I am a 21 yo living in Egypt, and I have tried topical minox (oil not foam) for a month, and noticed how much of a responder I was. The problem is I stopped it because I have a cat, and despite I always applied it with one hand only and washed it thoroughly with soap and my cat was still safe, I decided that I won’t take the risk anymore. So I decided to look up oral minox in egypt and went on a tour in almost all pharmacies near me, and realized that oral minox is banned in egypt for 2 years now (it does not even get imported). What the heck should I do now? Any substitutes for oral minox that should do the same? Or at least any safer option than oil topical minox? I saw someone on another subreddit saying they were spraying the same amount of topical minox in a cup of water and they’d drink it, but I do not know how safe this approach is.
in theory if you can extract the ML amount of topical minoxidil equivalent to 1.25-2.5mg minoxidil and mix it with a cup of water and drink it, it will yield the same effectiveness as oral minoxidil if it does not get sublingually absorbed first, so you have to drink it full immediatly after mixing with a cup and not let it sit. active ingredients are same. but the real question is the precise dosing, ingredients inside the topical minoxidil spray that may not be safe for consumption and whether the mix is homogenous or not. the crucial part is whether the mix is fully homogenous or not, even slight imbalance in homogeneity can mean that you can get overdosed in minoxidil, which may translate to things like pericardial effusion or even death. this is quite a bold risk to take, though in theory it would work. personally I would not. you may obtain raw minoxidil powder, use an extremely precise balance with minimum weight measurement of 1mg or less, obtain empty capsules and fill the capsules with the powder equivalent to 1.25-2.5mg of minoxidil but again that is like a gray area. I canNOT and will not legally recommend you to do it. These are just like the potential solutions, if possible consult with a doctor and talk with him about these. maybe there is an institution in your country whom you could contact to import minoxidil for strict personal use with a prescription. you can alternatively make your own minoxidil tablets if you have you know precise balances and tablet press machines (but again this is not something I would recommend, just potential solutions. potential does not mean safe or legal. also if you want to go through the route of tablet press, while i don’t recommend, please don’t press more than 1 tablet at a given time or you can risk overdose if the mix of minoxidil+excipient (excipients are ingredients required for the structure of tablets) is not homogenous enough. you can say, just to give an example not to recommend, press 2.5mg oral minoxidil tablet with suppose 95mg of lactose monohydrate as its excipient, though this is just an example and you may need additional materials. You may also use a syringe, you could weigh the excipients+active ingredient of minoxidil (say 2.5mg), mix them well, put them into a syringe and create a paste, though this is likely going to be a worse option than using a tablet press. keep in mind only a handful if any pharmacies would do it in an entire country, that is egypt with a prescription. your regular pharmacy down the street has likely nowhere near the equipment but above all interest to make it where they can just hand you a package of say finasteride and make a buck. they may know how to make it or not, either way they don’t likely have any interest or any practical way to do it. compunding pharmacies are rare enough, the number of pharmacies that compound oral tablets/pills is likely vanishingly small if they do even exist.
This text is not a medical advice. For all medicines listed here, compounding them on your own is fully at your own risk.
Keep also in mind that I do NOT know what the precise laws there in egypt are. So, if compounding your own medicine is not legal, again the burden is on you if you break any law..
Will it work if you get to dose right? Absolutely. Will it be safe, probably again if dose is right for oral compound and if other ingredients inside the topical (if you want to drink topical) is safe but I am not sure and I would not take the risk nor would recommend it. Will it be legal, I have no damn idea. Would I recommend it even if you have all the PPE, a proper working area eg a chem lab, maybe even a fumehood tho unnecessary for the use case here, materials etc.? Hell fucking no.
Most compounders and manufacturers of medications can and sometimes do use far less sensitive balances, prepare large batches with excipients (for oral compounds), mix-weight etc. then divide them to dose per tablet. But keep in mind the issue of homogeneity (which may lead to overdose) of topical formulations also persist with oral versions/forms of this kind. Pressing once or making one pill at a given time albeit slower is usually safer, even if the powder of excipient and active ingredient is mixed well.
Explicit legal disclaimer: The author provides no guarantee of accuracy for any information presented here. This I suppose is the riskiest text that I had written and whatever damage/benefit you take from here is on you. By reading this text, you accept that the risk and beneft is fully on you. I provide this text for entertainment purposes only.
-baldbutnotbold 