Category: Female Hair Loss

Snippet from the article:

Off-label use of oral finasteride at 5 mg/day proved safe and effective for the treatment of female pattern hair loss in 43 premenopausal women in an 18-month study.

Treatment effectiveness was assessed in two ways: patient satisfaction scores and two blinded investigators’ evaluation of photographs. As a precondition for study participation, patients needed to have normal serum androgen levels, no clinical signs of hyperandrogenism, and no wish to become pregnant ever again. They also had to go on drospirenone/ethinyl estradiol for oral contraception.

At the 6-month mark, 25 patients (58%) characterized their improvement as “huge” and 14 (33%) as moderate; 4 reported no improvement. These results were stable across time, with the women reporting the same results at 12 and 18 months of follow-up.

Read the rest — High-Dose Finasteride Halts Hair Loss in Women

The study appears to be unpublished and includes only a few dozen patients, but I found it of interest to our readers and worth posting. As the article points out, “an 18-month study is not sufficient to draw solid conclusions about the possible long-term risks of extended therapy“.

I went to see a dermatologist in Raleigh NC. After he learned that my hair loss started 15 years ago, then got excessive in the last 3 months since I am a breast feeding mom, he came to the conclusion that I have the genetic type of hair loss and I have 2 choices if I am not going to have more kids – propecia or rogaine.

I mentioned that my scalp is irritated and I have a lot of pain. His response was that this may not be related to hair loss. Bottom line he said that he wished that he was a hero and could fix my hair but he is not and he asked me to look at his bald hair. He basically said there is no cure yet and just deal with it. This experience was so hard because I had hope that I will get some kind of help, instead I had to hear just deal with it and use rogaine.

it has been 2 days since then and still asking myself if I went to see a very honest dermatologist that happened to be a rude doctor or if there was some test and other practices that he should’ve proceeded with but would not or could not do.

I wish I was a hero too, but I am merely a doctor who has to inform you that there is no medical cure for hair loss in either men or women. Maybe your doctor was too blunt or was not sensitive to such a delicate issue, but I think your doctor was being honest.

In general, the only hope for women that want to treat hair loss (after excluding any medical reasons for the loss) is topical minoxidil, also sold as Rogaine. Propecia (finasteride) does not really work for women unless there is a clear diagnosis of androgenic alopecia and it should never be prescribed to any woman who might get pregnant. And since you’re a breastfeeding mother, it should be pointed out that it is unknown if the medication can be passed through breast milk. Besides that, even if you have androgenic alopecia, Propecia is generally not recommended for women since we do not know the potential side effects (including cancer). The cancer part may be very rare, but since there have been no large scale studies it might just be a worst case scenario that has been theorized.

The final option may be hair transplant surgery, but this is also a limited solution for women who generally have diffuse thinning. And since you were curious about tests for possible causes of female hair loss, they are listed here.