Women’s Hair Loss Project

I’ve just discovered your site and I must say that i,m glad that it exists. This is my dilemma, I’m a 39 year old woman who is experiencing hair loss/shedding and thinning for the last year and a half. I’ve always had long thick hair so this hair loss is a BIG adjusment for me and a lot of people have noticed the change in my hair which of course is adding to my stress and my depression. What I would like to know is this, I took aldactone for a little over 2 months and had some side effects, but only really stopped it because I had an infection elsewhere and I had to get onto medication that contained potassium. The infecton has now cleared up and I’m thinking of going on aldactone again as my shedding has increased again and also I’m also having my period and its seems I shed even more during my cycle than any other time (or at least i think i do). Is it worth going on aldactone again? Is the increased shedding due to the stopping of aldactone? I was also prescribed Diane 35 and Androcur- but have read up on them and the side effects scare me. I’m also trying chinese herbs and a regrow lotion for the last 4 months which has slowed my shedding but not stopped it. I would like to keep what I have left and not take medication that in in long run will do more harm than good. Do you know anything about soya products and hair?Thanks, awaiting your reply.

Dear Vicky -

Thanks for writing. I think a huge consideration is exactly what side effects you were having from the Aldactone and that should definitely be discussed with your physician. You were on Aldactone for such a short period of time that I don’t even know if that is long enough for it to have really have had enough effect to cause shedding from getting off it. Please remember I am not a doctor and cannot give medical advice, this is just my opinion, but it makes more sense to me that the shedding at the 2 month mark could have occurred from actually getting on the pill. Most medication used to treat hair loss all have the possibility of causing increased shedding in the beginning, it can get worse before it gets better type thing and it occurs around that time frame.

When it comes to taking any medication side effects can be pretty scary, but all meds have them. For myself I try to weigh out the possibility of one of the potential side effects to the degree of distress the ailment is causing me, in this case hair loss. Hair loss for me 8 years ago was probably the worst thing in the world, no one thinks they are going to lose their hair at 21. So I was very willing to try anything I could to save it, even knowing that some trouble could occur down the line. But again I was 21. As I got older I started to worry more and more about what effects taking a blood pressure pill that isn’t necessary was having on my body long term. Same for the pill I’m on, Orthotricyclen. Each year that passes by I worry a little more, but I really feel stuck taking all of it because I am very aware that the cessation of any of these mediation could throw me into such an extreme telogen effluvium (shedding) that my mind wouldn’t be able to recover and I’d be so depressed and hiding in bed forever. Not good. That is where I am at so I continue taking the meds despite my growing concerns. In all fareness, if my hair loss had stop and was no longer shedding I probably be happy as a peach and say, “it is all worth it” all the self questioning is happening because it seems that the treatments are no longer working to the degree they did early on… so I feel shorted in some way.

Aldactone has varying degrees of effectiveness for women, for myself I do think it helped me, more so in past years. I know this because I stopped taking my prescribed 100mg of aldactone approximately 5 years ago or so thinking it was not working. I had some pretty bad shedding, as expected, but my hair never seemed to really recover so I go back on, and at a higher dosage as well 200mg. Sometimes women are actually seeing protective hair benefits from low androgen index pills and aldactone and don’t even realize it. The realization comes when they stop taking the medication for awhile and notice that they were doing better while they were on them. When you stop taking the hair loss treatments you lose any benefits your hair got from it, and that is true for every hair loss treatment including Rogaine.

I am very unfamiliar with Cyproterone acetate (Androcur) and have never tried it myself, I know it is an antiandrogenetic hormone preparation and that is about it. Do you think your hair has gotten any better while on Androcur and Diane 35? Or are you not taking them and it was just prescribed to you? Unfortunately I don’t know about soya products, so I’m hoping another reader will be able to share any experience they had with it.

I don’t discourage women from trying Aldactone because it has proven to be of some help in treating women’s hair loss and I’m all for being proactive. I just like to tell my whole story and my thoughts that occurred years later after taking the treatments. For example, for women that are going to want to have children… they cannot take aldactone while being pregnant and obviously cannot take the birth control pill. So at some point 5, 10, 15 years down the line that day will come when they will have to get off all the meds and realize the possibility exists that they’ll start shedding hair at an accelerated rate. Of course after the baby is born the woman can get back on treatments, but understanding this and accepting this is making and education decision when treating your hair loss. Doctors don’t give you a sit down and tell you all of this.

I can’t tell you if it is worth getting on aldactone again because that is a very personal decision. I think whenever we are thinking about trying new meds we have to take out the benjamin scale and start weighing. I hope some other women can offer you their perspective as well, and that will help you in making the decision that is best for you and one you can live with.

~Y

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