Dr. Rodney Sinclair, Professor of Dermatology at the University of Melbourne, claims to have effectively regrown a female patient’s hair after he told her to take the Rogaine (minoxidil) orally.
Prof. Sinclair prescribed Rogaine (with Minoxidil as an active compound) to a female patient for her thinning hair twenty years ago. Later, she became allergic to it when she applied it to her scalp, however, she could not stop using it because her hair would have thinned again.
In order to overcome the dilemma, Prof. Sinclair gave the patient very low doses of Rogaine as a pill to be consumed orally.
He said,
The patient was very motivated, and the one thing we knew was that if a patient has an allergy to a topically applied medicine, one way to desensitize is to give very low doses orally.
Consequently, Prof. Sinclair observed hair regrowth in her, and it did not influence her blood pressure (a common side-effect of Rogaine). It is to be noted that the original purpose of the drug was to treat high blood pressure patients.
Prof. Sinclair gradually decreased the dosage until it was one-fortieth of the pill. At one point, he began prescribing the drug regularly to the patients. The first patient still takes her pill up to this day.
Furthermore, he revealed at a meeting in Miami in 2015 that low doses of minoxidil caused hair growth in 100 successive women. He released those findings in 2017 and remarked that more studies were needed, in which one group of patients would be given minoxidil and another, a sugar pill.
Over 10,000 Patients Treated
However, the study was never conducted, whereas the Professor claims to have treated over 10,000 patients so far. On the other hand, an increasing number of hair-loss dermatologists have been prescribing the low-dose pill to their patients, including males and females.
Dr. Crystal Aguh, a dermatologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said, “It is just starting to see a surge in popularity,” adding, “More and more at conferences, we are sharing our success stories”.
She added that doctors not specializing in hair loss would not be familiar with the oral form of minoxidil, except in rare cases of treatment for high blood pressure. She further said that the medicine comes with a warning that it could cause heart problems, however, it is only for much higher doses.
Does Not Work For Everyone
She also explained that the medicine will not work on people who are entirely bald with a shiny scalp, as there is nothing to regrow, adding that the ideal patient has to have noticeable hair.
The use of minoxidil pills for hair loss continues to be off-label without a comprehensive trial that results in FDA approval. Meanwhile, dermatologists claim that it will probably continue to be so.
Dr. Brett King, a dermatologist at Yale School of Medicine, maintained that the oral minoxidil only costs pennies per day.
He added,
There is no incentive to spend tens of millions of dollars to test it in a clinical trial. That study truly is never, ever going to be done.
About Minoxidil
The minoxidil is the active compound in Rogaine, a lotion or spray that is directly applied to the scalp. Initially, it was approved for men in 1988 and for women in 1992. Meanwhile, its use as a hair regrowth medicine was discovered decades ago when high doses of the drug were being used to treat high blood pressure and the patients noticed accelerated hair regrowth all over the body as a side effect.
Eventually, the manufacturers launched its topical form, Rogaine, and got its approval as a hair regrowth remedy.
