Best Finasteride Dose: Scalp & Serum DHT (2 Studies)

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The Best Finasteride Dose and schedule are often heavily debated and people love to stick with the general guidelines of 1 mg orally. 

However, as I’ve discussed previously in my post on microdosing topical finasteride I learned there’s so much room for customizability here it’s just that people aren’t aware of the options.

For example, many people have found success with microdosing oral finasteride every other day or even three times weekly. If you aren’t experiencing aggressive loss or want to start with something that may be less of a load systemically, this could be something to look into.

Best Finasteride Dose

My goal with this post is to provide you with a basic explanation of oral finasteride dosage in terms of amount and schedule.

Full transparency: although I will cite many studies as the basis for my claims I will also go a bit into personal experience and anecdotes from other members of the online “hair loss community” and combine ideas to think about how things could be done.

Dosage Data

Best Finasteride Dose

Data organized from Study 1 is shown in the purple graph.

Data organized from Study 2 is shown in the orange and red graphs.

This data and studies are taken from my extensive commentary/experience on microdosing topical finasteride. If you want the full context/commentary on these two dosing studies there may be slightly more information for you there.

Opinion on the Data

I think it’s incredibly clear from this data, especially when represented visually, that even an oral dose of .2 mg of finasteride yields most of the results that higher doses like 1 mg do.

I think it’s wild that people constantly spam forums/online communities with the notion that 1 mg finasteride or .5 mg dutasteride are your only options. There is room for customization here depending on your tolerance, aggression of hair loss, goals, etc.

A guy who may have had side effects with 1 mg orally every day may not have super aggressive loss and still wants to do something but not expose himself to that much of the compound – something like .25 mg or .50 mg may work just as well for him.

I’ve seen many anecdotes of friends and people I know in online communities who have caught hair loss early (very slight temple recession) and have maintained extremely well with .5 mg of finasteride every 3 days (MWF) or every other day (EOD).

Schedule

I couldn’t find any research on finasteride scheduling that deviated from the once-daily schedule. 

The only study I can think of off the top of my head would be the Korean study which supposedly mentioned a maintenance schedule of once per month after letting finasteride build up in your system for some time – however, I couldn’t access that study either to get any context.

We do know however that finasteride does accumulate in the body and when you get off of the pharmaceutical it takes around 14 days for DHT levels to return to baseline. Finasteride itself will be mostly used in the body by the ~6-hour mark.

Since DHT is suppressed for a while after taking this medication and because it accumulates in the body over time it is safe to assume that unlike Minoxidil you don’t have to take this on as strict of a schedule.

I know this is the case because as I mentioned, many friends and online community members have maintained/shown regrowth on a dosing schedule of every other day or even three days a week.

Why it Matters

You might have read all this and might be asking: does it even matter? In my opinion, it matters a lot and is something most people gloss over carelessly. 

I’m not trying to scare you or present a biased view (I use finasteride myself), but I don’t like taking the extreme view on either side of the argument.

You’ll have people saying DHT/neurosteroids are meaningless and to shove down 1 mg and never think about it, if you get side effects you’re crazy, etc.

On the other hand, you’ll get people saying finasteride is harmful, it changes your physiology, never take it, etc.

Based on the research I’ve done, both sides are right to an extent (surprise). I’ll link a few random studies below but I’m going to do a full dive into the neurosteroid impacts from 5ARIs like finasteride/dutasteride at some point in the future.

Example Anecdote

This is a quick anecdote from a guy who used .5 mg daily for 2+ years detailing his experience – like I said he’s not experiencing the most aggressive loss which is my point exactly. 

This may be of use to those of you in a similar state of loss.

2.5 Year Finasteride Update (MPB Progression / Side Effects) | 0.5MG daily

Conclusion

Hopefully, this post expanded your knowledge in some way or got you to think about things a bit differently.

With so many options and data available it seems odd that more people, especially those experiencing side effects or less aggressive hair loss, don’t know about alternative dosing amounts or schedules.

Customizing your medical interventions based on your personal goals, needs, risk tolerances, etc is an extremely valuable thing to do. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to the dogma of certain groups that either favor or are vehemently against certain medications.

Looking at the data it’s clear that there is room to further optimize how we think about and use finasteride. Thank you for reading.

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