Hey guys, I need some input on my hair situation. I ran a three month cycle of testosterone at 500mg along with 2.5mg of dutasteride and 2.5mg of oral minoxidil. The shedding was super minimal during that time. I also started using 5% RU58841 during the final month.
Fast forward a month after the cycle, and I am currently taking 1mg of finasteride and 2.5mg of oral minoxidil. For some reason, the shedding is really bad right now. I thought it might just be the typical minoxidil shed, but it does not make sense why it is worse than when I was on cycle. It has been going on for a while too.
I was a Norwood 1 before starting, but now I have receded to a Norwood 2 and my hair has really thinned out. Any ideas on why this is happening?
could honestly just be the combo of coming off cycle plus swapping from dut to fin and everything syncing into a big shed phase at the same time. sometimes hair just reacts delayed so you feel fine on cycle then it hits after when hormones are shifting around. also minox sheds can look way worse when you stack them on top of a hormonal drop because it all hits at once. I’ve seen guys panic thinking they suddenly went Norwood 2 overnight when it’s really just everything cycling at the same time. give it a bit of time and try not to keep changing stuff every week or it just keeps the shed rolling.
also fin after dut + RU changes the androgen environment pretty abruptly, so you can get a kind of rebound shed even if the meds are “stronger” on paper. it doesn’t always mean permanent loss right away, sometimes it’s just follicles cycling at the same time and making it look way worse than it is
you had high androgen environment on cycle + multiple DHT blockers + RU all at once, then you dropped test and changed the blocker setup again. follicles don’t react instantly, they kind of “sync up” later and you get that wave where a bunch of hairs enter shedding phase together
hair stuff on cycle always feels like it makes zero sense in real time. you think you’re safe then a few weeks later it just hits out of nowhere. could be the rebound after stopping everything plus the fin/min switch messing with your normal cycle too. honestly hair is one of the most unpredictable sides in this game
hair stuff on cycle always seems weirdly delayed and confusing in my experience. you can look fine during everything and then once you change things around your body just goes through this messy adjustment phase where shedding suddenly looks way worse before it settles. not saying that’s exactly what’s happening here but timing-wise it wouldn’t be the first time i’ve seen that pattern
honestly i feel like the crash after cycle is what nukes some peoples hair more than the actual blast does. your hormones are all over the place coming off and swapping from dut to fin probably didnt help either. i had a brutal shed like 6 weeks after a cycle once and thought i was cooked but most of it came back after a few months
going from dut down to fin right after cycle is probably a bigger deal than people think honestly. dut nukes dht way harder and way longer so your hair was probably chilling during the blast then got smacked with hormone chaos after everything changed at once. hair is annoying as hell because the damage always seems delayed too
that combo of coming off high test plus switching from dut to fin feels like a perfect storm honestly. i’ve seen guys shed way more in the “after” phase than during the actual cycle itself, like everything catches up at once and freaks the follicles out for a bit
