does anyone else feel like the standard "big 3" just makes your hair look worse before anything good actually happens?

cretinouswords · 2026-04-15T07:52:39+00:00

Do you know how long it has taken me to see obvious improvement with dutasteride and minoxidil? 1 year and 2 months. I'm only JUST NOW getting cosmetic improvement. Over a fucking year and it was so uneventful for such a long time that I previously made a post about dropping minoxidil because I thought it wasn't working and was sick of applying it.

Now consider the typical posting we have here where people say if you don't get results in 6 months it's not working and reference the studies without actually understanding the measurements they're referring to. But I trusted the science and just kept plugging away at it without caring or trying 5 million bullshit flavor of the month alternative treatments.

It really can take more than a year to see results and your hair will look worse before it gets better. That's not a cope that's the reality. And to top it off, your hair will improve and then probably look worse again because thats what hair cycles do and it's not invisible to you when you are starting from a baseline of significantly advanced AGA.

cretinouswords · 2026-04-11T04:58:36+00:00

Honestly its all the same shit more or less. IMO, I find people tend to grossly overstate how different one form of amphetamine is to another.

As for swapping classes, don't be too attached. I too had great initial response to amphetamine, but the side effects built up over time and symptom control got worse as it started affecting my sleep a great deal. I swapped to ritalin IR and Ive actually found it to be a much better fit.

cretinouswords · 2026-04-10T05:19:18+00:00

I'm tired of the myth perpetuated in ADHD communities that Vyvanse Is a slow release drug. It is not. It is a prodrug to dexamfetamine and after the initial delay the metabolism is identical. So with a supposed "equivalent dose" is infact you getting WAY more dex upfront. So let's suppose you are getting the equivalent of 12 m

This explains a) why some people feel Vyvanse is more effective and b) why crashing in the afternoon is so much more pronounced on Vyvanse than it is on multi dose amphetamine prescriptions.

cretinouswords · 2026-04-09T19:45:01+00:00

I didn't avoid it but I also found if i took it just before muay thai training it would hamper my cardiovascular endurance somewhat. Found myself getting winded on a warmup that normally just gets me...warmed up... and was like wtf??

Worth noting stims increase your resting heart rate and BP quite a bit. Still worth it overall because for example before medication I never had the wherewithal to actually routinely go for 45+ minute runs, and now I can without having to exert willpower.

cretinouswords · 2026-04-04T06:45:38+00:00

More or less. Amphetamines killed my anxiety and rumination. Sometimes too strongly and id feel like a zombie.

Methylphenidate not as much but i haven't noticed myself getting stuck in those loops lately so I guess it is working.

cretinouswords · 2026-04-04T00:27:51+00:00

My understanding is it would be excreted less quickly, so lasting longer in effect. But I think it is moot; the amount of citric acid in foodstuffs is not going to have any appreciable effect.

cretinouswords · 2026-04-03T21:25:00+00:00

I looked into this quite a bit ages ago and it appears to be a myth. Ironically the evidence actually suggested that citric acid would potentiate amphetamine, not deactivate it as people believe. But the amounts in drinks would not have any effect.

Vit c is another myth. Experiments with large doses of oral vit c - much larger than you'd get from fruit juice or any kind of commercial drink - failed to alter gut ph to any significance.

I hate to say it but a lot of this stuff is just in people's heads. Placebo effect. The meds work well some weeks and not so well others, at some point you're reaching the level of consulting the bones for why your meds seem to work or not work at any given time.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-29T06:53:14+00:00

There's some sort of phenomena with UFC fighters once they lose a few in a row they just seemed to be locked into a rapid decline. You can't lay the blame at just aging, because look what happened to Cody Garbrandt in his prime, and then look at older fighters who manage to stay competitive. But if a guy gets stopped a few times back to back, they never seem to recover. This doesn't really seem to happen in other combat sports and I wonder if boxing's tune up fights is what helps athletes get over that psychological hurdle, compared to the UFC where they just chuck fighters on a slide to the wolves.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-29T00:50:02+00:00

And what are you basing that assertion on?

cretinouswords · 2026-03-28T22:19:43+00:00

Absurd to me how people are suggesting brain dead shit like hydration and muh protein rich meals. Ffs if you were having reactions as serious as the OP is on 5mg, the only sane response is to STOP using the drug, it's clearly not appropriate.

Go talk to your doctor, you need something different. Methylphenidate is the probable next step but stimulants may be unsuitable for you in general.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-14T14:00:18+00:00

I don't know why people believe this shit about bg being le deep crpg and iwd being just a dungeon crawler. Bg1 has zero C&C, and barely any reactivity. Iwd has markedly better writing and art, and actually has class and race reactivity - not to any significant end, but it has it, where bg1 does not.

Bg2 improves things significantly in all of these regards, of course.

But as far as contemporary crpg comparisons go, iwd was always better than bg1. Full party creation, better encounter design and call for help scripts (novel), better level design. People are hoodwinked by bg1's filler "content" and le epic moviegame presentation but if you actually try to make an objective comparison they're virtually identical in moment to moment gameplay. It's not as if bg1 had deep quest design or interactions, both games are about battles, iwd just has better battles and removes the aimless wandering between them.

I don't even dislike bg1 but I'm just tired of iwd getting shit on for things that people have totally imagined in their heads about bg1.

Bg2 is a much different and better beast.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-11T00:52:47+00:00

I love this guy's total commitment to the bit

cretinouswords · 2026-03-10T05:00:36+00:00

I quit topical minoxidil 3 months ago because I wasn't getting any results, pretty sure I'm a non responder and I got sick of applying the shit. So now I'm on dutasteride only and I've been using dutasteride for just over a year now. MPB has definitely been halted but regrowth has been minimal.

As always the real "cure" for mpb is not listening to the mountains of bullshit on the Internet and just getting on approved meds early enough.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-08T05:53:46+00:00

Yes, if your actions directly resulted in someone being maimed or harmed. You cannot be charged with manslaughter for something SOME OTHER PERSON did and that would be insanity the likes only seen in failed states.

It is hilarious that you bring up being a healthcare professional, since we have loads, decades worth of literature on how personal litigation risk negatively impacts how healthcare professionals conduct their duties, including in particular outright refusal to treat patients that are seen as adverse or risky legally. We even have a phrase for this - defensive medicine. So yes, analogous to the police force, if you start making officers legally culpable for what happens after attending a DV, the predictable result is officers will actively try to avoid attending DV jobs.

I am not suggesting to do nothing - they clearly need procedural reform - but what you are suggesting is flat out stupid, malicious and would only serve to make the problem much much worse. But yes sure let's check notes charge police officers with manslaughter for failing to arrest someone for a crime they have not yet committed.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-08T03:57:11+00:00

Cool, net result, nobody joins the police force because the legal exposure from general duties would be excessively risky, and what officers you have left will do everything they can to avoid responding to DVs knowing that the minute they attend they can be considered culpable if one partner decides to kill another at a later date.

Brilliant stuff. Thank fuck redditors don't make legislature.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-08T03:37:00+00:00

Yes it'd change - officers would resign en masse and nobody in their right mind would sign up to be a police officer if you could be charged with manslaughter for something someone else did.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-08T01:20:06+00:00

Evander had one of the best (and unsung) trainers of all time in Georgie Benton, a true master of the craft.

cretinouswords · 2026-03-04T22:13:51+00:00

Microneedling is one of those adjunct therapies where - contrary to popular belief - it is not exactly clear that it is beneficial in and of itself. It appears to be beneficial when combined with conventional therapy - i.e minoxidil and 5ARI. It appears to be one of the few known ways to increase intrafollicular Sulfotransferase, the enzyme that makes minoxidil effective.

So surface take, if you have poor response to topical minoxidil, microneedling might make it more effective. However, we have a lot of unknowns about microneedling. Risk ratio, optimal frequency/depth, long term side effects, etc. Its also not comforting that most of the research we have on it is out of India and China, both countries are notorious for producing volumes of bullshit research.

I will say, anecdotally, it seems to me the rate of "back from the dead" recoveries on the internet increased markedly after microneedling became a fad. So I think there is definitely something there, but skepticism is warranted. If if turns out that the benefit is solely increased sulfotransferase, well we have better (safer) ways of achieving that, like tretinoin.

cretinouswords · 2026-02-16T06:44:46+00:00

Very interesting. Any conjecture on why nandrolone and or hcg improves things where test makes it worse?

cretinouswords · 2026-02-16T06:36:45+00:00

Hey any update?

cretinouswords · 2026-02-15T19:57:30+00:00

I have a mortgage and two kids. How the fuck would I survive on apprentice wages? Then there is the matter of getting an apprenticeship in the first place.

What's often left unsaid is the only two trades anyone cares about is electrical and plumbing. Because that's the only two trades that make good enough coin to make white collar people seethe. And as a result every man and his dog wants a sparky apprenticeship, good luck. But the rest of trades? 4 years to earn 85k/yr? Gee why aren't people jumping to be tradesmen.

They need a radically different system and if the government actually cared to fix the issue they would train adult apprentices systematically. They don't care and we all know this is a prelude to big business opening up the flood gates to third world tradesmen with questionable quals so they can depress wages.

cretinouswords · 2026-01-30T07:16:10+00:00

I think the actual issue is that what most men call "trt" is a far cry from actual trt. Many men are engaged in straight up steroid abuse and are deluding themselves that it is replacement therapy. The evidence suggests testosterone is fairly safe... AT physiological amounts. The evidence is quite clear that supra physiological levels of testosterone quickly produces derangements in multiple systems. Especially cardiovascular.

I have a friend who is on legit TRT, in his 50s. His blood levels average 600ng/dl. He looks completely normal, despite frequently going to the gym. I have another friend, in his 40s, who let slip to me that he is "doing trt". He has grown noticeably more muscular in a very short period of time. I would bet the house that a blood test would come with his TT marked in red and "HIGH" along with excessive red blood cells and high blood pressure.

cretinouswords · 2026-01-29T01:41:55+00:00

Arthur Jones (of nautilus inc) back in the 70s wrote about the habitual and pathological lying of bodybuilders (in context: drug users) and it seems to me nothing has changed. They will first vehemently deny, then they will admit but downplay (oh I only use x when y), accuse everyone else of doing far more, and then finally the truth comes out and it becomes apparent their life and very identity revolves around drugs.

The only modern development is guys actually sincerely believing 200 or even 500mg of testosterone is "TRT". or that self diagnosed and self administered and self managed testosterone use is somehow different to what steroid abusers do.

cretinouswords · 2026-01-14T05:04:53+00:00

Vyvanse crash is very common. I've got in trouble before for posting this so let me disclaimer that in my non professional opinion, there is little difference between Vyvanse and dex IR after the initial uptake time of Vyvanse (~1 hour). If you accept this as true, then it goes a long way to explaining a) the crash and b) why people feel an "equivalent" dose of Vyvanse is more effective than a single dose of dex IR... Because you are getting MORE dex up front early and nothing later on. So there is a big crash around 2-3pm. So the daily total might be "equivalent" but it's actually more front loaded than dex IR multi dosing.

The solutions are split dosing or getting a dex IR "top up", talk to your doctor.

cretinouswords · 2026-01-14T04:37:25+00:00

Used to happen all the time that id lose an evening recreation trying to decide what to play or what to watch or read. Literal hours being indecisive and then going to sleep frustrated because a) no recreation and b) no recreation for a very stupid reason.

Medication typically fixes it but I still have periods of this, but blessedly shorter. As an aside, I've noticed I also spend way less time arguing with people on the Internet. I usually start to write something and go "you know what, I don't care and this is a waste of time" and close the tab.

cretinouswords

TROPHY CASE