Long-term topical finasteride user struggling with hair loss looking for advice

Treatments
1

Hi everyone,

I’ve been dealing with hair loss for a while and wanted to share my experience and ask for some advice.

A few years ago, I tried oral finasteride but experienced severe side effects right away, including ED and very low sperm count eeven though I took only 1/4 of a pill. Tried again later but same result. Because of that, I stopped and didn’t want to risk it again.

Since then, I’ve been using topical finasteride from minoxidilmax.com (Essengen F) for about 2 years. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any noticeable improvement. In fact, my hair is still thinning on top of my scalp and I’m getting more of that “V-shaped” hairline. I was hesitant to add minoxidil because I have long hair and worried about shedding causing noticeable hair loss before regrowth.

I’m a male and not keen on hair transplant surgery just yet. Maybe later in life.

Given my experience, I’m wondering:

  • Could my dose be wrong?
  • Could anyone perhaps recommend a different supplier of topical fin that ships to western Europe?
  • How risky is it to add minoxidil, considering I have long hair?
  • Are there other effective alternatives that don’t carry the side effects of oral finasteride?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

2

The more you suppress your DHT the healthier your hair, but also means more side effects, maybe your dose is small enough to not cause side effects but it’s also not going to completely halt your hair loss
From what I know, minoxidil sheds weak miniaturized hair, would that be noticeable on you, no idea
There are drugs in clinical trial that may cause less side effects but I don’t think they are readily available. You can try topical dutasteride, it’s hard to find and maybe has less systemics effects but i’m not sure of its efficacy