How Minoxidil Works for Hair Loss. (and why we dont use it) #Rogaine #Minoxidil

so i want to treat a specific area this is where the Rogaine the topical comes in it comes in a can you can’t control how much comes out it’s just a guess by pressing from end of time look it went on the floor okay it’s really messy rub it in my hands it’s so greasy very inconvenient and it’s ruined my pompadour hey guys hi how are you welcome to another underperforming video on youtube. my name is juan carlos and today we have our special guest, a regular in this channel he’s killian and he’s in Ireland. hi killian! - Hi Juan, how are you? hope you’re doing well today. -yeah i’m doing great today. we’re going to cover the important topic of minoxidil. minoxidil is, I would rate it about number two in your effort to retain your hair for as long as possible and in this video we’re gonna say what it is how does it work the efficacy the pros and cons of the product, our experience with it, and if we recommend it or not. are you ready killian? -i am indeed.

-let’s do it 01:21 - so let’s start this video by allowing killian to tell us what is minoxidil. -so minoxidil, it actually goes back to the 1950s so it’s used to treat hypertension which is high blood pressure and in 1979 it was formulated into what’s still around today lonatin and lonatin is simply a little tablet. it’s taken orally and the FDA have cleared it only to be used for the treatment of hypertension however that does not mean that it doesn’t work on hair and of course they found that minoxidil in its tablet form one of the side effects of people who were taking it they’d increase hair count, thickening of the hair. so fast forward then to 1988 and you have Rogaine. ] minoxidil exists as a tablet and as a topical. the topical can be a liquid or a foam. -you touched briefly of what it does. you said that it’s a… what? -it’s a vasodilator. so in terms of specifically hair, the mechanism isn’t actually fully understood but we know that a vasodilator which is something that causes blood vessels to dilate and if they dilate you get a drop in blood pressure.

however what they suspect theoretically the uh minoxidil does is 02:56 - there’s um increased amounts of nutrients and increased oxygen growth factors going to the scalp from the minoxidil. -can you tell us your analogy of how you compare minoxidil and finasteride in regards to how they work? -first of all we have to say that minoxidil is not a it’s not a dht blocker a dht blocker is finasteride. it arrests the root cause, the problem which is dht causes miniaturization, male pattern baldness. minoxidil it is basically like a fertilizer so you take a flowering plant right water to a plant is like finasteride is to hair you give the plant some feed it doesn’t necessarily need it but it flourishes and it grows much better than it possibly would naturally. this is what minoxidil is like: it’s a fertilizer for hair, it allows it to grow better than it possibly could in nature because you’re giving that increased blood growth factors, nutrients to the scalp and allowing it to basically… the follicles, the hair, will thicken up.

04:10 - it’s very important to say that minoxidil will not work on its own because it’s not addressing the problem so you have to take it with finasteride. it’s a synergistic approach that works absolutely amazing. -my argument is… if that was true, they wouldn’t sell this without the notification that that says that you’re wasting your time by using it alone. so i understand what killian is saying, it makes sense, but when i buy the product off the shelf it doesn’t say that it’s contingent on the use of another product such as finasteride. -so now you you make a very good point there as well because it goes back to genetics and what some of us are more sensitive to dht miniaturization than others so let’s for example say we have johnny who he doesn’t carry the gene for hair loss is he going to benefit from this on its own? absolutely because he doesn’t have that problem to begin with.

now if you have 05:15 - killian who does have to believe… -or Juan… -i have to take finasteride because i have to keep my dht levels lower. i can’t fully suppress them, it’s impossible but i can lower it which in turn slows down the process of hair loss and then add in my fertilizer if i want to. i don’t take it by the way and we’ll get to that. -and it’s very, very interesting because as much as he understands the product, he doesn’t take it and as much as i am affected by hair loss, i myself don’t take it either.

i took this product for about six years and in my opinion 05:57 - it didn’t work for me. i started taking this right after i stopped taking finasteride in 2011 and i took it consistently twice a day for six years and it it didn’t work for me… um i want to be as unbiased as possible to say that i will never know how bad my progression would have been without its use but i continued to lose hair in those six years and then i got my transplant and i stopped using it for a couple of… a few weeks then when i started using it again i came to the conclusion that not only was it not helping me but it was also affecting me in ways and i never went to get this corroborated by a doctor or anything but at some point in your life you just got to make choices and i made the choice to stop taking it because i figured that was affecting, for example, things like my vision and it gave me some heart palpitations. -a correction there… i misspoke. the more accurate way to say is that a synergistic approach is the best approach that we could possibly do because we’re combining the best of two things together.

-killian, why don’t 07:05 - you tell us why don’t you use it? -i’m a young man i don’t want to put pharmaceutical products in my body unless the benefit outweighs the risks and you know? i don’t know what’s going to happen if i take it because i’m healthy. taking a drug to treat hypertension is perhaps not the best idea but interestingly we know that uh the more potent version, which i’m interested in which is oral the tablet, is more likely to change the color of hair now nothing radical but it darkens it because my hair, i don’t know if you can see it just little bits of blonde and there’s also bits of silver in it, because it’s aging, because there is weathering and miniaturization taking place but you know what? i actually like it. i like the color, so i don’t want to mess with it because potentially it could be permanent. this is uncharted territory… you know, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. and i’ve had a very, very good run and you have to be able to say “enough is enough” you know? i’ve done very, wel.l i’m very grateful. i know where to draw the line but at the end of the day this will be a second line of defense should i need it in the future because i ultimately will choose hair over no hair.

08:24 - -going back to the only available version without a prescription the united states which is a topical, i want to think of the pros and the cons to say… let’s say a pro is that it’s a very cheap way to immerse yourself in an effort to retain your hair because you can just pick it off a shelf at walmart or costco and if it worked for you well you can continue using it and if it didn’t, the most you wasted was forty dollars. you don’t even need to go to a doctor and um it’s just very accessible. can you think of a pro killian? -yes. a big one is localized control. so you can target certain regions, be it the the crown or the temple wherever. in other words, you’ve localized control; something you don’t get with a tablet which means you’re not going to get the potential side effects everywhere else. -and the cons, they vary per person.

some people 09:21 - have an issue with how messy it is. any cons that you can think of killian? i can think of two uh one of them there is it’s quite chemically scented it’s synthetic it’s a harsh kind of petrol smell and it’s not pleasant to have it on your scalp but also in terms of its efficacy, is a big con because it has to actually penetrate the skin so you don’t get full absorption. -i still think that it’s a valuable ally in your effort to retain your hair… uh do you recommend that killian? -i do and i might sound like a hypocrite based on what i -i agree yeah yeah -i i i think if you want to go the full whack and if you want to do everything you can and especially if you’re just starting out because minoxidil only works really on people who are starting to thin. it doesn’t work on bald scalp so the less hair loss you have, the higher the chances this is going to work for you.

-do i recommend it? of course i recommend 10:29 - it because any attempt that you make to retain your hair on proven things to work, you have to… you have to try it at least to make sure that it works for you especially in the case of minoxidil, because as i said, it doesn’t require a, topical minoxidil, doesn’t require a prescription. -i’m going to include a list of articles that we read to put this video together. i’m going to put them in the description box so maybe you want to check them out. if you take anything from this video, i’m going to read the four points that i think they’re very important.

what it is minoxidil? is a liquid or foam rubbed on the scalp 10:59 - to treat hair loss it must be used continuously to see results. in most studies, the studies go up to like four months for initial tests so you may want to stick to at least, at the very least to those first four months and at least in the one i read it says that about 40 percent of men experience had regrowth when using minoxidil and that it takes about four months to see results as i said earlier and that minoxidil is mostly effective when used in combination with finasteride and that’s something that you’re not going to read on the label but apparently most studies say that. -when you look at minoxidil, there is definitely a difference between the tablet and the topical. the tablet was way more potent. there was two studies that i found where we have low dose which is a 2.5 mg and a 5 mg and the chances of getting side effects are far far reduced because this is a very, very small amount but enough to hopefully give you the benefit of thickening the caliber of your hair and in those two studiese, i just i have to read them out because they’re absolutely fascinating, we had one which was done on a 2.5 mg, which again, very, very small.

it was double 41 men and 90 percent saw improvement after 18 months 12:14 - and a quarter had significant improvement after. now go up to 5 mg which is still very small, but a whopping 100 percent out of the 30 men in this study had an improvement of total hair count and after six months half of them had significant to excellent improvement. -and remember, as always when not doctors we’re not experts so we’re just users. i think that is it for today. i think we covered some of the most important uh aspects about a minoxidil and it’s use and what it is and our experience with it. killian did an excellent job at documenting himself to share his knowledge with us so i thank you for that killian.

12:55 - -thanks man pleasure is always collaborating with you. -and i’ll see you next time .