Low Dose Minoxidil Pill Prescribed For Early Hair Loss

Dr. Nicole Rogers was visited by Meg Farris of WWL-TV News of New Orleans to follow up on a NY Times article titled “An Old Medicine Grows New Hair for Pennies a Day,”.

Dr. Rogers invited her patient Braden Brignac, 22, who 6 months earlier had begun taking low dose minoxidil, a high blood pressure pill, in addition to oral finasteride which he had already been on for 1 year.

You have heard of topical Minoxidil under the brand Rogaine, but the pill form has been around since 1979 for high blood pressure. And hair regrowth is a side effect.

“I have colleagues in places like Bangkok and around the world. They’ve been using oral minoxidil for decades,” Dr. Nicole Rogers, owner of Hair Restoration of the South, in Metairie. “They never stopped using it, but here in the United States, in North America, we’ve just sort of come back to the idea as using it as an oral medicine.”

It’s prescribed off label, meaning the FDA has only approved it as a blood pressure medication. So, people with heart conditions need their cardiologists approval to take it. It’s very low dose, and brings more blood and nutrients to the hair follicle. It’s for men and women. There are no hormonal effects, and side effects with the pill form are rare.

“I always describe Minoxidil as a fountain of youth for your follicles,” Dr. Rogers said. “It’s getting better absorbed, and I also think patients are more consistent with it when they have the option of taking it in a pill form, rather than trying to slather it all over their heads.”