Men with rosacea & hair loss DO NOT use minoxidil!! + Something that WILL help!

[LawrenceK]

Ok this obviously not a question, this is a warning to fellow men who are thinning on scalp from androgenic hair loss or trying to grow facial hair...

Under any circumstance DO NOT use rogaine/regaine aka minoxidil. It has some nasty side effects for those of us with rosacea. I used it for about 4 months, started off with the foam then switched to the liquid & had to come off because it was worsening my symptoms & made me feel like ****.

First of all for those who are unaware; minox is a vasodilator, it opens up your vessels to increase blood flow. Within a few hours of first using this i got a nasty flush (actually one of the worst I had similar to mirvaso). Over weeks of daily application my baseline redness got worse and worse until I had a permanently deep red face all over & received several negative comments from friends and family, once I came off completely it took several months to return to the reddish face I had before using minox, which is night and day.

If that wasn't bad enough, a well known side effect that those who have no rosacea often encounter is water retention and bloating. If you have Rosacea your bloating will be 1000x worse, I didn't even think about it until I was in a photo with someone and to my horror it looked like I had moon face, but due to the redness on top of that more like a big tomato. I guess women could get away with this a bit more, but for a man to have this look is very unattractive; naturally I have a sharp jawline and nice structure to my face but all that was invisible by puffiness.

I tried a bunch of things attempting to work around it like drinking gallons of water per day, exercising more, applying it to different parts of my body etc and nothing changed. It made my hair grow faster & increased body hair but didn't really help with my scalp thinning.

So anyway I started taking saw palmetto orally and also applying saw palmetto oil to my scalp. Within about a month I was losing a few hairs a day compared to 50-100 beforehand and I've started growing in places where I was receding. I'd read about saw palmetto in the past as a testosterone booster/estrogen blocker but never totally believed in it. Basically it's a 5ar inhibitor meaning it blocks DHT, DHT is the sex hormone that's converted from testosterone & it's what makes men go bald. It blocks DHT at a rate between 60-75%. You can buy both oral and topical supplements and oils on Amazon, I personally just take 500mg a day but if your hair loss is very aggressive you can take 1000-1500mg a day & I oil my scalp and massage it 3 times a week.

Of course there's also finasteride itself but I've had a few friends go on that and it raises your estrogen levels for them it meant lower sex drive and loss in muscle mass. It blocks DHT 100% which is bad because you need a bit of DHT to function normally as a man. Personally I didn't want to touch it.

[Countrygirl]

Totally right this chemical should be avoided for all those with Rosacea, if you use it at night it can smear on the pillow and into the skin.

[Brady Barrows]

This has come up before, here, and here, so if you do a search you will find some other mention of it.

[beherenow]

Ok this obviously not a question, this is a warning to fellow men who are thinning on scalp from androgenic hair loss or trying to grow facial hair...

Under any circumstance DO NOT use rogaine/regaine aka minoxidil. It has some nasty side effects for those of us with rosacea. I used it for about 4 months, started off with the foam then switched to the liquid & had to come off because it was worsening my symptoms & made me feel like ****.

First of all for those who are unaware; minox is a vasodilator, it opens up your vessels to increase blood flow. Within a few hours of first using this i got a nasty flush (actually one of the worst I had similar to mirvaso). Over weeks of daily application my baseline redness got worse and worse until I had a permanently deep red face all over & received several negative comments from friends and family, once I came off completely it took several months to return to the reddish face I had before using minox, which is night and day.

If that wasn't bad enough, a well known side effect that those who have no rosacea often encounter is water retention and bloating. If you have Rosacea your bloating will be 1000x worse, I didn't even think about it until I was in a photo with someone and to my horror it looked like I had moon face, but due to the redness on top of that more like a big tomato. I guess women could get away with this a bit more, but for a man to have this look is very unattractive; naturally I have a sharp jawline and nice structure to my face but all that was invisible by puffiness.

I tried a bunch of things attempting to work around it like drinking gallons of water per day, exercising more, applying it to different parts of my body etc and nothing changed. It made my hair grow faster & increased body hair but didn't really help with my scalp thinning.

So anyway I started taking saw palmetto orally and also applying saw palmetto oil to my scalp. Within about a month I was losing a few hairs a day compared to 50-100 beforehand and I've started growing in places where I was receding. I'd read about saw palmetto in the past as a testosterone booster/estrogen blocker but never totally believed in it. Basically it's a 5ar inhibitor meaning it blocks DHT, DHT is the sex hormone that's converted from testosterone & it's what makes men go bald. It blocks DHT at a rate between 60-75%. You can buy both oral and topical supplements and oils on Amazon, I personally just take 500mg a day but if your hair loss is very aggressive you can take 1000-1500mg a day & I oil my scalp and massage it 3 times a week.

Of course there's also finasteride itself but I've had a few friends go on that and it raises your estrogen levels for them it meant lower sex drive and loss in muscle mass. It blocks DHT 100% which is bad because you need a bit of DHT to function normally as a man. Personally I didn't want to touch it.

Hey Lawrence, thanks for posting about this. I'm planning to start minoxidil in a few weeks, or at least I was.. I'm cautious since it's a vasodilator, but I assumed it wouldn't affect my face if applied on the top of my head at my crown. I also came across a few comments on Reddit from people with rosacea not having issues with Minoxidil, although I'm not sure of their subtype. I'm still thinking about trying it once since I'm desperate and scared of finasteride -- although if I flush, I'll quit immediately.

For reference, finasteride doesn't block 100% of DHT. It typically lowers it by 50-70%. It's the most controversial drug I've ever come across. Did your friends stay on it? I'm okay with a slight decrease in libido, but ED, brain fog, depression, anxiety, etc. are not worth it imo. I've also read reports of it causing hot flashes, so this is another reason I'm skeptical. I've spoken with quite a few people, some have highly recommended it and some have massively dissuaded me. The 1% side effect that gets reported is in short-term studies and doesn't take into account the long-term cumulative impact. I spoke with someone in my hometown recently who had great results for over a decade, then it significantly affected his sex life and motivation. A year of hell as he got off the drug and eventually improved, although some (a very small %) aren't so lucky. The side effects are way under-reported.

It's very tempting, especially when I'm in my early 20s and I know it would help me hold onto my hair. I'm on the fence here, so if you have any suggestions or anyone comes across this I'm seeking advice. It seems like a game of Russian Roulette, despite how many times I've heard that Elon Musk and other successful people are on it lol. My decision would be easier if I was in my 30s or 40s.

At some point soon, I'm going to make that decision. I don't want to live my life insecure about it. I'll either confidently embrace it and let nature take its natural course, with a peaceful Ram Dass bravado. Otherwise, I'll try it, perhaps trading in one problem for another. Although it very well could help without any side effects.

[beherenow]

Hey Lawrence, thanks for posting about this. I'm planning to start minoxidil in a few weeks, or at least I was.. I'm cautious since it's a vasodilator, but I assumed it wouldn't affect my face if applied on the top of my head at my crown. I also came across a few comments on Reddit from people with rosacea not having issues with Minoxidil, although I'm not sure of their subtype. I'm still thinking about trying it once since I'm desperate and scared of finasteride -- although if I flush, I'll quit immediately.

For reference, finasteride doesn't block 100% of DHT. It typically lowers it by 50-70%. It's the most controversial drug I've ever come across. Did your friends stay on it? I'm okay with a slight decrease in libido, but ED, brain fog, depression, anxiety, etc. are not worth it imo. I've also read reports of it causing hot flashes, so this is another reason I'm skeptical. I've spoken with quite a few people, some have highly recommended it and some have massively dissuaded me. The 1% side effect that gets reported is in short-term studies and doesn't take into account the long-term cumulative impact. I spoke with someone in my hometown recently who had great results for over a decade, then it significantly affected his sex life and motivation. A year of hell as he got off the drug and eventually improved, although some (a very small %) aren't so lucky. The side effects are way under-reported.

It's very tempting, especially when I'm in my early 20s and I know it would help me hold onto my hair. I'm on the fence here, so if you have any suggestions or anyone comes across this I'm seeking advice. It seems like a game of Russian Roulette, despite how many times I've heard that Elon Musk and other successful people are on it lol. My decision would be easier if I was in my 30s or 40s.

At some point soon, I'm going to make that decision. I don't want to live my life insecure about it. I'll either confidently embrace it and let nature take its natural course, with a peaceful Ram Dass bravado. Otherwise, I'll try it, perhaps trading in one problem for another. Although it very well could help without any side effects.

Hot flashes are a symptom of androgen deprivation therapy

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1477613/

[boris]

Hot flashes are a symptom of androgen deprivation therapy

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1477613/

interesting thread - ive used finasteride and minoxidil for approx 9 years without any major problems , my flushing started about 3 years ago so cant see it being tied to those 2 - ive also tried dropping them at different times for a month each and it didnt make a difference ...

would recommend using a laser comb if you dont want to use the other 2 , its worked quite well for me but it takes time

[LawrenceK]

Hey mate glad this helped you..
If you are in your early 20s i personally wouldn't go anywhere near finasteride or even saw palmetto considering males are still developing until we are 25,26. I'm not gonna give a lecture about that because you can google it for yourself. But you want your DHT levels to be at peak. You gotta remember DHT is actually more important for development than testosterone, it's what makes us men.

So I know 4 close friends that are on Finn. The 3 I've talked to had quite bad experiences with it but at the same time were satisfied because they got to keep thier hair. One of my mates said he lost a lot of muscle mass & started putting on weight, another one wasn't growing a lot of facial hair anymore & that bothered him because he liked having a beard; all of them said they just felt 'low' like something was missing. You see the problem is when you block DHT in large percentages some of it will convert to to testosterone but a lot of it inevitably converts to estrogen. I've noticed personally when taking DHT blockers that my face loses its leanness a bit, if you have high DHT levels it does make you look more manlier because it makes your face structure sharper and less soft like a females. Another negative thing about Finn is it can work for a few years and then suddenly out of nowhere it stops being effective, at that point your hormones maybe permanently screwed and you're going to be on TRT for the rest of your life which can cause further problems like infertility.

And yes you made a good point about the hot flashes. That's a common side effect it's actually more to do with imbalanced hormones for men. I had at it one point in the past when my testosterone levels got kinda low.

Now the problem with minoxidil that i quickly discovered is its not a spot treatment because it's systematic. Meaning I still got hair growth in places I didn't apply the foam/liquid to. When I started getting really bad redness on the face I started applying it on my forearms and legs. And I still got red. I have type 1 rosacea which for me is general redness of the face with flushing around triggers like heat or spicy food. If you're type 2 maybe it would be ok for you. I mean like anything you gotta try right .


But look into oils like peppermint, saw palmetto, pumpkin seed, rosemary for your scalp because they seem to not trigger my redness and definitely help with DHT blocking & hair growth. And you gotta like massage them into your scalp to get the blood flow going & absorb it into the follicles with a special brush. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Massager-He...scalp+&sr=8-14 .When you get to your late 20s and depending on your hair loss genes then think about saw palmetto or finasteride.

But if you have any further questions I'm happy to help!

Hey Lawrence, thanks for posting about this. I'm planning to start minoxidil in a few weeks, or at least I was.. I'm cautious since it's a vasodilator, but I assumed it wouldn't affect my face if applied on the top of my head at my crown. I also came across a few comments on Reddit from people with rosacea not having issues with Minoxidil, although I'm not sure of their subtype. I'm still thinking about trying it once since I'm desperate and scared of finasteride -- although if I flush, I'll quit immediately.

For reference, finasteride doesn't block 100% of DHT. It typically lowers it by 50-70%. It's the most controversial drug I've ever come across. Did your friends stay on it? I'm okay with a slight decrease in libido, but ED, brain fog, depression, anxiety, etc. are not worth it imo. I've also read reports of it causing hot flashes, so this is another reason I'm skeptical. I've spoken with quite a few people, some have highly recommended it and some have massively dissuaded me. The 1% side effect that gets reported is in short-term studies and doesn't take into account the long-term cumulative impact. I spoke with someone in my hometown recently who had great results for over a decade, then it significantly affected his sex life and motivation. A year of hell as he got off the drug and eventually improved, although some (a very small %) aren't so lucky. The side effects are way under-reported.

It's very tempting, especially when I'm in my early 20s and I know it would help me hold onto my hair. I'm on the fence here, so if you have any suggestions or anyone comes across this I'm seeking advice. It seems like a game of Russian Roulette, despite how many times I've heard that Elon Musk and other successful people are on it lol. My decision would be easier if I was in my 30s or 40s.

At some point soon, I'm going to make that decision. I don't want to live my life insecure about it. I'll either confidently embrace it and let nature take its natural course, with a peaceful Ram Dass bravado. Otherwise, I'll try it, perhaps trading in one problem for another. Although it very well could help without any side effects.

[LawrenceK]

Get a blood test with your testosterone levels on it. When i got hot flashes it was because my testosterone was low and hormones imbalanced.

interesting thread - ive used finasteride and minoxidil for approx 9 years without any major problems , my flushing started about 3 years ago so cant see it being tied to those 2 - ive also tried dropping them at different times for a month each and it didnt make a difference ...

would recommend using a laser comb if you dont want to use the other 2 , its worked quite well for me but it takes time

[boris]

Get a blood test with your testosterone levels on it. When i got hot flashes it was because my testosterone was low and hormones imbalanced.

could you describe your hot flashes ? if they are the same as mine then i would look into a blood test for sure ...

how long did they last , what time of day , with food etc ?

thanks

[LawrenceK]

Yeah hot flash, (nothing to do with a rosacea flush by the way) is when for a split second you feel very dizzy & you feel almost like a rush of heat in your brain. I'd just get them randomly usually in evenings but no triggers. If you ask women about it they will know what you're talking about because they get them a lot. But for men it's a sign of low testosterone & once I got my levels back to normal range they stopped. If you're wondering if you have low test though, there are many more obvious symptoms such as increased body fat & lethargy.

could you describe your hot flashes ? if they are the same as mine then i would look into a blood test for sure ...

how long did they last , what time of day , with food etc ?

thanks