lost since puberty.

But you wanna have "full coverage," (protect against Primo and other AAS besides test) ya gotta add a topical AA as well. The most effective (but def the most sketchy) is RU58841, and the least sketchy but not-likely-as-effective-as-RU option (FDA approved for OTC sale) is KX-826, which you can buy directly from the pharma company that made it, Kintor. Google it, I think Koshine is the store they sell it from. On Amazon too. Kinda expensive, but worth it if you don't wanna dip into the RU58841 experimentation.

However, legit miniaturization (the permanent, unreversible death of hair follicles) is unlikely to be noticeable so quickly and discretely even on a 12-week cycle. So it might just be the AI effects of Primo making your hair look weak and brittle from low e2. Fortunately, if this is the case, your hair will return to normal once your e2 normalizes. There's also telogen effluvium, which is temporary hair shedding from stress and shit like that, which as I understand it, is pretty common on cycle.

So most likely, this thinning you're noticing is probably temporary. But if you care about your hair, and you have any reason to believe you're genetically predisposed to male pattern baldness (most hispanic men are to some degree), then this is a good wake-up call to start figuring out how to protect yourself, especially if you plan to blast into the future.

Good luck bro.

Ive been using 5% minoxidil and nizoral shampo for about a week now. Just ordered some RU58841 and 2% ketoconazol shampoo.

We’ll see how it goes. Most of the men in my family have full heads of hair well in there 40s-70s

So i think the chance of mpb is pretty slim. And my hair has always been thick and a lot of hair. Ill update you guys in a few months.

Getting bloodwork next week, as it will be 5 weeks on the 500 test/500 primo/30mg daily var. And ill check on the E2.

 

[MAGA]

drop the Primo
if its tanking your e2 that will thin your hair

 

[Dg28]

Some people might need to do more than what I did, but using a 2% Ketoconazole shampoo EOD stopped my Primo shedding completely.

Nizoral?

 

[Lionmask]

are you sure you're taking real primo? Primo never did anything on my hair, masteron is another story. Did you check your e2? if you crash it, you'll lose hair, same with Shbg. are you taking copper suplements? copper made me lose hair.

 

[Sampei]

All good points, and as most men experience MBP long term from their normal levels of DHT Fin lowers that base level before any DHT derived AAS adds to it so it'll certainly help to some degree, and should be part of long term hair protection.

That said, I find conflicting info regarding whether Primo directly hits the receptors or increases DHT conversion. I'm surprised there's uncertainty about this, I'd think it'd be simple to establish.

On that note it got me thinking about 5-AR conversion. Type one 5-AR conversion takes place directly in the follicle, the worst possible place for DHT to be, DHT is also found in high levels in scalp sebum, so if you have oily hair, that worsens it by spreading it from follicle to follicle. Like applying topical DHT to your scalp, lol.

Type one conversion is only inhibited by Dutasteride (type one and two 5-AR inhibitor), not Finasteride (type two 5-AR inhibitor only).

Dutasteride is only in .5mg capsules (in the US), which may be way too much, crashing DHT. As a gel filled capsule you can't split it to reduce the dose. It was made that way due to difficulty in absorbing the drug.

There are more modern formulations in solid tabs available from India pharma, so it may be possible to cut those for a reduced dose that won't crash DHT, but be more effective against hair loss. The tablets use a more absorbable form of Dutasteride along with absorption enhancers to make a solid tab feasible.

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You can fake dutasteride EOD.

It's a superior med compared to finasteride and with less side effect more inhibition of type 2 DHT even at EOD dosing of 0.5mg compared to 1mg ED finasteride.

If one has access to it for a good price I would suggest looking into it.

 

[Eddie.]

You can fake dutasteride EOD.

It's a superior med compared to finasteride and with less side effect more inhibition of type 2 DHT even at EOD dosing of 0.5mg compared to 1mg ED finasteride.

If one has access to it for a good price I would suggest looking into it.

I'm seeing more guys lately leaning towards duta than fina, even with 0,5mg twice a week there's a good improvement. Long halflife though will be a pita if someone experience side effects.

 

[amazonas]

I've used legit bayer rimobolan for years, and I can tell you with confidence that it does cause hair loss. It's not as drastic as winstrol, tren or masteron for example, and it isn't something you notice from day to day, but if you look back at your old pictures after a cycle you will realize how fucked you got. Whenever I add in anavar, the hairloss is 2x faster. Even low dosage 20-30mg.

 

[Sampei]

I'm seeing more guys lately leaning towards duta than fina, even with 0,5mg twice a week there's a good improvement. Long halflife though will be a pita if someone experience side effects.

Never thought even at jus twice a week it could be of benefit..I'll look into it, I'm thinking to start taking it as I can just buy it at a pharmacy anywhere without any issue for just few peanuts but I wanna try to avoid any possibility of sides as I'm quite famous for being quite sensitive to meds in general xD of course I'm not sensitive to AAS however, unlucky as usual lol

 

[Sicsemptyran]

Never thought even at jus twice a week it could be of benefit..I'll look into it, I'm thinking to start taking it as I can just buy it at a pharmacy anywhere without any issue for just few peanuts but I wanna try to avoid any possibility of sides as I'm quite famous for being quite sensitive to meds in general xD of course I'm not sensitive to AAS however, unlucky as usual lol

I started at once per week. The half life dynamics are a bit odd in that it’s not actually that long if you stay under a threshold, if you started at once a week and decided you didn’t like it you could easily wash it out quickly.

If you go to higher doses (like myself, .5mg daily!) it will indeed take me 5-6 months to completely wash out.

 

[Sampei]

I started at once per week. The half life dynamics are a bit odd in that it’s not actually that long if you stay under a threshold, if you started at once a week and decided you didn’t like it you could easily wash it out quickly.

If you go to higher doses (like myself, .5mg daily!) it will indeed take me 5-6 months to completely wash out.

I have heard 6 weeks to wash it out. You sure it's 5/6 months?

I'll try three times a week or twice a week at first. I know for a fact that by calculations EOD achieve better suppression of DHT then 1mg fina ED.

I'm happy with the same DHT suppression of 0.5mg or even 0.25mg of Fina ED.

So I guess twice a week could be a good compromise? What do you think?

 

[Sicsemptyran]

I have heard 6 weeks to wash it out. You sure it's 5/6 months?

I'll try three times a week or twice a week at first. I know for a fact that by calculations EOD achieve better suppression of DHT then 1mg fina ED.

I'm happy with the same DHT suppression of 0.5mg or even 0.25mg of Fina ED.

So I guess twice a week could be a good compromise? What do you think?

Absolutely, twice a week is a great start and would give you a lot of the benefits while avoiding the (rare) side effects. Can also always titrate up/down depending on androgen load. When on a true TRT dose I only do 2-3 times a week. When pushing the doses, I’ll go up to daily.

As for the wash out, if you’re doing 7 days a week, it’s half life is ~4 weeks so 5-6 month wash out.

But unlike most drugs it’s a bit odd in how it has a step function where if you’re doing it only 1-2 times/wk your body can process it quicker and therefore the wash out is close to what you mentioned, just a few weeks.

 

[Sampei]

Absolutely, twice a week is a great start and would give you a lot of the benefits while avoiding the (rare) side effects. Can also always titrate up/down depending on androgen load. When on a true TRT dose I only do 2-3 times a week. When pushing the doses, I’ll go up to daily.

As for the wash out, if you’re doing 7 days a week, it’s half life is ~4 weeks so 5-6 month wash out.

But unlike most drugs it’s a bit odd in how it has a step function where if you’re doing it only 1-2 times/wk your body can process it quicker and therefore the wash out is close to what you mentioned, just a few weeks.

Fantastic information man, I really appreciated. I'll go with twice a week and see if I get any benefit. I heard at first you start shedding like crazy and it takes 6+ months to start seeing results is it true?

 

[Sicsemptyran]

Fantastic information man, I really appreciated. I'll go with twice a week and see if I get any benefit. I heard at first you start shedding like crazy and it takes 6+ months to start seeing results is it true?

Much more common on minoxidil (oral and topical) and some other topicals. For 5-ARI’s it’s rarer. I noticed zero shedding, my hair just stopped falling out haha!

As for results that’s fairly true, the best result usually though is your hair just stops falling out and maybe a little bit of regrowth.

 

[Sampei]

What about minoxidil side effect of growing more body hair? Anyone experiencing that at 2.5mg ED?