Auglenny’s progress update. Blood results.

It’s already been over 7 weeks since starting. As you all know I started off with 50mg. But I quickly increased the dosage to 100 mg and then to 200mg by the end of 3rd week already.

If you just want to read about my hair go to the bottom of the post.

I took my initial blood tests on July 17th which I didn’t originally post so let’s sum up the most important indicators:

Potassium – 4.49 nmol/l

Estradiol – 46.61 pg/ml

Progesterone – 0.39 ng/ml

Testosterone – 513,63 ng/dl

Cortisol – 14.70 ug/dl

 

Then right after I was back from my holidays I took another test on September the 13th.

Potassium – 4.07 nmol/l

Estradiol – 31.08 pg/ml

Progesterone – 1.63 ng/ml

Testosterone – 457,98 ng/dl

Cortisol – 17.31 ug/dl

 

As you can see it’s very hard to judge if those are normal fluctuations or spiro’s job. While the hairloss community tends to think that spironolactone is some very powerful castration drug those results show what I’ve been saying all along. Spironolactone has a great safety profile especially for young people like me. Potassium has actually dropped – so much for the potassium sparing effect. If I add to this the fact that I was eating a lot of foods that were potassium rich during my vacations it goes a long way to show that potassium should not be a concern for anybody.

As for hormones. It’s worth noting that my T levels did drop a little. While the drop itself could have happened in anyone without taking spironolactone at all. We do know that because of the way it works it either raises or decreases testosterone, so the fact that it didn’t raise means that means dosage is most likely on the reducing side. Estradiol dropped, which means so far I’m not going in the gyno direction. I did admit before that gyno IS probably the biggest concern that is somewhat real so I don’t want to use those results to mock it. But I do think it’s not as likely as people think. Progesterone raised and it should have. I will definitely keep that on my eye. But so far it’s hard to make a comment.

 

Hair part.

So did I notice an improvement at the hairline? Not that I can tell. It’s seems to be very stable. There are days when I think something might be going on and it sure might be the case. But I really want to avoid being a guy that screams “INCREDIBLE regrowth” one day and cries about shedding more the another day. Talking of shedding the first few days I could swear there was less but over the long term it looks pretty much the same. But it’s not in the crazy territory either so that’s not a concern. Hairline is my point of focus.

Other side effects.

Diuretic effect? No, not really.

Less oily skin – maybe so. Actually it’s the only effect that I’m inclined to call on. But again anything could have caused it. Not dramatic enough.

Facial hair growth – no.

What’s next?

I will keep on taking 200mg and perhaps up it to 300mg to see if it finally make a real dent on spironolactone. I should get some new pictures of my hairline very soon (say this or next week?) so we can analyse what’s really happening in a more transparent way togather. I appreciate every comment you might have as it’s good to know that somebody is actually reading and finding it useful.
Also please do remember that all my commentary on my results is based on my very limited knowledge. So never take anything that I write as granted. It’s speculation at this point, you’re free to completely disagree and post your own.