I’m 43 and experienced hairloss (aga) when i was early 20s. My dad was quite bald and 2 older brothers shaved their head in their mid 20s because of hairloss.
I started using Finasteride (1.25mg each day) and my hairloss stopped and got fuller again. This remained for 18 years until last year i noticed some slight thinning on my crown again.
I read finasteride could lose its power after so many years, so 6 months ago i switched to dutasteride (0.5mg each day). The first 2 months seemed to be ok. I noticed fewer hairs falling out and my crown was definitely not thinning further.
But then after 2 months my crown started itching (not very hard, but a slight irritation). I started using Nizoral, but not much effect. And then also i started losing many hairs in that region on my crown. 4 months later the itching/irritation/inflammation/…? on my scalp has not stopped yet and my crown keeps thinning.
I read this could be the shedding phase, so the first 1-2 month i was quite “happy” and assumed it was working, but now i’m starting to worry… Shouldn’t this shedding phase be over now? I already read a few “horror”-stories about people using dutasteride for 12-18 months and they are still losing hair…
So i’m not sure what to do now. I’m really thinking of switching back to finasteride (although that also seemed to be working less efficient the last year, it didn’t cause itching and that many hair loss), but on the other hand i also read that quitting dutasteride now after 6 months would be a very bad decision.
According to GPT, Grok, Claude, Gemini, … it’s still all “normal” and i should now be in the “late” shedding phase. But right now it feels like the shedding will continue for ever.