I was replying to @Quokka@quokk.au earlier but seemed to make sense to ask everyone here:

Is anyone on a hair regrowth journey here? Is anyone taking the combo in the title? I’m curious about a few things.

  1. Did you start finasteride at the same time as starting hrt? Given that I’m about to start HRT, I feel like i should wait to start fin for a few months ago I can tell what emotional changes come from HRT and what come from fin.

  2. Did you get the dreaded depression side effect from fin?

  3. How do you take them and how do you take your E? Is there any worry about hepatic stress from taking all of these orally?

  4. Any increased body hair growth? If so, even after laser / electro?

  5. How careful do you have you have to be with hair care? Are you sleeping in hair covers? Using expensive conditioners etc?

  6. Are you getting the results you want?

    • gandalf_der_12te@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      to answer your questions: i take around 1 mg daily (though dosage varies a lot dependent on my mood and the weather). about the hair growth thing: typically, finasteride does not make your scalp hair regrow, it just prevents it from dying off in the first place. so the sooner you take it, the more effect it will have, because once you’ve lost the hair, i think it doesn’t come back, at least not easily.

      1. i’m only taking finasteride. i don’t want estrogen or prog because i don’t want boobs. the effects are mostly: immediately (within 1-3 days): change in how i see the world (cognitive changes), i get to have an easier time talking to other people, words come easier, less hesitation when talking to other people. for some people, finasteride is reported to cause depression. i think that’s because it really throws your head around, makes you see the world differently, and if you’re not prepared for that, that might cause you struggle.

      effects within a week: the itching on the scalp (early sign of hair loss) stopped, changes to smell (“girlsmell”), softer skin i think? I think the girlsmell doesn’t come from E at all but rather, it’s the normal human smell if it isn’t “overwritten” with intense T smell.

      1. no it made me feel very good and i would say the opposite of depression.

      2. i take 1 mg orally daily, mostly in the evening because then i get to relax afterwards which is better, because it’s more relaxed. if you buy the 5 mg pills, they’re cheaper per mg, but you have to break them apart manually (use a knife) to get the proper dosage.

      3. no

      4. no special routines

      5. better than expected

      i did expect it to make the itching on the scalp stop. i did not expect it to cause outright euphoria. i think that a lot of problems i’ve had for a long time were partially due to high T levels. that’s reduced now. like, irritated bowel, easy to anger, hard finding words when talking to people, unpleasant smell, …

      i recommend you give it a try.

  • jadetoffee@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    5·
    2 days ago

    I am on all three.

    Started August 2025 on 2mg sublingual estradiol (low dose, ik) and 2.5mg oral minoxidil

    Added 1mg oral finasteride in December 2025

    Switched to 4mg / 5 days EV injections early April 2026

    Experienced massive shedding for a few months with noticable losses, has slowed down as of late and i hope to see progress soon

    I experienced depression and even suicidal ideation at times, BUT i have a history of this, so im unsure if it is related to meds

    Body hair growth seems about the same, idk. Maybe the loss from E is cancelling out the growth from Min. Currently doing IPL and hoping for the best

    I use nizoral shampoo as i have dermatitis on the scalp but other than that i dont do anything special

    I have seen some gains but nowhere near my goal. but it is still early

    here is my reddit thread on my hair journey so far

  • Jul (they/she)@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    I didn’t take any anti-androgens and my testosterone was lowered with only estradiol. My hair loss seems to have stopped, but I haven’t had any regrowth so far.

    I have tried topical minoxidil in a few blends, prescription and nonprescription, with no real results. I didn’t want to do oral minoxidil as I don’t want hair growth elsewhere. I spent lots of time and money getting rid of hair on face, chest, arms, legs, etc., so I’m waiting for my consult for facial feminization to try anything else. Unfortunately, the waitlists are several years for consults, so we’ll see…eventually. I’m hoping that will reduce the appearance of the receding hairline and may be able to do something with the bald spot up top. For now, longer hair and bangs is making it slightly less apparent.

  • applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    I’m taking all three. I started with valerate 5mg intramuscular once a week and progesterone 100mg orally daily. Switched prog to rectal after a month or two.

    1. Started finasteride and minoxidil orally after about 4 months. I get mine from hims.com because I hate going to the doctor. They have a compounded version that has both plus some supplements they claim help with hair growth. Other people I know started them even before HRT so it’s really up to you when to start.

    2. It’s really hard for me to tell if I got any depression from it. I was going through some really bad times at work in the months after I started and got some of the worst depression I’ve ever felt as a result. It got dramatically better after I quit, so I don’t think it was really the finasteride causing it, just a shitty situation. I suspect its more of a cis man issue, like the lack of dht causes them to get depressed the same way we do from the lack of estrogen, but thats barely a hypothesis at this point because no one really knows why it causes depression.

    3. As I said intramuscular E, rectal prog, oral fin and minox. Not really worried because most of the stuff I take bypasses the liver. Highly recommend injections.

    4. I noticed a small increase in body/facial hair in the months after starting, but it was nothing major. I’m doing electro on my face so it doesn’t really matter for that. minoxidil doesn’t give you new hairs just enlarges the existing ones so if the hair is properly treated with electro the minoxidil wont matter. For body hair it seemed like just a minor setback for laser, which I’m doing on pretty much my whole body below the neck at this point, at least everywhere with hair dark enough to treat. I didn’t really notice much shedding on my scalp but my hair wasn’t very long when I started so there was less to notice anyway.

    5. Like the other person, I’m really not doing anything special. I use nizoral shampoo every once in a while when I feel like my hair is getting too greasy but otherwise I just rinse it with water. I get dandruff sometimes, but I also found a research paper that found ketoconazole shampoo promotes hair growth in combination with minoxidil. I doubt it’s a huge effect but it’s something.

    6. Pretty much yeah. My hair is much thicker than it was and has filled in a lot on the parts that had started balding. I know a lot of that is just estrogen so it’s hard to tell how much is fin and minoxidil. I still have a bit of a widows peak and the formerly balding areas are still somewhat thinner than the surrounding hair. I got a Dr. Pen microneedling pen recently that I’m hoping will help thicken the thin sections and reduce the widows peak, but even if it doesn’t work I’m very happy with the results I’ve gotten so far. Once it gets longer it will be hard to tell I have thinning at all unless you’re looking for it. I used to buzz my hair and stopped at about the same time I started hormones so it will take me a while to have actually long hair. Both fin and minoxidil sre supposed to achieve full effect after about a year, and I’ve been on them about 4 months now, so there’s still a lot of potential for improvement.